Starting as a Wallfacer, his defection to the Three-Body Problem shocked the world.

The accelerating evolution of the world order is not only reflected on a macro level, but also magnified infinitely in the lives of individuals.

"Grass!"

Shi Qiang looked at the text message on his phone and couldn't help but curse.

"These guys are inhuman! They've stretched my retirement age to 90?"

"Are you kidding me? So you're saying I'll still have to go out and arrest criminals when I'm 89?"

The retirement age has only increased in the last year or two. Originally, people could retire at 60 and go home to enjoy their old age, but due to the economic recession, the retirement age has been raised again and again, reaching an astonishing 90 years old in the sixth year of the Crisis Era.

Wang Miao smiled.

"What's that compared to yours? Look at your bank account."

Upon hearing this, Shi Qiang checked it on his phone and was immediately shocked.

"What the heck? Storage fees? What's that?"

"It means exactly what it says. If you deposit money in a bank, you have to pay them a certain percentage. The interest rate is about the same as before, but now it's negative. The more money you deposit in the bank, the more you have to pay."

"It can still be like this!"

Shi Qiang was shocked.

I've only ever heard of depositing money to earn interest before, how come now you have to pay someone to deposit money?

"You can also apply for asset freezing and convert your current account into a fixed deposit. In that case, they will calculate the interest rate based on the previous rate. However, this kind of fixed deposit is calculated on a 100-year basis, and whether you can get the money in the end is still unknown. Who knows if the bank will still be there in a hundred years? Maybe the whole human society will be gone."

Shi Qiang thought for a moment and quickly realized what was going on.

"For hibernators?"

"almost."

The technology for hibernating has become relatively mature after several years of development.

Hibernation technology was already in use starting in the third year of the Crisis Era, although only short-term hibernation experiments were conducted at that time.

It wasn't until the fourth year of the Crisis Era, when Zhang Beihai proposed the Reinforce the Future Plan, that hibernation technology was widely applied to military strategy.

It's even more common now; as long as you have money, you can apply for hibernation.

In fact, Wang Miao and Ding Yi had previously discussed the issue of hibernation technology, and why it went from experimentation to application so quickly.

Both sides agreed that, similar to cloning technology, it may have been intentionally restricted by the PDC (or rather, the former UN General Assembly).

Human society is an extremely complex society, and people harbor hatred towards anyone who is better off than themselves.

I'm afraid my brother will suffer, and I'm also afraid my brother will drive a Land Rover.

Human development in the past has been a process of continuous improvement and progress, with rapid technological advancements and a happy and fulfilling life for humankind.

What's the point of you developing a hibernation technology?

He hibernated, so he can go to the future and live a wonderful life, right? Then who would want to stay in the present and live a miserable life?

Furthermore, some diseases that are difficult for modern medicine to treat may be cured in the future.

This extreme imbalance will intensify the conflict between the lower and upper classes.

But things are different now. With the Three-Body Crisis, everyone will just think that people who choose to hibernate into the future are simply crazy.

I might as well live one more day to the fullest while I can. After I die, who cares about the deluge?

As expected, just as Wang Miao and Ding Yi predicted, the online ridicule of hibernators never stopped.

They call those who choose to hibernate and go bankrupt "fools".

But the truth is, even if they went bankrupt, they still couldn't buy a ticket to become hibernators.

That's just how people are. They used to laugh at those who studied all the time, and now they laugh at these hibernators. This strange mentality has never changed from ancient times to the present.

The spread of the economic recession even affected Luo Ji to some extent.

Inside the Garden of Eden.

"Why aren't you eating any vegetables? I specifically learned a few techniques from Zhang Xiang, and I thought you would like Chinese cuisine."

Luo Ji looked at Zhuang Yan, who hadn't touched her chopsticks yet.

"Should I ask Kant to change the menu? What would you like to eat? Liberian ham, grilled Wagyu beef, or perhaps a French salad?"

Zhuang Yan shook her head.

"No, I don't have much of an appetite."

After a long silence between the two, Zhuang Yan finally mustered up the courage to ask the question that had been on her mind.

"Luo, is our current life really part of the Wallfacer Project?"

Luo Ji was taken aback.

"Of course, as long as you and Minmin are happy, that's part of the plan."

Minmin refers to Luo Congmin, the daughter of Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan. Kant initially offered to arrange the best hospital for her nearby, but Luo Ji and Zhuang Yan refused, insisting that their child be born in China.

When Luo Ji said those words, he met her gaze, and after a long while, Zhuang Yan continued to ask.

"But I'm not happy."

"No one in the world is happy."

“Did you see that, Luo? The situation outside is getting worse and worse. I saw on the news the other day that a child, about two years old, was abandoned in the snow at minus thirty degrees Celsius because his parents couldn’t afford to raise him. He froze to death. The child was about the same age as Minmin, but his life ended just like that.”

