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The fifth time Wang Miao logged on to Three Body, it was dawn as usual, but the world was unrecognizable. The great pyramid that had appeared the first four times had been destroyed by the tri-solar syzygy. In its place was a tall, modern building, whose dark gray shape was familiar to Wang: the United Nations Headquarters. In the distance were many more tall buildings, apparently dehydratories. All had completely reflective mirror surfaces. In the dawn light they appeared as giant crystal plants growing out of the ground. Wang heard a violin playing something by Mozart. The playing wasn’t very practiced, but there was a special charm to it, as though saying: I play for myself. The violinist was a homeless old man sitting on the steps in front of the UN Headquarters, his fluffy silver hair fluttering in the wind. Next to his feet was an old top hat containing some scattered change. Wang suddenly noticed the sun. But it rose in the opposite direction from the dawn light, and the patch of the sky around it was still completely dark. The sun was very large, its half-risen disk taking up a third of the horizon. Wang’s heart beat faster: Such a large sun could only mean another great catastrophe. But when Wang turned around, the old man continued to play as though nothing odd was happening. His silver hair shone brilliantly in the sun, as though it was on fire.
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu and Ken Liu
Buddha agreed with modern biology and New Age movements that happiness is independent of external conditions. Yet his more important and far more profound insight was that true happiness is also independent of our inner feelings. Indeed, the more significance we give our feelings, the more we crave them, and the more we suffer.
Sapiens
Yuval Noah Harari
“What did you bring us here for?” Wang asked. “To look at bugs.” Da Shi lit one of the cigars Colonel Stanton had given him and pointed at the wheat fields with it. Wang and Ding now noticed that the fields were covered by a layer of locusts. Every wheat stalk had a few crawling over it. On the ground, more locusts wriggled, like some thick liquid. “They’re plagued by locusts here?” Wang brushed away some locusts from a small area near the edge of the field and sat down. “Like the dust storms, they started ten years ago. But this year is the worst.” “So what? Nothing matters now, Da Shi.” Ding spoke, his voice still drunk. “I just want to ask the two of you one question: Is the technological gap between humans and Trisolarans greater than the one between locusts and humans?” The question hit the two scientists like a bucket of cold water. As they stared at the clumps of locusts before them, their expressions grew solemn. They got Shi Qiang’s point. * * * Look at them, the bugs. Humans have used everything in their power to extinguish them: every kind of poison, aerial sprays, introducing and cultivating their natural predators, searching for and destroying their eggs, using genetic modification to sterilize them, burning with fire, drowning with water. Every family has bug spray, every desk has a flyswatter under it … this long war has been going on for the entire history of human civilization. But the outcome is still in doubt. The bugs have not been eliminated. They still proudly live between the heavens and the earth, and their numbers have not diminished from the time before the appearance of the humans. The Trisolarans who deemed the humans bugs seemed to have forgotten one fact: The bugs have never been truly defeated. A small black cloud covered the sun and cast a moving shadow against the ground. This was not a common cloud, but a swarm of locusts that had just arrived. As the swarm landed in the fields nearby, the three men stood in the middle of a living shower, feeling the dignity of life on Earth. Ding Yi and Wang Miao poured the two bottles of wine they had with them on the ground beneath their feet, a toast for the bugs. “Da Shi, thank you.” Wang held out his hand. “I thank you as well.” Ding gripped Da Shi’s other hand. “Let’s get back,” Wang said. “There’s so much to do.”
The Three-Body Problem
Cixin Liu and Ken Liu
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