At the general meeting of the International Astronomical Union, a body that last attracted worldwide attention in 2006 when it revoked Pluto’s eligibility as a planet, a large number of astronomers and astrophysicists were of the opinion that the explosion of 187J3X1 was a chance occurrence. Being an astronomer, Luo Ji may have discovered certain signs that the star would explode. The theory was full of holes, but more and more people came to believe it, accelerating Luo Ji’s decline in prestige. In the eyes of the public, his image gradually transitioned from messiah to commoner, and then to fraud. He still enjoyed the Wallfacer status granted by the UN, and the Wallfacer Act was still in effect, but he no longer had real power.

Year 208, Crisis Era

Year 208, Crisis Era

Distance of the Trisolaran Fleet from the Solar System: 2.07 light-years

On a cold, drizzly autumn afternoon, a meeting of the New Life Village #5 Residents’ Council came to the following decision: Luo Ji would be expelled from the neighborhood on the grounds that he was affecting the normal life of the neighborhood’s residents. While the Snow Project was in progress, Luo Ji had frequently gone out to attend meetings, but the majority of his time was still spent in the area, and he kept in contact with various Snow Project entities from home. Disruptions had only worsened as his position declined, since from time to time crowds of people would gather at the foot of his building to jeer at him or throw stones at his window. Media interest in the spectacle was enough to make reporters as numerous as protestors. But the real reason for Luo Ji’s expulsion was that he was an utter disappointment to the hibernators.

When the meeting adjourned that evening, the neighborhood committee director went to Luo Ji’s home to inform him of the council’s decision. After pressing the doorbell repeatedly, she pushed open the unlatched door and practically choked on the mix of alcohol, smoke, and sweat that filled the room. She noticed that the walls had been converted into city-style information surfaces that allowed information screens to be called up anywhere with just a tap. A confusion of images filled the walls, most of them displaying complex data and curves, but the largest showing a sphere suspended in space: a stellar hydrogen bomb packed in oil film. The transparent film with the bomb clearly visible within it reminded the director of a marble, the sort of thing children liked to play with back in Luo Ji’s day. It rotated slowly. There was a small protrusion at one pole—the ion engine—and in the sphere’s smooth surface was the reflection of a tiny sun. All of those dazzling screens turned the room into a huge gaudy box. Since the lights were off, they were the only source of illumination, dissolving everything into blurry color so that it was hard at first to distinguish what was a physical presence and what was just an image.