Chapter 538: The Wandering Earth! Ether-Phase Engine Activated! The Black Gate!
Earth — Nanga Parbat, Eden.
This vast manor, surrounded by snowy peaks, lakes, and forests, had once been the place where Wallfacer Luo Ji meditated in Dragon Field. Now, it had been purchased by Yun Tianming.
In the front garden of the estate, three people sat face-to-face, drinking and talking cheerfully.
"Yun Tianming, I heard that around the DX3906 star you gave her, several asteroids are undergoing vacuum decay. Doesn't that make it the most romantic time bomb in the universe?"
Guan Yifan smiled as he spoke, recalling something amusing he'd logged in his navigation journal.
That star had been Yun Tianming's gift to Cheng Xin. During his long voyages, Guan Yifan had occasionally checked on its condition, and to his surprise, he'd noticed something quite interesting.
"I once thought stars were more eternal than human civilization," Yun Tianming said with a wan smile. "But now it seems they're not. People disappear, stars disappear. Only death is the final destination."
His pale face twisted into a forced grin. Yun Tianming was gravely ill — dying.
Like Cheng Xin, he had graduated from the University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. But while Cheng Xin joined the Planetary Defense Force immediately after graduation, Yun Tianming, reclusive by nature, stayed behind in the lab.
Perhaps out of pity, fate had granted him one last stroke of brilliance before his illness struck. He made a major breakthrough in aerospace technology, and with the patent for that invention, he achieved financial freedom by the age of thirty.
With wealth came courage — enough for the once-timid Yun Tianming to step, however briefly, into Cheng Xin's orbit.
Buying a star for her had been one of those foolish gestures, done three years ago.
"Don't worry, you're going to get better," Cheng Xin said softly.
Her eyes held genuine concern, tinged with sorrow. She knew Yun Tianming's feelings for her, yet she had no room in her heart for personal affairs.
From the day she graduated, Cheng Xin had vowed to dedicate her life to the advancement of human civilization.
For that, she was willing to give up everything — even love.
Whether or not the Trisolar Crisis had truly been resolved, her determination would never waver.
Yun Tianming forced another faint smile. He knew his affection was a one-way ticket that would never be reciprocated — but that didn't matter. To be seen was enough.
Just like the star he had bought: he had never seen it up close, only through a telescope from afar. Yet that was enough for him.
Now, all he wanted was to do, before dying, the things he never had the courage to do as a student.
Like giving a star to Cheng Xin — to tell the whole world how deeply he loved her.
Or buying this magnificent manor, inviting her to share a drink, and — to ease her discomfort — allowing her to bring along her colleague, Guan Yifan.
Then Yun Tianming turned to Guan Yifan, who was gazing out at the lake, and asked, "You took part in the Doomsday Battle under General Lin Yun. Did you ever see a Trisolaran? What kind of creatures are they?"
For reasons he couldn't explain, Yun Tianming always had the feeling that one day he would meet the Trisolarans. Yet even now, at the edge of death, he never had the chance.
"They look just like in the news — smooth, mirror-like faces. Talking to them feels like speaking to your own reflection. They have no facial features, no expressions, but it's strangely easy to tell what they're thinking," Guan Yifan replied.
"After all, the Trisolarans' brains aren't built like ours. We humans are good at hiding secrets — keeping our true thoughts buried."
He spoke with his usual calm smile. A man who could endure endless, monotonous observation and logging through years of deep-space travel had to possess extraordinary patience and composure — and Guan Yifan had both in abundance.
"Yeah," Yun Tianming said with a quiet laugh, "our brains are different indeed."
A flicker of envy passed over his face. If only he could exchange his mind for that of a Trisolaran — maybe then Cheng Xin would have understood his feelings long ago. Maybe then he wouldn't be waiting until his deathbed to act like a brave man for once.
"I've secured a position with Universal Megacorp— in Ideal City," Cheng Xin said suddenly. "That's another universe. I'll take you there for treatment."
"The medical technology there is incredibly advanced — even souls can be healed. You'll be fine."
She looked him straight in the eyes, solemnly promising. Cheng Xin had always been fearless; she never looked away when she spoke to someone.
Yun Tianming was her old classmate. Whether out of gratitude for the star he gave her or simple friendship, she would do everything she could to help him survive.
The opportunity to work in Ideal City was rare — those without the proper clearance could never go.
Rumor had it that Earth and Trisolaris would soon be relocated by Universal Megacorp to another universe, though it was unclear whether that destination would be the main Ideal City of the Prime Universe.
