Those who face the wall, but are in the Nascent Soul stage.

Chapter 5: The Free Eggs Are Gone
The controversy surrounding Luo Qing's televised performance review at the PDC conference has yet to subside.

News quickly spread that the US Air Force One was attacked, Professor Luo Qing and the US president were nearly beheaded by the ETO organization, and that six escorting F-22 fighter jets were shot down by an old anti-aircraft gun from World War II.

An internet tsunami is forming, engulfing the streets and alleys of the online world.

The U.S. National Security Agency, the United Nations, and the Planetary Defense Council (PDC) jointly confirmed the authenticity of the attack.

UN Secretary-General and PDC Chairperson Say said: "This attack was launched by the remaining human traitor organization ETO, with the help of Sophon, as a terrorist attack intended to decapitate the US leader and Wallfacer Luo Qing."

It is worth mentioning that the United Nations, the PDC, and the Trisolaran ETO organization all remained completely silent about the astonishingly powerful worldly force that Luo Qing, the Wallfacer, displayed over the Pacific Ocean.

Even the ETO organization could not accept the fact that the Wallfacer Luo Qing had almost destroyed the low-dimensional sophon with a single sword strike, and even the Lord remained completely silent about it.

Luo Qing also believed that revealing his true power at this moment would do more harm than good. Human society is currently in a period of transformation and needs the high pressure brought by the Trisolaran civilization. He did not want to be worshipped as a god by the people.

And so, through a series of unspoken coincidences and tacit understandings from all sides, everything in the world remained the same.

...

"We must resolutely and thoroughly eliminate ETO molecules physically."

A U.S. Department of Defense spokesman, standing in front of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile silo, said this to the camera.

"Why does it feel like war is about to break out?"

Zhang Yuanchao squatted in front of the television, watching the TV program that was being broadcast on CCTV-18 (the Three-Body Problem special channel), and muttered to himself.

"Hey, Lao Zhang, it's rare to see you turn on the TV." The voice of neighbor Yang Jinwen came from the hallway. This retired high school physics teacher was carrying a bag of groceries to be made that afternoon, and seemed to be just passing by.

"Old Yang, come in and have a seat. I have some questions for you. Aren't you an intellectual?"

It was quite unusual for Zhang Yuanchao, a retired chemical plant worker, to say these words. Yang Jinwen's wrinkles showed a look of surprise. He had originally thought that Zhang's willingness to watch TV and learn about the outside world was a remarkable change, but now it was different. Zhang was willing to ask questions.

What does this show? It shows that simply getting information from television can no longer satisfy Zhang Yuanchao's inner needs.

Yang Jinwen came in carrying a bag of eggplants, potatoes, tomatoes, or whatever else. He scoffed at others calling him an intellectual, but he particularly liked it when Lao Zhang called him that.

As soon as Yang Jinwen came in, he said, "Old Zhang, I've told you many times that you need to be good at embracing new things. Look, your son and daughter-in-law aren't here. If you encounter a problem, you don't know who to call. If you ask me, I might not know either. But if you learn to use a computer, it will be a completely different story. You'll see a whole different world. Then, if you have any questions, just post them online, and someone will give you the answer in no time."

Zhang Yuanchao's gaze was fixed on the US Department of Defense spokesperson on the program. This blonde woman, who looked not much older than his daughter-in-law, was speaking with great conviction about launching a new round of retaliation and attacks against the ETO organization, and announcing the expansion of the nuclear arsenal. In fact, he didn't understand most of the terms, but he grasped one key point.

—Following Operation Guzheng, the first encounter between humanity and the Trisolaran organization did not seem to yield any advantage; even the US president was almost shot down from the sky.

Zhang Yuanchao interrupted Yang Jinwen as he continued his incessant narration, engrossed in computers and the internet.

"Old Yang, I've already done my best to learn how to press the power button on the TV. There are so many buttons on the remote, I've only learned how to change channels and adjust the volume. You want me to learn how to use a computer? I've seen my son's computer, it has almost a hundred buttons, and I don't recognize a single American word on it. I can't learn it."

“What’s so hard about learning these letters? They’re just 26 letters. I use far more letters than 26 when I teach kids.”

"I can't learn it."

"Then have your son teach you, your daughter-in-law teach you, or if all else fails, I can teach you myself."

"I can't learn it."

“There’s a government-run science literacy class downstairs. If you attend two classes, you can get four eggs a day. If you attend for a month, you can get an extra thirty eggs.”

"I can't learn it."

