Space Farms

Watching the CIA agents leave with the notes, Lin Feng suddenly remembered something he had forgotten to mention and called the maid over again.

"Go notify them: if anyone from ETO comes to wallbreak me, don't stop them."

"Uh... why?"

The maid, who had assumed Lin Feng was about to add something to the plan he had just announced, froze for a moment, unable to understand his intention.

After all, ETO was their enemy, and Wallfacer Feng Taylor was someone they needed to protect above all else. Why would they let the enemy through?

"I have my own arrangements. This is part of the plan."

The maid thought for a moment, then stopped asking questions and nodded.

"Understood. I'll notify the others according to your instructions."

Lin Feng's announcement of his Wallfacer Plan to the agents, as well as his order to the maid that the others were not to stop ETO's Wallbreakers from wallbreaking him, were all witnessed by ETO through the Sophon.

"Feng Taylor told the others not to stop the Wallbreakers."

"Why would he do that?"

The ETO members looked at one another, none of them able to understand the purpose behind such a move.

Logically speaking, a Wallfacer should be afraid of Wallbreakers like them coming to wallbreak him.

"This is a provocation—a provocation against ETO! He knows we can see him, so he's using his actions to mock us!"

After their previous "failure," combined with Lin Feng's latest order, ETO's Wallbreakers naturally interpreted it as—ETO's Wallbreakers are nothing special. I carried out my plan right under your noses with ease. To me, you are dispensable; ETO itself is meaningless. If you can wallbreak me, then come and try. Trash like you means nothing to me, Feng Taylor.

Einstein furiously slammed his fist onto the table, glaring viciously at Lin Feng on the other side of the screen through gritted teeth.

"Damn Wallfacer! You'll regret this!"

"This time, we won't just kill you! We'll kill your spirit along with you! Just wait and see!"

The announcement of the Intelligent Revolution Plan sparked another storm of public debate.

The widespread adoption of Intelligent AI meant that repetitive manual labor at the bottom of society would be replaced by machines, and those who earned a living by selling their labor would lose their jobs in droves.

Unlike the global quantum ghostification, however, the Intelligent Revolution Plan had very few opponents.

These days, employment at companies and factories was already scarce. Most people had chosen to find work in the Macro-electron Energy Storage Project instead. After all, jobs paying twenty thousand dollars a month were not easy to find. Thus, the transformation of companies and factories posed little difficulty, and there was virtually no unemployment.

Of course, no opposition did not mean no attention. On the contrary, many people were following the plan, and nearly ninety percent of them were workers in the Macro-electron Energy Storage Project.

At the press conference, a BBC reporter asked the spokesperson who had announced the news.

"Will the Macro-electron Energy Storage Project consider introducing Intelligent AI? If Intelligent AI is introduced, how will the workers' employment be resolved?"

Unlike Lin Feng, the spokesperson answered the BBC reporter with a grave expression.

"There will always be work, but the work of the future will be in space, and what we need are highly skilled professionals. There will be very little work left on the ground."

"After discussion by the United Nations Security Council, the Macro-electron Energy Storage Project's sleep time will be reduced from eight hours to seven. Specialized personnel will provide education during that freed-up hour."

"Human society is advancing, and the Trisolarans are constantly drawing nearer. No one will stop and wait because some people refuse to improve themselves. We don't have time."

"I repeat: we don't have time. Anyone who stops because of laziness will ultimately be abandoned by the times."

Headlines such as "Those Who Stop Will Be Abandoned by the Times" and "No One Will Wait for You" appeared on the front pages of major media outlets the day after the press conference—and in the newspaper Lin Feng was reading.

Taking a sip of his freshly brewed coffee, Lin Feng asked the CIA director beside him, "Has everything gone smoothly? Have you encountered any resistance? From ETO, for example. Or ETO. Or perhaps ETO?"

The CIA director pondered for a moment before shaking his head. "Not really. The resistance the entire plan has encountered has been far less than we expected."

"I suspect this is the calm before the storm," the CIA director warned Lin Feng.

ETO could not possibly remain quiet. Could it still be called ETO if it did?

ETO now regarded Feng Taylor as an assassination target second only to Luo Ji. They desperately wanted him dead, so there was no way they could remain indifferent to the plan he had announced.

Based on all these deductions, the lack of any movement was the biggest problem!

"It's fine. A minor issue. You just need to handle the security work properly."

Lin Feng did not take it seriously. He had considered ETO assassination attempts long before becoming a Wallfacer and had prepared himself mentally long ago. The only thing he had not expected was to become ETO's assassination target second only to Luo Ji.

After thinking for a while, Lin Feng asked the CIA director, "By the way, how is my space farm concept coming along?"

The CIA director replied, "It can indeed be designed, but we can't achieve the low cost you envisioned."

A space farm, as the name implied, was the cultivation of crops in a space station. Earth's surface was only so large, with more than half covered by seawater, along with saline-alkali land. After subtracting the areas inhabited by people, there was limited land available for growing crops. Moreover, harsh weather, pests, and other factors affecting crop yields also had to be considered.

A space farm was a space station that moved farmland into space. Crops would not need to worry about harsh weather, pests, or other problems that affected output.

There was not much technical difficulty involved. The biological cycle was not a major issue; with Earth's biosphere helping to sustain it, maintaining ecological stability in a space farm for a certain period would not be a problem.

Gravity could be replaced by the centrifugal force generated by the space station's rotation, while sunlight could be reflected with mirrors.

More importantly, in Lin Feng's conception, space farms would be very cheap to build, allowing them to be deployed in large numbers throughout the universe.

That way, humanity's food problem could be solved.

"Where is the problem?"

The other issues were easy enough to understand, but no matter how long Lin Feng thought about it, he could not figure out where the high cost of space farms came from. After all, he had designed them from the very beginning with low costs in mind.

The CIA director explained, "Radiation shielding. With current aerospace materials, covering such an enormous space station would be extremely expensive."

"Can't we use cheap materials instead? If it's only for radiation shielding, I remember that as long as the material is thick enough, even concrete or scrap steel plates can block radiation."

It was precisely because of such considerations that space farms had seemed inexpensive to Lin Feng in the first place.