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

Chapter 72 Symbiotic Civilization (Seeking First Subscription)

"Professor Luo, this joke is not funny."

Perhaps it was the chilly evening air, but King Wen of Zhou shivered. He suddenly had a feeling that the chaotic era in the Three-Body Problem was about to arrive. Faced with such a gaze, King Wen of Zhou suddenly had an urgent desire to dehydrate. Only after shedding himself into a sheet of human skin fibers would he no longer have to face the gaze of this Wallfacer.

Despite King Wen's words, Luo Qing remained calmly watching him, her expression gentle and her eyes smiling.

King Wen of Zhou gave up.

"Are you here to deal with me?" King Wen of Zhou asked tentatively.

Luo Qing shook his head: "You are just a scholar. You may hold a high position in ETO, but you have not done anything. Not to mention you are Professor Ye's friend. Why would I make things difficult for you?"

"You've also met Ye Wenjie?" King Wen of Zhou asked in surprise.

Luo Qing thought for a moment: "I've seen it, in a dream."

In a dream? King Wen of Zhou was confused by this question, but that wasn't what troubled him: "Then you came here to..."

“I am genuinely interested in the possibility of a dinosaur civilization,” Luo Qing said sincerely. “Recently, in my spare time, I have been reflecting on the future of humanity and the past of the Earth. I have also been studying some relevant literature, including many of your publicly stated views.”

For example, I've reviewed all of your reports, including "Report on Changes in Nuclear Radiation at the End of the Cretaceous," "An Analysis of the Possibility of a 'Industrial Age' for Dinosaurs," and even your anonymous, outlandish speculations on Reddit, using my Wallfacer authority.

"Are you spying on me?" King Wen of Zhou smiled wryly.

"No, Professor Zhou, perhaps you have some setbacks in your career, but in my eyes you are a genius. You have an extraordinary sensitivity, which may not be suitable for research in physics, after all, physics is rational and cold. But it is exceptionally suitable for your discoveries in other fields, such as your discoveries about dinosaurs."

You dare to boldly hypothesize the existence of a dinosaur civilization based solely on some remaining metal fragments on dinosaur fossils? Most people don't have that kind of meticulousness and imagination. In contrast, those reviewers who repeatedly rejected your submissions are just incompetent fools; I'll get them removed from your papers later.”

King Wen of Zhou suddenly felt a stinging sensation in his old eyes.

Luo Qing reached out, and the metal fragments scattered next to the Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton flew into his hand.

The female student who had just received the autograph had already left, signaled by King Wen of Zhou with a look. There was no one else here.

"Is this the ferrochrome alloy sheet you mentioned in your paper?"

"Yes, it has excellent corrosion resistance. After 6500 million years, it hasn't become one with the dust. Its chemical stability is almost comparable to elemental gold. These metal fragments have been dated and are from the same era as the dinosaur fossils in front of you," King Zhou Wen said, staring at the fragments in Luo Qing's hand.

Luo Qing looked at the metal fragment in his hand. A sweep of his spiritual sense revealed an indelible engraving, similar to an integrated circuit, but the engraving was extremely exquisite and did not resemble something a dinosaur could have developed.

Moreover, the sense of historical vicissitudes conveyed by these metal fragments also rules out the possibility of them being human creations.

Luo Qing held the palm-sized metal fragment and compared it to the giant hind paws of the Tyrannosaurus Rex in front of him, as well as its forelimbs that had withered like dead branches, and looked puzzled.

King Wen of Zhou said, "You've also noticed the problem, haven't you?"

Luo Qing hit the nail on the head: "These things are very ingenious, unlike anything a dinosaur could have made."

King Wen of Zhou felt a sense of delight, as if he had encountered a discerning patron. He slapped his thigh and exclaimed, "That's right! That's the same question I've been struggling with. Last year, I unearthed thousands of metal tube particles in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. After half-life correction, I determined their true age to be 6500 million years ago. Those metal tube particles are even smaller, about the size of millet grains, and are made of chemically stable alloys. To be honest, even for us humans, mass-producing these intricately crafted metal tube particles would be a difficult task. I really can't understand how, assuming dinosaurs did have a civilization, they could have created these things."