Zhang Yuanchao's weakness isn't an egg; he only has one weakness: the little fleshy egg in his daughter-in-law's belly, whose gender is unknown—whether it's a grandson or a granddaughter.

Yang Jinwen was at his wit's end. Old Zhang had this problem: he would turn into a coward at the slightest difficulty. Luckily, he retired from the chemical plant early. He heard that the factory was accelerating automation. If Zhang Yuanchao had encountered the wave of automation, he would have gone crazy.

“Fine, if you don’t want to learn, then I’ll be your human answering machine. Go ahead and ask.” Yang Jinwen put the dishes on the table and sat down on the sofa opposite Zhang Yuanchao.

Zhang Yuanchao pointed at the TV and asked, "Did you see this news?"

Yang Jinwen glanced at the old television next to him. The screen had switched from the US spokesperson's perspective back to the domestic one. A familiar old military expert was sitting opposite the host, answering questions about an old anti-aircraft gun shooting down an F-22 fighter jet under the host's guidance.

Yang Jinwen said, "I watched it a long time ago. There are first-person perspective videos of the plane online. This matter has become a huge hot topic, and everyone is discussing it. That cannon is from the same era as the Japanese devils back then. Using weapons from World War II to shoot down modern planes is quite frightening." Yang Jinwen, who was a physics teacher, knew what this meant. He knew how much lead time it would take for an old cannon to hit a supersonic plane every time. Even missiles might not be that accurate.

Zhang Yuanchao didn't really understand at first, but when he heard that it was a weapon used in the fight against the Japanese, he immediately understood half of it.

A retired military expert who frequently appears on television programs also explained to the audience: "What does it mean for an old-fashioned 88mm anti-aircraft gun to hit an F-22? Let me give you an analogy. It's like poking a bamboo pole dozens of meters high. That's not unusual. What's unusual is that the bamboo pole accurately kills a supersonic mosquito that you can't see. If the first hit is a coincidence, but you then hit five other stealthy supersonic mosquitoes in succession, and even hit a dogfight missile launched by a stealthy supersonic mosquito, then this can't be explained by coincidence. It can only be described as eerie."

The host pressed further, "Professor Zhang, the F-22 fighter jets are clearly very large, so why did you compare them to invisible mosquitoes?"

"Stealth coating, you know. They're completely invisible on radar. They're no different from mosquitoes on radar. I heard that fishing boat didn't even have a radar device. And yet, someone aimed at them with the naked eye, fired six shots, and shot down six supersonic stealth fighters. Isn't that like poking mosquitoes with a bamboo pole, and hitting them accurately at that?"

The host then asked, "Can we replicate this miracle? We can also use anti-aircraft guns, calculate the lead time, and ambush passing stealth fighters in advance."

"That's impossible. How can you calculate lead time if you can't even see it? Hey, back when there was no Trisolaran thing, we were thinking of exchanging eight Cai Guoqings for one F-22. Now look what's happened, the F-22 has been brought down with a bamboo pole from seventy years ago. I really don't know if we were a joke back then, or if the advanced American planes are a joke."

The host said, "The fact that such an incredible feat could be guided shows that the enemy has indeed received help from the sophons. According to the theories given by our weapons research institute, the sophons can easily predict the flight trajectories of our human fighter jets in real time. With the help of the sophons, pre-calibrated old-fashioned anti-aircraft guns are indeed capable of shooting down advanced fifth-generation stealth fighters. Professor Zhang, how do you think we, living in this crisis era, should deal with the threat of the sophons?"

"It doesn't threaten ordinary people, so it's not something we ordinary people should worry about. It's just that politicians and Wallfacers from various countries should be more careful when they travel far away. The US president is cautious enough, with eight fighter jets and two early warning aircraft clearing the way. And what happened? To put it bluntly, the US president can be replaced when he's gone, but our two Wallfacers can't afford to get into trouble."

The host said, "But are we just going to passively take the beating? In the past two years, countries around the world have planned many operations to capture ETO members, but every time the army or police arrive, they have already received a warning from Sophon and have fled."

"We can exploit the fact that Zhizi's thinking is opaque and arrest people under other pretexts, such as cracking down on drug dealers, sweeping up prostitution, or catching thieves. We can mix the real and the fake, so how will Zhizi know if we are really arresting ETO or the prostitutes downstairs from ETO? Didn't Luo Qing, the Wallfacer, say that we should think more and comprehend more? Everyone should learn from Wang Yangming, and everyone can become a Wallfacer."

