Chapter 17 Chapter Sixteen

Before the pyramid entrance was built, the Louvre was a big labyrinth, and it may take a long detour to get to a certain hall, but now you can go directly to various locations from the pyramid hall.After Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan returned to the population hall, they entered the Oriental Art Museum according to the sign. Compared with the European classical painting exhibition area, this place is a completely different world. Luo Ji pointed to the sculptures, paintings, and ancient scrolls from Asia and Africa and said, "This is what an advanced civilization obtained from a backward civilization. Some were snatched, some were stolen or cheated, but look , and now they are all well preserved. Even during World War II, these things were moved to a safe place.” They stopped in front of the Dunhuang murals hanging in a sealed glass cabinet, “Think about when Taoist priests put these things After giving it to the French, how many turbulences and wars have there been in our land, if the murals stay where they are, are you sure they can be preserved so well?"

"But will the Trisolarans preserve the cultural heritage of mankind? They don't value our civilization at all." Zhuang Yan said. "Just because they say we are bugs? That's not the case, Yanyan, do you know what is the highest form of valuing a race or civilization?" "what?" "To kill everything is the highest value for a civilization." Next, the two walked through the twenty-four exhibition halls of the Oriental Art Museum in silence, walking in the distant past and imagining the gloomy future.Before they knew it, they came to the Egyptian Art Museum.

"You know who I'm thinking of here?" Luo Ji stood beside the golden mask of the pharaoh mummy in the glass case, trying to find a lighter topic, "Sophie, Marceau." "You mean the "Phantom of the Louvre", right? Marceau is really beautiful, and she looks very oriental." Not knowing if it was an illusion, Luo Ji sensed a trace of jealousy and grievance in her words. "Yanyan, she is not as beautiful as you, really." Luo Ji also wanted to say that her beauty may be found in these works of art, but your beauty makes all these things pale, but I still don't want to make myself too sour. .He saw a shy smile passing over the girl's face like a cloud, and this was the first time he saw it.

"Let's go back and continue looking at oil paintings." Zhuang Yan whispered. They returned to the pyramid hall again, but forgot the first population.Luo Ji saw that the most eye-catching sign here was Louvre's "three treasures of the palace: Mona Lisa, Venus, and the Goddess of Victory. "Let's go see the Mona Lisa," Luo Ji suggested. On the way they were walking in that direction, Zhuang Yan said: "Our teacher said that after he visited the Louvre, he became a little disgusted with Mona Lisa and Venus." "why?" "Those tourists come for these two things, and are not interested in the lesser-known but equally great art here."

"I am one of these laity." When he came to that mysterious smile, Luo Ji felt that the painting was much smaller than he had imagined, and that it was behind thick bulletproof glass. Zhuang Yan didn't show any particular excitement about it either. "When I saw her, I thought of you." Zhuang Yan pointed at the person in the painting and said. "us?" "Wallfacer." "What does she have to do with the Wallfacer?" "Well, here's what I think - just think, don't laugh at me - can we find a way of communication that only humans can understand each other, sophons will never understand, so that human beings can get rid of the surveillance of sophons. "

Luo Ji looked at Zhuang Yan and thought for a few seconds, then stared at Rongna Lisa: "I understand what you mean. Her smile is something Tomoko and Trisolaran will never understand. " "Yes, human expressions, especially human eyes, are the most subtle and complex. A gaze, a smile, can convey a lot of information! Only humans can understand this information, and only humans have this sensitivity." "Yes, one of the biggest problems of artificial intelligence is to recognize human expressions and eyes. Some experts even say that computers may never be able to recognize eyes."

"Can we create an expression language, using expressions and eyes to speak?" Luo Ji thought about it seriously, shook his head with a smile, pointed at Mona Lisa and said, "We can't understand her expression... When I stare at her, the meaning of that smile changes every second." once, and never again." Zhuang Yan was so happy that she jumped like a child: "Doesn't this mean that expressions can convey very complicated information?" "Then this information: The spaceship departs from the earth and the destination is Jupiter. How to express it with expressions?"

"When primitive people started to speak, they must have been able to express very simple meanings. Maybe it was not as complicated as birdsong. Language gradually became more complicated later on!" "Then... let's try to express a simple meaning with expressions first?" "Yeah!" Zhuang Yan nodded excitedly, "Then, let's each think of a message first, and then express it to each other?" Luo Ji paused and said, "I've made up my mind." Zhuang Yan thought for a longer time, then nodded, "Then let's start." They stared at each other for less than half a minute before laughing almost simultaneously.

