After I'm Dead, Let the Floods Rise

In the dim interrogation room, the former Vice President of the United States was strapped to a chair.

The obese man's face was covered in stubble, heavy dark circles hung beneath his eyes, and his gaze was filled with inescapable exhaustion.

Creak—!

The iron door opened, and Lin Feng walked in.

Seeing that it was Lin Feng, the vice president rasped coldly, "Are you here to mock me? Or are you planning to use torture on me?"

Lin Feng sat down across from him, propped his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, and said leisurely, "Old Ford, don't worry. I just came to verify a few things with you."

"You were my father's friend. Maybe not his closest friend, and your relationship wasn't particularly good, but it wasn't that bad either. Why did you do this?"

George Anderson Ford was no stranger to Lin Feng. He had been Father's friend, often visiting their home when Lin Feng was young.

After Lin Feng started his company, he had also received quite a bit of help from him.

Though their relationship had mainly been based on mutual interests, there had still been some personal sentiment mixed in.

Yet this man had been one of the masterminds behind the attempt to assassinate Father. George Anderson Ford had played no small part in turning the CIA.

"Why?" The exhausted Old Ford forced out a mocking smile. "Of course, it was to ensure the right person became a Wallfacer. You're simply not suited to be one."

Lin Feng nodded in deep agreement, then asked, "Then who is?"

"As long as it isn't you. You don't have any of the qualities a Wallfacer should possess!" Old Ford shouted.

Lin Feng's expression remained unchanged. "Then what should a Wallfacer truly be like? A master strategist who plans from behind the scenes? Someone who can win a battle from a thousand miles away? Or someone who can scare the Trisolarans so badly with a single sentence that they crawl back to the Trisolaran System? Could you tell me? I'm very curious what this 'Wallfacer' of yours is supposed to look like."

"My father? Radiiaz? Shiens? Luo Ji? Or you?"

Old Ford stared at Lin Feng, his expression gradually twisting into something ferocious.

"At least not a failure like you, whose wall was broken twice by the ETO!"

Wall broken? What a joke. How could a wall be broken if there had never been one? Lin Feng sighed inwardly. His "wall being broken" had merely been him taking the blame for their own people hidden within the ETO.

But there was no way to explain that now, because the Sophons were monitoring All Humanity in real time.

"I admit the ETO broke my wall, but so what? I have other plans." Lin Feng shrugged. "What about you? After I lost my status as a Wallfacer, you didn't even have anyone in mind to replace me. How are you supposed to deal with the Trisolaran Fleet arriving centuries from now?"

Old Ford still stubbornly replied, "Anyone would do. Anyone would do better than you..."

"Stop pretending. Aren't you tired? You're about to die, yet you still don't dare speak a single word of truth. Isn't that pathetic?"

Lin Feng rudely cut him off, his cold eyes meeting Old Ford's exhausted gaze.

For an instant, Old Ford felt as though he had been seen through completely.

Lin Feng asked, "You're putting on this righteous act. Who do you think will hear about it and risk coming to save you?"

"I'm telling you, no one will. You'll be executed as an ETO member. Even your children will despise you. Saving you would mean standing against humanity. Who besides the ETO would come to save you?"

"We're not clueless infants fresh from the womb. There's no need to tell lies that only idiots would believe."

"Replace the Wallfacer? Replace him with whom? You?"

"In a few months, your term as vice president will be over. Don't you have anything to say about that?"

The string of questions made Old Ford's face grow even gloomier. He said nothing and remained silent.

Lin Feng said, "The powers of a Wallfacer are certainly great. It's practically a dictatorship, with only the PDC above them. With a single sentence—'This is part of the plan'—you can do almost anything you want."

"But have you thought about what happens centuries from now? You want to seize this power only to enjoy it. What will humanity do centuries later? Face the Trisolarans completely unprepared?"

After learning the full story from Liang Gong, Lin Feng felt only rage and disappointment in human nature.

Though he had never placed any hope in human nature, he had never expected it to sink this low.

"Who cares about them!"

Perhaps knowing there was no point in pretending any longer, former Vice President Ford roared at Lin Feng with a savage expression.

"That's centuries from now!"

"Hundreds of years! Even my grandson won't live to see that day! Why should I care whether a bunch of people who haven't even been born live or die?"

"Do you really think humanity can defeat the Trisolarans? On what basis? The Trisolarans only launched a few protons, and human technology was completely locked down. Do you think humanity will have any chance of surviving once the Trisolaran Fleet arrives? Why?"

Old Ford's roar rang out powerfully, no longer carrying any trace of his previous weakness. He was like a lion that had suddenly sprung up to attack while pursuing its prey.

After I'm dead, let the floods rise—this was Vice President Ford's way of thinking. What did events centuries from now have to do with him? So what if humanity could not defeat the Trisolarans? He would be long dead by then. Would the Trisolarans be insane enough to resurrect him just to kill him again?

By then, even the son he treasured most would no longer be alive. His son might even live out his old age in peace. After several centuries and five or six generations, who would remember George Anderson Ford? Why should he care whether people who did not even remember who he was lived or died?

A sense of mission? Glory? Sorry, but Ford considered such things meaningless psychological comforts. As a politician, he had never valued them.

Lin Feng asked coldly, "So you just want to give up and make the most of what time you have left?"

Old Ford sneered and retorted, "Reaching the pinnacle of power has been my lifelong dream. What's wrong with working toward that dream? Tell me, what did I do wrong? Why should I give up power that's within my grasp for a crisis centuries in the future?"

"A Trisolaran invasion? I'll be dead by then! Reduced to a pinch of dirt beneath everyone's feet! Why should I care about a Trisolaran invasion? What can the Trisolarans do to a dead man?"

Lin Feng asked again, "You don't care about the descendants your son will leave behind?"

Old Ford calmed down after venting and shot back.

"If I care, will my bloodline survive for centuries to come? If I care, will humanity be able to defeat the Trisolarans then? Or will the Trisolarans obediently crawl back to the Trisolaran System?"

"Like you said, none of us are clueless newborns. Be realistic."

This time, Lin Feng said nothing more, and Old Ford did not utter another word either. The interrogation room became exceptionally quiet.

After a while, Lin Feng rose and left. As he opened the interrogation room door, he looked back at Old Ford.

"Old Ford, maybe you think humanity is beyond saving, but I've never thought so."

Having read the original novel, Lin Feng knew that centuries later, the Trisolaran Fleet would abandon its attack on the Solar System because of Luo Ji's Dark Forest Deterrence.

But Lin Feng could not say any of this. Dark Forest Deterrence was extremely complicated and unique. Other than Luo Ji, whether it would work if anyone else used it was truly questionable. The Swordholder, the human heart, and whether the Trisolarans could actually be deterred all had to be taken into account.

Moreover, before the deterrence was established, no one could be allowed to know about it. Humanity would never agree to it. Why didn't Luo Ji reveal the Dark Forest Law directly after the Doomsday Battle, only announcing it after everything had been arranged?

Because if humanity had known in advance, Luo Ji would have ended up like another Radiiaz, stoned to death.

That was why Lin Feng had not revealed the Dark Forest Theory. He did not think he could compare to Luo Ji.

Maintaining an unrelenting mental strain for decades in an empty room, keeping the Trisolarans deterred? What a joke. How the hell was that a Swordholder? That was a goddamn superhero!

Dark Forest Deterrence was hardly so simple. Lin Feng recalled how many people in his previous life had claimed it was easy, saying, "I could do it too."

Many people thought they were Luo Ji, but every last one of them was Cheng Xin!