Luo Qing said, "Perhaps it wasn't just dinosaurs that built civilization, but some other species?" King Wen of Zhou shook his head: "I feel it should be dinosaurs. The time when these metal fragments or metal particles were discovered is basically fixed at the end of the Cretaceous period, with an error of no more than 2 years. During that period, there was nothing else that ruled the earth except dinosaurs. It couldn't possibly be the Trisolarans."

"That's not the case." Luo Qing waved his hand: "According to the information provided by your Three-Body game, none of the first 100+ rounds of the Three-Body civilization developed the technology tree for interstellar travel."

"Then what do you think could be the reason?" King Wen of Zhou asked cautiously.

Upon hearing this, Luo Qing pondered it seriously for a while.

He couldn't figure it out.

Luo Qing added, "Besides the metal tube particles and these ferrochrome alloy sheets, have you found any other evidence of the existence of dinosaur civilization in your more than 10 years of research in this field?"

“Yes!” King Wen of Zhou said, “What is written in reports and papers is only a part; there is another part that is not made public, which is in my mind.”

King Wen of Zhou took a sheet of A4 paper and began to draw on it with a pencil. Soon he had created a world map from 6500 million years ago. In the hypothesis of continental plate shift, the seven continents and four oceans no longer existed. Instead, the continents of Rome and Gondwana appeared. He drew a circle around Rome on the right side of the map.

“I have previously conducted environmental monitoring reports on the half-lives of uranium-235 and plutonium-244 in some of these areas. Plutonium-244 has a half-life of 8000 million years, but it is extremely rare in the natural environment. Detecting even trace amounts may indicate an anomaly.”

But I still managed to detect plutonium-244, and the timeline matched 65 million years ago. This indicates that a large-scale nuclear radiation event did indeed occur at the end of the Cretaceous period. This nuclear radiation event doesn't seem to have been caused by meteorites, but rather by human-made nuclear weapons, only far more powerful—like the stellar nuclear bomb proposed by the Wallfacer, Radiaz.

Luo Qing exclaimed in amazement: "You mean, the dinosaur civilization may have reached the atomic age?"

“Perhaps even further.” King Wen of Zhou sighed: “The extinction of dinosaurs is a strange thing. According to people’s understanding, if dinosaurs did not have civilization, it is indeed very possible that they were wiped out by a meteorite. But if dinosaur civilization had reached the atomic age, it would be almost impossible for them to be wiped out by a meteorite. This is another paradox that has troubled me. But the main paradox is still on those metal sheets and micro metal tube particles engraved with circuit traces.”

As he spoke, King Wen of Zhou fell into pessimism again: "Professor Luo, we may never get the answer. 6500 million years is too long, long enough to erase all traces. It's already incredible that we can deduce the existence of dinosaur civilization from some clues. Yet even so, it is not accepted by the vast majority of people. After all, it is indeed too shocking and worldly to say. Just as you said in the Pacific military exercise: humans may not be the first masters of the earth, and we are not special in this world."

Luo Qing looked at the metal fragments and pondered. He asked, "With current technology, is it possible to reconstruct these metal fragments and extract information from 6500 million years ago?"

King Wen of Zhou shook his head decisively: "That's impossible. Not to mention us, even the Trisolaran civilization couldn't do it. Ever since I first obtained these alloy sheets containing 'circuit patterns' from 65 million years ago five years ago, I've asked experts in the relevant field. They said that due to the influence of electron shift, the theoretical upper limit for electronic storage tools such as solid-state drives is 50,000 years."

"There's really nothing we can do about it," Luo Qing said regretfully. "Didn't the Trisolarans say anything?"

"No, the Lord is not interested in the past of the earth; they only care about the future."

Luo Qing remained silent, looking at the metal fragment in his hand, and then looking at the microscopic photos of the so-called metal tube particles through Zhou Wenwang's phone, lost in thought.

How exactly did dinosaurs create these intricate things? What was the form of dinosaur civilization?

As Luo Qing was thinking, he suddenly saw a brown ant climbing up the fossil of the Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Suddenly he had a flash of inspiration.

"Professor Zhou, do you think it's possible that the civilization built by dinosaurs 6500 million years ago wasn't just about dinosaurs, but perhaps also included ants?"

King Wen of Zhou turned to look at him, and then, as if struck by a revelation, he suddenly raised his arm and exclaimed, "Dinosaurs and ants... a symbiotic civilization? How come I never thought of that!"

(End of this chapter)