The host covered his mouth and chuckled: "Teacher Zhang, sometimes I really think you should have been chosen as the sixth Wallfacer. Your brain is much better than ours, the younger generation."

"I think I'll pass. I'm just a retired old man; I don't know anything. To be honest, the countries were too lenient. Do you even know how submarine warfare was fought in World War II?"

The host asked, "How did you fight?"

"The Allies discovered that depth charges were inaccurate, so they simply increased the sensitivity of the fuses—if they can't hit submarines, they'll just blow up fish! I think we can adopt this approach. To deal with these traitors aided by Sophon, don't always try to capture them alive. If we're sure there are no innocent civilians nearby, we should just use heavy firepower. How much are bombs worth? If we can't deal with Sophon, can't we at least deal with these traitors? As for dealing with Sophon, my suggestion is to drop a nuclear bomb. The strong electromagnetic pulse environment created by a nuclear bomb will definitely paralyze Sophon temporarily. We can make good use of the electromagnetic interference environment created by the nuclear explosion to do a lot of useful work."

The host turned to the camera: "It seems our old friend has proposed a new solution to counter the sophons. Whether it's feasible remains to be seen, pending experiments by the PDC's anti-sophobia experts. Now, let's turn the camera to a leading physics expert and see what they have to say—Connection successful, hello Professor Ding Yi, I'm the host of the 'Earth Defense War' program..."

Zhang Yuanchao and Yang Jinwen watched the program together, but when the scene switched to the physics expert named Ding Yi, neither of them had any interest in watching any further.

This stiff and dry physics expert's speech was uninteresting; he only used technical jargon, and the old men didn't like listening to him.

Yang Jinwen commented: "Nuclear bombs to counter sophons? Isn't this just like his previous claims about smog preventing lasers and seaweed entangled submarines? It's all just nonsense. The electromagnetic pulse generated by a nuclear explosion only lasts for a moment. What can you do in that moment?"

Zhang Yuanchao's previous level of physics knowledge was still at the Aristotelian era. Recently, because he watched a lot of TV, he has come to understand that the reason why a stone falls to the ground is because of the existence of universal gravitation. This has allowed Zhang Yuanchao to enter his own Newtonian era.

Unfortunately, Zhang Yuanchao from Newton's era couldn't understand Yang Jinwen's complaints. After all, before retiring, this physics teacher had taught cutting-edge knowledge that involved the structure of the atomic nucleus, and he at least knew what a sophon was.

But Zhang Yuanchao couldn't; he couldn't comprehend anything smaller than dust.

Seeing Zhang Yuanchao's somewhat dejected expression, Yang Jinwen said, "I know what you're worried about. It's nothing more than whether your future grandson will have a good life. I can tell you a fact clearly now."

"What fact?"

"Life in the future may not be as comfortable as it is now, but at least we'll have enough to eat and wear. It won't be like the 1960s and 70s, where the theory stopped but the applied technology continued to develop. I heard about the news of starch being synthesized from air not long ago. Being able to eat our fill is better than anything else, so don't worry about that!"

What is air-synthesized starch?

"It's about mixing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in the air in a ratio of 6 to 10 to 5 to form molecules. This stuff is starch, similar to flour. People can eat it and be full, so even if we stop farming, people won't starve."

Zhang Yuanchao couldn't fathom how the omnipresent air could be combined to form edible flour, let alone how a world without farming could exist. Was it possible that in the future, a gust of wind would produce countless steamed buns flying in the sky? He opened his mouth, wanting to speak, but couldn't utter a single word.

“Old Zhang, listen to me, go downstairs and attend two science literacy classes, just so you can get the eggs,” Yang Jinwen said, patting him on the shoulder.

For the first time, Zhang Yuanchao felt like a child, needing to be guided step by step by Yang Jinwen, which made him very uncomfortable. He decided to attend two classes for the sake of his future grandson, not for the eggs, but for his grandson.

Yes, it's for my grandson.

the next day.

Zhang Yuanchao finally mustered the courage to attend two science literacy classes. Before leaving, he asked the community grid worker for eggs. The grid worker told him, quite surprised:
"Uncle Zhang, didn't you see yesterday's notice? There won't be any more eggs for class from now on. The government is about to start controlling supplies. It's not just us; even supermarkets aren't giving away free eggs anymore."

No more free eggs...

Compared to abstract concepts like physics and Wallfacers, the blows that life deals to ordinary people are often more real and painful.

Zhang Yuanchao walked home in a daze.

(End of this chapter)