“I haven’t watched TV or the news since then. The stark contrast between our lives and the suffering of the outside world makes me feel very unhappy.”

Since becoming a mother, Zhuang Yan's personality has deviated somewhat from that in the original story. She has begun to worry about the future and her child's future.

Luo Ji fell silent, looking into Zhuang Yan's eyes, unsure of what to say.

“My dear, your responsibility is to make yourself and the child happy when all of humanity is unhappy. The happier you are, the greater the chance of the Wallfacer Project succeeding.”

When Luo Ji said this, his eyes unconsciously looked up at the sky. Clearly, he was deceiving Zhuang Yan, and he didn't even believe the reason he gave.

"Are you lying to me?"

"I am a Wallfacer, of course I have to lie to you, lie to the Trisolarans, lie to everyone."

“No, you are not. A true Wallfacer should be like Lin Xuan, like Radiaz, like Hines. Your state is like Mr. Taylor's, as if you broke through the wall from the very beginning… from the very beginning.”

Luo Ji let out a long sigh.

“Yan, everything has an end. The sun and the universe will end one day. Why do humans think they will live forever? Let me tell you, humanity is currently in a state of paranoia. We are waging a meaningless war. Lin Xuan is right on this point. The plans of the other Wallfacers are insignificant in front of the Trisolarans. They can only waste what little resources humanity has left.”

"Why can't we look at this from a different perspective? We should use this remaining time to enjoy ourselves. Four hundred years, ah, if humanity gives up the resistance, we will have at least five hundred years to enjoy life. Five hundred years ago, humanity moved from the Renaissance to the Information Age, and could have chosen to live a carefree pastoral life for the next five centuries."

"Have you experienced the Super Dream Database that Lin Xuan created? We can even upload our own brain consciousness into that database, abandon our human bodies, and live there forever."

"And now, our only responsibility is to enjoy life, to enjoy these five centuries of comfortable living. Isn't that wonderful?"

Luo Ji stopped abruptly as he spoke, realizing he might have said something inappropriate.

Zhuang Yan looked at him.

"When you said that, were you speaking as a Wallfacer?"

"of course!"

Luo Ji attempted to make some amends.

But Zhuang Yan knew that this was exactly what Luo Ji was thinking.

……

A few days later, Zhuang Yan left.

She left Eden, taking Minmin with her.

Luo Ji woke up from his daze and reached out to take his lover's hand, but his hand fell to the ground.

He woke up with a start, got out of bed, and finally saw a painting on the table.

That was a painting that Zhuang Yan painted, and it was the one that the two of them liked the most. From a distance, it looked like a blank sheet of paper, but upon closer inspection, you could see a few small reeds in the lower left corner and a nearly vanished wild goose in the upper right corner. In the blank space in the middle of the painting, there was a line of neat small characters.

"My dear, I'll be waiting for you at the end of the world."

Luo Ji knew that this day would come sooner or later. He slumped to the ground, looking at the painting in front of him, as if he could see the resolute determination in Zhuang Yan's heart when she wrote those words.

Suddenly, he stood up abruptly and stared intently at the painting.

When Zhuang Yan wrote this passage, she used "I" as the subject, not "we"!

She hibernated by herself all by herself!

What about Minmin? Where did Zhuang Yan send her?

Countless possibilities flashed through Luo Ji's mind, but in the end, he locked onto one person!

Lin Xuan!

……

Inside the Red Coast Base.

Lin Xuan seemed completely unsurprised by Zhuang Yan's sudden arrival.

"Have you decided to leave?"

Zhuang Yan nodded slightly and handed the child in her arms to Lin Xuan.

"Aren't you taking her with you?"

Lin Xuan pointed to the swaddled baby in her arms.

Zhuang Yan shook her head.

“I can’t see the future; it’s all darkness. Luo Ji is right. We should enjoy ourselves while we can. I want to give Minmin a happy childhood. She was born in the fifth year of the Crisis Era. She shouldn’t wake up to the prospect of the apocalypse.”

Lin Xuan nodded slightly.

This storyline has changed drastically from the original plot.

In the original storyline, Zhuang Yan took her child with her to the apocalypse.

But after thinking about it, Lin Xuan guessed the reason.

At this time, more than a year had passed since Zhuang Yan gave birth, which was the moment when her maternal radiance was most prominent. She really couldn't bear to let her child go with her to the apocalypse four hundred years later.

Moreover, Lin Xuan is indeed reliable enough. Since the completion of the space elevator project, humanity's expectations for Lin Xuan, the Wallfacer, have far exceeded those for the other Wallfacers.

Therefore, Zhuang Yan's decision was indeed unexpected, but also reasonable.

Well, my Red Coast Base has really become an orphanage. First, it took in Zhang Beihai's family, and now it has taken in Luo Ji's daughter.

"When you wake up in two hundred years, I will personally visit each and every one of you to demand child support!"