"This was the Three-Body Game..."
Having left the game, Lin Feng muttered to himself.
Lin Feng admitted that he had been shocked. He also fully understood the Trisolarans' determination to invade the Solar System. If he had been the one making the decision, he would have made the same choice.
The blazing sun scorched the earth, more nightmarish than any nightmare. A living person one second could become charred remains the next—and that was not even the worst of it.
The actual conditions on the Trisolaran Homeworld were hundreds, even thousands of times worse. Their civilization had been destroyed time and time again.
"No wonder Cheng Xin made that kind of choice later on. Could it be that she played this game, and that was why she ended up thinking that way?"
Thinking of Cheng Xin from the third part of the original novel, whom readers had cursed as a sanctimonious bitch, Lin Feng felt that he could understand her a little.
Of course, understanding was one thing. Letting the Trisolaran fleet into the Solar System just because he sympathized with the Trisolarans was something Lin Feng would never do.
It was no different from handing one's own belongings to bandits for no reason at all. The key was that one's own household was not exactly wealthy, while the bandits harbored intense hostility toward them.
To still hold goodwill under such circumstances was simply too stupid.
Suddenly, the phone rang. It was John Smith from the original Wallfacer team.
"What is it?" Lin Feng asked as he picked up his phone.
"The matter you mentioned last time has been arranged," John Smith said.
Lin Feng froze for a moment and thought back, but could not remember what the other man was referring to.
"Last time? What matter?"
"The matter of your inspection of the Macro-Electron Storage Plan, which you mentioned last time."
"Oh, that matter. The United Nations allows it now?"
With John Smith's reminder, Lin Feng recalled that he had indeed brought it up during a meeting.
However, at the time, the Macro-Electron Storage Plan had still been in the planning stage. Not a single building had been completed, so there had naturally been nothing to inspect.
Later, the public pressure manufactured by the ETO had forced Lin Feng to hand control of the Macro-Electron Storage Plan over to the United Nations, and he had never involved himself in the plan again.
Lin Feng had therefore forgotten about it. Even if he had wanted to go, the United Nations might not have agreed.
"The United Nations has permitted it. They also want to know whether the Macro-Electron Storage Plan meets your original expectations."
As the one who had proposed the Macro-Electron Storage Plan, Lin Feng alone knew what the blueprint in his mind truly looked like. The United Nations also needed Lin Feng to serve as the one to inspect and approve it.
"Understood."
He boarded his presidential car, and the convoy headed toward the nearest Macro-electron Energy Storage Project.
Sitting in the car and looking through the window, Lin Feng spotted a thin line in the distance, standing upright upon the earth.
They reached their destination before long. Surrounded by bodyguards, Lin Feng met the person in charge of the project in this area.
After some brief pleasantries, the project manager led Lin Feng to inspect one of the completed towers.
"This is the first completed high-voltage tower. It is 250 meters tall, built with carbon nanomaterials and steel reinforcement as its main framework, combined with concrete. At its center is a hydrogen-based superconductor, which can..."
Lin Feng tilted his head back. From the car, it had only looked like a thin line in the distance, but now, standing close and looking upward, he felt as though he were gazing at the Tower of Babel from myth.
The high-voltage tower was extremely crude. It looked like an unfinished building, without walls, like a tall structure assembled from building blocks, with large square openings arranged in neat rows.
This was not due to cutting corners. It was meant to save materials and shorten construction time. As long as the high-voltage tower had sufficient height and strength, that was enough. No one was meant to live in it, so comfort did not matter.
"There's no need to introduce this. There's nothing technical about it. As long as no one cuts corners, there won't be a problem."
Lin Feng waved his hand and asked the project manager about another matter that concerned him more.
"I want to see the workers' conditions. That is what concerns me most. 007 has its own way of being done. If you implement 007 recklessly, people could die. I need to know whether you have followed instructions."
"Of course. Please come with me."
Led by the project manager, Lin Feng and his bodyguards arrived at a large shed built from steel reinforcement and plastic sheeting. Inside were rows of neatly arranged seats.
It was a simple cafeteria, one that could be erected in just a day or two.
After entering the makeshift cafeteria, the project manager introduced their schedule to Lin Feng.
"Construction workers work twelve hours a day. They are allotted eight hours for sleep, half an hour for lunch, half an hour for dinner, half an hour for bathing, one hour for using the restroom, and the remaining hour and a half for walking, entertainment, exercise, and so on."
"Hm? Wasn't it 007?" Lin Feng asked.
"It is 007. They work all twenty-four hours. Eating and sleeping do not interfere with work. Please look here."
Following the project manager's gesture, Lin Feng noticed something unusual about the cafeteria tables.
"This is..."
"That's right. These are pedals from China's old mechanical sewing machines. Workers' feet are free while they eat, so they can eat and pedal at the same time. The pedals turn gears, which cut magnetic field lines to generate electricity. Human chemical energy is converted into electrical energy and stored in batteries. The electricity in those batteries is then stored in Ball Lightning."
Other than their work, the remaining time in construction workers' daily routines could also be used to generate electricity.
Batteries were a wonderful thing. They could store the electricity converted from workers' biological energy before feeding it into Ball Lightning.
The same went for sleeping and walking.
People had to breathe while sleeping, didn't they? The air they exhaled could push a very light windmill and generate electricity.
There was admittedly not much electricity, but it lasted a long time. After all, the windmill would turn for eight hours. That electricity could be stored directly in lithium batteries before finally being transferred into Macro Electron.
There were also the shoes. A mechanism could be installed inside them. People had to lift their feet when walking, and they had to step down again. Through that mechanical work, magnets inside the shoes would cut magnetic field lines, naturally generating more electricity.
And then there was bathing. Bathing was not merely bathing. To get bathwater, workers had to ride stationary bicycles—the kind found in gyms. No matter how hard someone pedaled on one, it would not move, only spin its wheels.
Anyone who wanted to bathe had to turn the wheels to receive bathwater, and once the wheels turned, electricity would naturally be generated.
"Won't anyone slack off?"
Lin Feng asked somewhat awkwardly. Although he had participated in designing it, seeing it in person still made him feel strange.
"They won't. As long as we tell them that we will test the amount of stored electricity in every battery, and that the person whose battery has the lowest charge will have their final wages cut in half, their enthusiasm for work will not diminish."
"How much are the monthly wages?" Lin Feng asked.
"Normally, they accumulate for a year and are paid out in one lump sum. The workers sign contracts requiring them to work for a year. Calculated by monthly salary, it comes to around twenty thousand dollars a month."
Lin Feng nodded. That was a very high salary for work that required no particular skills and could be done by anyone.
Paying wages once a year was also deliberate. When workers suddenly received such a large sum of money, their first thought would be to spend it. That was far more reliable than America's market rescue measures of one or two thousand dollars.
Twelve months in a year meant that a worker would receive two hundred and forty thousand dollars all at once at the end of the year!
Converted into RMB at an exchange rate of one to seven, that was 1.68 million yuan!
"Have you coordinated with Wall Street? I don't want them causing trouble, and I especially don't want this money to end up flowing into the stock market."
Lin Feng lowered his voice and asked the CIA agent beside him.
"Rest assured. They do not have the courage to oppose every country."
Before you continue