Cixin Liu - The Three-Body Problem

The ground they had just left now cracked open like a spiderweb. The cracks grew fast, and, accompanied by thunderous crashes and sky-obscuring dust, the pyramid below them broke into its constituent blocks. Through the slowly drifting gigantic blocks, Wang saw the Great Hall below come apart. The large cauldron that had once cooked Fu Xi and the iron stake to which he had once been bound were both adrift.

The sun rose to the middle of the sky. Everything that floated—men, colossal blocks of stone, astronomical instruments, bronze cauldrons—began to rise slowly, then accelerated. Wang glanced at the human-formation computer and saw a nightmarish sight: The thirty million men who had formed the motherboard were floating away from the earth and rising, like a swarm of ants sucked up by a vacuum cleaner. The ground they left behind clearly displayed the marks of the motherboard circuits. The set of intricate, complex markings that could only be taken in from a great height would become an archaeological site that would confuse the next Three Body civilization, in the distant future.

Wang looked up. The sky was obscured by a strangely mottled layer of clouds. The clouds were made of dust, stones, humans, and other odds and ends. The sun sparkled behind them. In the far distance, Wang saw a long range of transparent mountains also rising up. The mountains were crystal clear, and changed shapes as they sparkled—they were formed from the ocean, which was also being attracted into space.

Everything on the surface of the Three Body world rose toward the sun.

Wang looked around and saw Von Neumann and Qin Shi Huang. As he drifted, Von Neumann shouted at Qin Shi Huang, but there was no sound. A small set of subtitles appeared: I figured it out! Electronic elements! We can use electronic elements to make gate circuits and combine them into computers! Such computers will be many times faster and take up much less space. I estimate that a small building will be sufficient…. Your Imperial Majesty, are you listening?

Qin Shi Huang swung his long sword at Von Neumann. The latter kicked at a giant block of stone drifting nearby and dodged out of the way. The long sword struck the stone, causing sparks to fly, and broke itself into two pieces. Right after, the giant block of stone collided with another, with Qin Shi Huang in the middle. Stone chips and flesh and blood scattered everywhere, an appalling sight.

But Wang did not hear the noise made by colliding stones. Around him it was completely silent. Because the atmosphere was gone, there was no more sound. As the bodies drifted, their blood boiled in the vacuum and their inner organs were vomited out, until they turned into strange blobs surrounded by crystalline clouds made from the liquid they exuded. Also, due to the lack of an atmosphere, the sky turned pitch black. Everything that had floated into space from the Three Body world reflected the sunlight and formed a brilliant, starry cloud in space. The cloud then turned into a giant vortex, spiraling toward its final resting place: the sun.

Wang now saw the sun changing shape. He understood that he was actually seeing the other two suns, both peeking out from behind the first sun. From this perspective, the three stacked suns formed a bright eye in the universe.

Against the background of the three suns in syzygy, text appeared:

Civilization Number 184 was destroyed by the stacked gravitational attractions of a tri-solar syzygy. This civilization had advanced to the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.

In this civilization, Newton established nonrelativistic classical mechanics. At the same time, due to the invention of calculus and the Von Neumann architecture computer, the foundation was set for the quantitative mathematical analysis of the motion of three bodies.

After a long time, life and civilization will begin once more, and progress through the unpredictable world of Three Body.

We invite you to log on again.

Just as Wang logged out of the game, a stranger called. The voice on the phone was that of a very charismatic man. “Hello! First, we thank you for giving us your real number. I’m a system administrator for the Three Body game.”

Wang was both excited and anxious.

“Please tell us your age, education, employer, and position. You didn’t fill those out when you registered.”

“What do they have to do with the game?”

“When you’ve reached this level, you must provide these pieces of information. If you refuse, Three Body will be permanently closed to you.”

Wang answered the administrator’s questions truthfully.

“Very good, Professor Wang. You satisfy the conditions for continuing in Three Body .”

“Thank you. Can I ask you a few questions?”

“You may not. But tomorrow night there will be a meet-up for Three Body players. We welcome you to attend.” The administrator gave Wang an address.

The location for the Three Body players’ meet-up was a small, out-of-the-way coffee shop. Wang had always imagined game meet-ups would be lively events full of people, but this meet-up consisted of only seven players, including himself. Like Wang, the other six did not look like gaming enthusiasts. Only two were relatively young. Another three, including a woman, were middle-aged. There was also an old man who appeared to be in his sixties or seventies.

Wang had originally thought that as soon as they met they’d begin a lively discussion of Three Body , but he was wrong. The profound but strange content of Three Body had had a psychological impact on the participants. All the players, including Wang himself, couldn’t bring it up easily. They only made simple self-introductions. The old man took out a refined pipe, filled it with tobacco, and smoked as he strolled around, admiring the paintings on the walls. The others sat silently, waiting for the meet-up organizer to show up. They had all come early.

Actually, of the six, Wang already knew two. The old man was a famous scholar who had made his name by imbuing Eastern philosophy with the content of modern science. The strangely dressed woman was a famous writer, one of those rare novelists who wrote in an avant-garde style but still had many readers. You could start one of her books on any page.

Of the two middle-aged men, one was a vice president at China’s largest software company, plainly and casually dressed so that his status wasn’t obvious at all; and the other was a high-level executive at the State Power Corporation. Of the two young men, one was a reporter with a major media outlet, and the other was a doctoral student in the sciences. Wang now realized that a considerable number of Three Body players were probably social elites like them.

The meet-up organizer showed up not long after. Wang’s heart began to beat faster as soon as he saw the man: it was Pan Han, prime suspect for the murder of Shen Yufei. He took out his phone when no one was looking and texted Shi Qiang.

“Haha, everyone got here early!” Pan greeted them in a relaxed manner, as though nothing was wrong. Appearing in the media, he usually looked disheveled, like a vagrant, but today, he was dressed sharply in a suit and dress shoes. “You’re just like I imagined. Three Body is intended for people in your class because the common crowd cannot appreciate its meaning and mood. To play it well requires knowledge and understanding that ordinary people do not possess.”

Wang sent out his text: Spotted Pan Han. At Yunhe Coffee Shop in Xicheng District.

Pan continued. “Everyone here is an excellent Three Body player. You have the best scores and are devoted to it. I believe that Three Body is already an important part of your lives.”