After hearing this, Zhang Qi fell into deep thought.
The attack on Ding Yi's research institute had been a smokescreen.
A smokescreen intended to conceal their true objective—one so important that they had not hesitated to deploy armed forces, even at the risk of heavy casualties.
The scale of it was astonishingly vast, and astonishingly cold-blooded.
Such a roundabout strategy had clearly come from the Earth-Trisolaris Organization.
They had calculated everyone's ingrained way of thinking. At that critical juncture, Ding Yi's macro-atom research had been the only hope in plain sight that could threaten Sophon's blockade. Naturally, he would become the target.
But the real target had been Yang Dong.
That could only mean one thing.
Yang Dong had something in her hands—or rather, in her mind.
Something that frightened the Trisolarans more than a breakthrough in macro-atom research, something they were even more eager to erase.
And Zhang Qi could think of only one possibility—
"Was it because of Ye Wenjie?"
Zhang Qi took a deep breath and finally spoke.
"That's right—"
As he spoke, Ding Yi rummaged through the pocket of his white lab coat.
At last, he pulled something out.
It was not some high-tech storage device, but the most ordinary of kraft-paper envelopes, its corners even slightly frayed.
He handed the envelope to Zhang Qi.
Zhang Qi accepted it.
The envelope was light, almost weightless.
He tore open the seal. Inside was only a single photograph.
Something like this should have been an antique in this era.
Perhaps because it was so old, the colors in the photograph had faded and distorted somewhat.
The background was a hospital ward: white sheets, white walls.
On the hospital bed, a gray-haired, haggard yet exceptionally calm woman lay on her side, cradling a swaddled infant in her arms.
That