Universal Megacorp oversaw many universes, and a permit to enter the Prime Universe meant near-unlimited authority.
"What a romantic promise," Guan Yifan mused, quoting a line from In the Mood for Love:
"If I had one more ticket, would you come with me?
If you had one more ticket, would you take me with you?"
Yun Tianming's ears flushed red. After a moment of breathless silence, he met Cheng Xin's gaze — wordless, but answering her invitation.
Rumble—!!
The planetary engines began to warm up. In seventy-two hours, Earth would begin its great departure — leaving behind the home it had known for nearly five billion years.
But this time, it would not wander aimlessly. It was headed for another heaven.
——
Prime Universe — Ideal City.
Upon his return to Ideal City, the first thing Li Ang did was listen to the Emperor's report.
As expected, during the three years he'd been away, several universes had experienced coordinated uprisings.
That, of course, was inevitable.
Fortunately, with the Emperor personally overseeing operations, the rebellions were swiftly suppressed. The instigators had been captured and brought to Ideal City, awaiting Li Ang's judgment.
And Li Ang — after years of restraint — found himself in need of a little blood to polish his long-sheathed sword of power. Those alien species who dared defy humanity and challenge the authority of Universal Megacorp would serve perfectly as the sacrifice.
"Neos, you've done well," Li Ang said. "I called you here today to witness an art performance."
He led the Emperor to the headquarters of the Multiverse Base, facing a vast display projected by a Xeelee Night Fighter.
The Emperor raised an eyebrow. He'd heard that the unification campaign had failed, yet Li Ang seemed in unusually good spirits — not at all discouraged by that setback.
What was going on?
Still, he didn't ask. If Li Ang had chosen not to unify the Three-Body universe, there must have been a reason. It wasn't his place to question it.
Moments later, Li Ang ordered the executives of Universal Megacorp to take their positions. The images from the Xeelee Night Fighter were broadcast to every universe across the multiverse.
This would be the first public unveiling of the Ether-Phase Engine — and the first time in history that anyone would witness a cosmic-scale energy extraction.
To observe across universes at this magnitude, even AI drones and sophons were no longer enough.
Therefore, a portion of the Xeelee Nightfighters had to be sacrificed for observation—so that all of humanity, and every civilization across the cosmos, could witness the spectacle of the Trisolaran Universe being drained.
"Begin."
With Li Ang's command, the three-second countdown vanished in an instant. The Aether Phase Engine ignited.
Among the observers was Luo Ji, who, at the very first moment, saw the cosmic veil torn open—a rift through which a nameless blue-violet radiance spilled out, like the shrieking harmony of countless supernovae detonating at once.
In that instant, only a mind capable of perceiving through merged senses could even begin to comprehend what it meant to see a universe being emptied.
"My God…"
The Trisolarans watched in awe as the stars burned upward against gravity, every stellar flame spanning galaxies, blossoming and interweaving into the shape of an ouroboros-like Klein bottle.
For both humanity and Trisolarans, this was the first time they had ever witnessed the physical manifestation of closed-string structures.
Those Calabi–Yau manifolds that should have curled within Planck-length dimensions were now using the radiance of supersymmetry breaking to dismember reality itself.
The Orion Arm was the first to dissolve into a vast rainbow waterfall. The hydrogen fusion fires of seventy billion stars twisted into rings by gravity and fell into a ruptured dimensional void.
Far away on Earth, Guan Yifan seemed to see before his eyes the Riemann surface topological diagrams once drawn by an old Cambridge professor during his university years.
Now those remembered equations were materializing, devouring the matter of the Andromeda Galaxy. The galaxy—two hundred and twenty thousand light-years across—was being compressed into a speck of dust on the cross-section of a Möbius strip.
The Xeelee Nightfighters fled swiftly, their camera feeds pulling ever farther back, struggling to capture every last detail of the Trisolaran Universe's transformation.
Before long, even the Virgo Supercluster began to bleed.
Countless galaxies erupted like blood from ruptured veins—matter annihilating, condensing, and collapsing again—while supermassive black holes pierced through the remnants of four-dimensional space, transforming into clusters of incomplete Penrose triangles.
The Milky Way was thrown into chaos in the blink of an eye.
When the Laniakea Supercluster was completely vaporized, vacuum fluctuations surged in waves that transcended time and space.
