Wallfacer Substitute

Lin Feng became a Wallfacer.

He was a Reincarnator. After being reborn following a car accident, he became the son of a high-ranking American official.

Though he had no golden finger and no knowledge from his previous life that could make him wildly successful, Lin Feng still did fairly well in the United States thanks to his adoptive father's network. At the very least, he never had to worry about money.

He had thought his life would continue like this, spending his entire life amid the simple, unpretentious, and boring existence of the wealthy.

It was not until Lin Feng saw the news about the Earth United Council announcing the Wallfacers that he belatedly realized he had not been reborn into someone on the original Earth. He had transmigrated into Three-Body!

Even worse, one of the Wallfacers was actually his adoptive father!

Frederick Taylor!

Although many years had passed since he transmigrated, Lin Feng still remembered some of the general plot of Three-Body.

Taylor was the first of the four Wallfacers to be exposed. After his plan was revealed, unable to bear the immense psychological pressure, he ultimately chose to shoot himself...

Damn!

Although memories from his previous life had left him somewhat prejudiced against the United States, Taylor was his father in this life, connected to him by blood and responsible for raising him. If he stood by coldly, how would he be any different from an ungrateful wretch?

To let his father enjoy his later years in peace rather than meet the miserable end of shooting himself, Lin Feng made his choice.

That was right. He would take the authority of a Wallfacer from Taylor!

Lin Feng's reasoning was simple. Since the pressure of being a Wallfacer had driven Taylor to suicide, then as long as Taylor was no longer a Wallfacer, he would not choose suicide.

When the ETO Wallbreaker—dressed in a wrinkled suit and tie, wearing a top hat, and looking thin and pale—made contact with Taylor, Lin Feng knew the moment he had long awaited had arrived.

The Wallbreaker laid out Taylor's secretly concealed Wallfacer Plan: using Sophon to destroy the Earth fleet and quantumize it just before it engaged the Trisolaran Fleet, creating an indestructible Quantum Ghost Fleet.

How could people who were already dead die again?

Likewise, a fleet that had already been destroyed could not be destroyed again.

A fleet that could not be destroyed was invincible, no matter how powerful the Trisolaran Fleet's weapons were. That was what Taylor believed.

However, the Wallbreaker's answer was simple—God did not care.

Taylor was defeated just like that, becoming the first Wallfacer to be exposed.

After the Wallbreaker with the ID "Von Neumann" left the Three-Body Game, Lin Feng seized the opportunity to ask Taylor for the authority of a Wallfacer.

The process went smoothly. On one hand, Taylor's heart had already been broken by the Wallbreaker, by his own humanity and moral conscience.

On the other hand, Lin Feng had prepared for this. Five years had passed since he first saw the news about the Wallfacers. He had painstakingly prepared for five years, all for this moment—to persuade his father to hand over the authority of a Wallfacer to him.

Lin Feng turned his gaze toward the television news, which was reporting on him.

On the television, Taylor stood before the press podium. His tense face carried traces of exhaustion. Though Lin Feng's persuasion had kept him from being as utterly shattered as before, the blow dealt by the Wallbreaker still remained.

"From today onward, my son, Feng Taylor, will fully act on my behalf in carrying out my Wallfacer duties. From this moment on, every plan he announces will be my plan."

His words stirred up an uproar. Countless reporters immediately pressed their camera shutters, and the entire press hall seemed to explode as reporter after reporter tried to speak.

"Mr. Taylor, does this mean the position of Wallfacer can be inherited?"

"Will Wallfacers become Earth's new 'emperors'?"

"The Trisolaran Fleet has not even arrived yet, and humanity is already regressing to the outdated feudal era?"

"Just who is your son? Does he have what it takes to serve as a Wallfacer?"

"Are you truly working for All Humanity, without mixing in even the slightest bit of personal selfishness?"

"Mr. Taylor, has the desire for dictatorship drowned out your democratic rationality and left you unable to tell right from wrong?"

A barrage of questions rained down on Taylor at the podium.

What Taylor had said was simply too shocking. Wallfacers were already symbols of extreme centralization of power, and proponents of democracy directly regarded them as dictators.

Now, such "dictators" could pass their positions down through inheritance. That made them no different from ancient emperors!

Years of experience allowed the reporters to keenly sniff out the news value in this.

Taylor remained calm and composed, showing no sign of panic.

Compared with dealing with ETO Wallbreakers and the Trisolarans, the journalists in the press hall were like sheep in a pen. Their sharp questions posed no threat at all in Taylor's eyes.

"If you have questions, line up and raise your hands. Otherwise, I can only ask you to leave," Taylor said.

The marketplace-like press hall instantly fell silent. Arms shot up like bamboo shoots after rain. If teachers could see such a scene in their classrooms, they would probably cry tears of joy.

"You raised your hand first. What is your question?" Taylor gestured for a reporter to speak.

"The Trisolaran Fleet has not even arrived yet. Are we humans already going to regress to the outdated feudal era?" the reporter quickly repeated his question.

"That is part of the plan," Taylor said.

The reporter froze, smacked his lips, and hesitated to speak. A few seconds later, he lowered his microphone resentfully and gave up asking further.

After that, the other reporters asked Taylor their respective questions one after another. Taylor's answer was always the same.

This was part of the plan!

"Looks like the Earth United Council has its own troubles to deal with."

Lin Feng muttered to himself. He remembered that he had initially suggested his father simply hand the entire position of Wallfacer over to him, and Taylor had agreed.

Yet now that the news was released, he only existed as a "Wallfacer Substitute."

Taylor was still the Wallfacer, only now he served as a relay station. Lin Feng still needed to act through Taylor in order to exercise the authority of a Wallfacer.

The only ones who could influence Taylor's decision were the people at the United Nations. They were probably afraid that Wallfacers would evolve into dictators and even turn into hereditary dictatorships.

"Whatever. It's fine as long as the goal has been achieved."

Lin Feng's core goal was to free his father from the pressure of being a Wallfacer, so that he would not kill himself.

Now, the pressure of being a Wallfacer had shifted to Lin Feng. Taylor was still a Wallfacer, but merely a relay. Lin Feng would carry out the Wallfacer's work, so Taylor would not need to bear too much pressure.

As for whether that pressure would be unbearable for Lin Feng, like it had been for Taylor... not a chance.

Lin Feng was different from everyone else. He knew the plot, and he knew even more clearly that Luo Ji's Dark Forest Theory would save All Humanity.

So what pressure could he possibly have?

The Trisolaran Fleet?

Give him a break. That was merely a problem guaranteed to be solved.

Could a threat that could be solved still be called a threat?

No!

The Trisolarans were weak!

Therefore, after taking over the authority of a Wallfacer, Lin Feng's idea was to reduce the internal strife caused by the Dark Forest Crisis and preserve as much of humanity's living strength as possible.

As for Lin Feng's own Wallfacer Plan, that was non-existence. Lin Feng knew his own limits. If his father had not been a Wallfacer—and the only one among the four Wallfacers to choose suicide—he would never have wanted to wade into this troublesome mess.

After all, the Trisolaran Fleet would not arrive for several centuries, and before it even arrived, Luo Ji's Dark Forest Deterrence would drive it away.

By that calculation, Lin Feng could live his simple, unpretentious, and boring life as a rich man until he died of old age without ever worrying about the Trisolarans. That was far better than serving as some Wallfacer for human civilization.

Wallfacers still had to worry about assassination attempts by ETO. Rich people did not!