"My message is: I would like to invite you to the Champs Elysées for supper tonight," Luo Ji said. Zhuang Yan also laughed so hard that she couldn't straighten up: "My message: You...you should shave!" "We must be serious about matters that concern the fate of mankind," Luo Ji said, holding back a laugh. "No one is allowed to laugh first this time!" Zhuang Yan said, solemnly like a swallow redefining the rules of the game. They stood back to back, each thinking of another message, and then turned to stare at each other again.Luo Ji had the urge to laugh again at the beginning, and he tried hard to suppress it, but soon, this suppression became easier, because Zhuang Yan's clear gaze once again touched his heartstrings.

The Wallfacer and the girl just stared at each other, in the Louvre late at night, in front of the Mona Lisa's smile. A trickle of water seeped out of the dam of Luo Ji's mind, and as the rivulet washed away the dam, tiny cracks gradually widened, and the trickle also became turbulent. Luo Ji felt frightened, and he tried hard to close the crack on the dam, but failed. No, a crash is inevitable. At this moment, Luo Ji felt that he was standing on the top of the cliff, and the girl's eyes were the vast abyss below the cliff. The abyss was covered with a sea of ​​white clouds, but the sun was shining from all directions, and the sea of ​​clouds turned into brilliant colors. Surging without bounds.Luo Ji felt himself sliding down, very slowly, but he couldn't stop it with his own strength.He frantically moved his limbs, trying to find a place to grab and step on, but there was only smooth ice beneath him.