The dying spasms of the Milky Way's spiral arms released gamma bursts that collided, along the timeline itself, with the residual cosmic microwave background radiation from the Big Bang 17 billion years ago.
The projections of countless possible universes overlapped upon the dissolving starry curtain; parallel-world solar systems were flattened onto the southern pole of the Riemann sphere.
The continental plates of Earth flowed across the complex plane, tracing the patterns of a Möbius strip. Humanity, in this moment, seemed so pitifully small—more insignificant than a speck of dust.
Kings and emperors were less than nothing, unworthy even of a single frame in this vast image.
In the final instant, the remnants of all collapsing galaxies arranged themselves into colossal piano keys across eleven-dimensional space. From Hercules to the Sloan Great Wall, eighty-three billion light-years of spacetime collapsed sequentially along the Bekenstein limit's curve.
This was the Aether Phase Engine performing a requiem for the Three-Body Universe.
When absolute-zero silence consumed all, a pure black radiance bloomed from the singularity—the state of all possibilities reduced to zero—the ultimate rebirth dreamed of by the Zeroers civilization.
The Xeelee Nightfighters had been swallowed half an hour earlier. The Aether Phase Engine had drained every bit of matter from the Trisolaran Universe, even pulling out the hidden pocket universes lodged within dimensional seams.
No one knew how much time had passed before Li Ang finally ordered the Stargate reopened. What remained of the Trisolaran Universe was an endless expanse of blankness—nothing left at all.
Only a black door.
It could be called a door, though it resembled a monolith. AI drones scanned it, revealing its three edges had a precise ratio of 1:4:9—no matter how they measured, it was exact.
No margin of error. Its precision reached the scale of fundamental particles.
The scientists of the Central Science Nexus immediately made their conjecture.
"The black gate's proportions—length, width, and height—are 1:2:3. In geometry, this has a natural symmetry and mathematical purity. It feels like some deity's absolute dominion over truth."
"Like the imperial seal or ceremonial axe of an ancient Chinese emperor—symbols of ultimate authority."
Alt Cunningham mused aloud, already dispatching AI drones toward the gate.
But they couldn't enter. No one knew what lay inside—or whether it could even be opened.
"Nietzsche once proposed that humanity's evolution passes through three stages: ape, man, and superman. These proportions seem to correspond to those very leaps."
Luo Ji, ever fond of philosophy, remarked that primitive man, modern man, and the interstellar age each marked a civilizational turning point.
From a mere cyber-corporate Earthborn civilization to a god-tier one, the Universal Megacorp had clearly reached its limit. The door, perhaps, was only symbolic—
A reminder that the end of progress is a gate that cannot be opened.
The Black Gate's appearance caused an uproar throughout the Universal Megacorp's worlds. Many felt deep disappointment; they had believed that after draining an entire universe, they would enter a more resplendent age of divinity.
Yet in the end—there was nothing.
"Looks like the Aether Phase Engine Project was a total failure. We got nothing—no ultimate truth, just a damn useless door."
Chisaji fox laughed bitterly, cursing under his breath. They had poured endless effort and resources into this megastructure—two universes destroyed in the process.
From the first model to the completed structure, the funding burned could have powered ten full-scale multiversal unification campaigns.
"Isn't that a good thing? I was half afraid we'd blow up the universe and unleash some eldritch abomination. Having nothing show up—honestly, that's a relief."
Jack Wells grinned. These high-level projects always unsettled him; the unknown was terrifying, yet curiosity always pulled him toward it.
If nothing came of it—then all the better.
"The Aether Phase Engine's success rate was only thirty percent anyway. Failure isn't unexpected. Everyone's worked hard enough—time for some rest."
V, exhausted from years of endless overtime, finally allowed himself a smile. All he wanted now was to relax and live freely for a while.
At those words, everyone turned to the Megacorp's Supreme Executive, Li Ang.
But Li Ang issued no new orders. He merely told them to shelve the matter for now—to handle it quietly.
Everyone would be granted a three-year leave, until the next Multiverse Operation began.
At that announcement, cheers erupted. Soon, the vast Multiversal Base was nearly empty—only a few guards remained, and Li Ang himself.
Half a year passed in the blink of an eye.
During that time, Li Ang pored over old multiversal unification records, reviewing and retracing every past operation.
Finally, on a silent, deserted night, he opened the Stargate alone and boarded a shuttle into the Trisolaran Universe.
There, the black gate slowly opened—
As if it had been waiting only for him.
It turned out that he alone could enter it.
...