The descent was accelerating, and finally, in a frantic dizziness, he began to fall into the abyss, and the happiness of falling reached the limit of pain in an instant. The Mona Lisa is deforming, and the walls are deforming, like melting ice.The Louvre collapsed, and the bricks and stones turned into bright red magma on the way of falling. This magma passed through their bodies, and it was as cool as a clear spring.They also fell with the Louvre, passing through the molten European continent, and falling towards the center of the earth. When passing through the center of the earth, the earth exploded around and turned into gorgeous fireworks in the universe; It is as transparent as crystal, and the stars are woven into a giant silver felt with crystal light. The stars vibrate and play gorgeous music; In the light of creation of love. "We need to look at Trisolaris immediately!" General Fitzroy told Dr. Ringer in the control room of the Hubble II Space Telescope, which had been last assembled a week earlier. "General, maybe not." "I suspect that the current observations are your astronomers' private work." "If I could do private work, I would have done it long ago. Hubble II is still in testing." "You're working for the military and just following orders." "There are no soldiers here except you, we only follow NASA's test plan." "Doctor, can't you just use that target for testing?" The general softened his tone. "The test targets are carefully selected, and there are various distances and brightness types. The test plan is formulated in the most economical way, so that all the tests can be completed with only one rotation of the telescope's pointing. Now to observe the Trisolaran world, just Needed to turn the pointing nearly 30 degrees and back. Turning that big guy costs propellant, General, and we're saving the military money." "Then let's see how you save it. I just discovered it from your computer." Fitzroy said, bringing his hands behind his back to the front, holding a printed sheet in his hand. The paper of the image, the image is a photo, it was taken from above, a group of people are looking up excitedly, it is easy to recognize that they are the group of people in the control room now, Ringer is standing in the middle, and There are three foreign ladies who are flirting with each other. They may be the girlfriends of three of them.In the photo, people are standing on the roof of the control room. The image is very clear, as if it was taken at a height of more than ten meters. Unlike ordinary photos, this photo has a lot of complicated parameter labels superimposed. "Doctor, you are standing on the highest point of the roof. There won't be a crane arm for filming movies, right? If it costs money to turn Hubble 2 30 degrees, how much will it cost you to turn 360 degrees?" What’s more, the investment of more than 10 billion yuan doesn’t seem to be used to take pictures of you and your girlfriend from space, do you want me to add this money to your bills?” "General, of course your order must be carried out." Linge said quickly, and the engineers immediately got busy. The coordinate data in the target database was quickly recalled. In space, the cylinder with a diameter of more than 20 meters and a length of hundreds of meters began to slowly rotate, and on the large screen in the control room, the image of the starry sky began to shift. "Is this what the telescope sees?" asked the general. "No, this is just an image sent back by the positioning system. The telescope sends back a still photo that needs to be processed before we can see it." Five minutes later, the translation of the starry sky stopped, and the control system reported that the positioning had been completed.After another five minutes, Ringer said: "Okay, let's go back to the original testing position.". Fitzroy asked in surprise, "What, it's already finished?" "Yes, the observation images are being transmitted and processed now." "Can't you take a few more pictures?" "General, 210 shots have been taken at different focal lengths." At this time, the processing of the first observation image was completed, and Ringer pointed to the monitor and said, "General, look, this is the enemy's world you are eager to see. " Fitzroy only saw three halos of light on a pitch-black background, very vague, like street lamps in a foggy night. These were the three stars that determined the fate of two civilizations. "It seems that we really can't see the planets anymore." Fitzroy couldn't hide his disappointment. "Of course I can't see it. Even if Hubble III with a diameter of 100 meters is built in the future, it can only be observed when the three-body planet moves to a few specific positions, and what can be resolved is only a point without any details." "But there is something else, doctor, what do you think it is?" an engineer said, pointing to the vicinity of the three halos on the image. Fitzroy leaned over to look, but saw nothing, the mass was too dark, only a professional could perceive it. "Its diameter is larger than that of a star," said the engineer. "The diameter is not exact, it seems to be irregular in shape," Ringer said. That area is continuously enlarged until the thing fills the entire screen. "Brush!" exclaimed the general. Laymen are often more suitable for naming professional objects. In fact, experts always carry out this kind of naming from the perspective of laymen. The name "brush" has been fixed in this way. The general's description is very accurate. It is a brush in the universe. A brush, more precisely, has only bristles and no handle.Of course, it can also be seen as a row of standing hair. "It's a scratch on the veneer! During the feasibility study stage, I suggested that there must be a problem with the way the lens is pasted and assembled." Ringer shook his head and said. "All veneers have been strictly inspected. There is no possibility of such scratches, nor can it be caused by other defects of the lens. Among the tens of thousands of test images that have been sent back, this has never appeared." The lens manufacturer Zeiss experts said. The control room fell into silence, and people gathered to stare at the image. Due to the crowd, some people went to another terminal to call up the image for a closer look.Fitzroy clearly sensed the change in the atmosphere. The people who were sluggish due to the fatigue of the long test tensed up at the same time, and froze there as if under a spell. Only their eyes became brighter and brighter. "Oh my god—" Several people sighed almost simultaneously. The people who were frozen there suddenly became active with excitement, and the conversation below them was a bit too professional for Fitzroy. "It's the location of the dust belt around the target, check it..." "No, I did that project, observed its absorption of the background of the spiral arm motion, and found that there is an absorption peak of 200 millimeters, which may be carbon particles, and the density is at the F level." "What do you think of the high-speed impact effect that appears?" "It is certain that the wake spreads along the impact axis, but the scope of the spread...is there a mathematical model?" "Yes, wait a minute... that's it, impact speed?" "A hundred third speeds." "Has it reached that high now?" "This is already a little conservative... the impact cross section is based on... yes, this is about the same, just a rough estimate." When the scholars were busy, Linge said to Fitzroy who was standing aside: "General, can you do something within your power and count how many hairs are on the brush?" Fitzroy nodded, leaned over to a terminal screen and scattered. Each calculation takes four to five minutes, during which several mistakes were made, and the result came out half an hour later. "The diameter of the final spread of the wake is about 240,000 kilometers, which is the diameter of two Jupiters." The astronomer who manipulated the mathematical model said. "That's right." Ringer folded his arms and looked up at the ceiling, as if he was looking at the starry sky through it. "Everything is confirmed!" He said this with a trembling voice, and then, as if muttering to himself He muttered, "It's fine if it's confirmed, what's wrong with that?" The control room fell silent again, this time with a heavy strain.Fitzroy wanted to ask, but seeing the solemn expressions of the people, he couldn't open his mouth.After a while he heard a soft whimper and saw a young man covering his face and weeping. "Come on, Harris, you're not the only skeptic here, everyone feels bad," someone said. The young man named Harris raised his tears and said: "I know that doubt is just a comfort, but I want to spend my life in this comfort...God, we don't even have this luck." Then there was silence again. Linger finally noticed Fitzroy: "General, let me explain roughly: There is a piece of interstellar dust around the three stars. Before that, a group of high-speed moving objects passed through this piece of dust, and their high-speed impact hit the dust. A wake is left in the sky, and the wake continues to spread, and now its cross-sectional diameter has spread to the size of two Jupiters. There is only a slight difference between the wake and the surrounding dust, so it is invisible at close range, only four light years away from us. It can only be observed from a distant position." "I counted them, about a thousand." General Fitzroy said. "Of course, it must be this number, General, we have seen the Trisolaran Fleet." The discovery of the Hubble II Space Telescope finally confirmed the reality of the three-body invasion, and also extinguished the last fantasy of mankind. After a new round of desperation, panic and confusion, human beings have really entered the life of facing the three-body crisis. Difficult times have begun, and the wheels of history have experienced turning bumps and began to advance along new tracks. In a world of great changes, the only thing that remains constant is the speed of time passing. In a trance, five years have passed.