Shanghai, Ruijin Hospital, a patient ward.
The hospital corridor lacked the smell of disinfectant. Instead, there was a fresh scent, like grass after the rain.
Li Weiguo lay on the hospital bed, the faint curve on the life monitor showing he was a candle in the wind.
Terminal lung cancer; the cancer cells had spread throughout his entire body. Every breath felt like swallowing boiling blades.
His son, Li Xiang, a middle-aged police officer nearing forty, held his father's emaciated hand with bloodshot eyes.
"Dad, hold on a little longer," he rasped, his voice filled with powerless despair.
The ward door was pushed open silently.
A doctor walked in. She wasn't wearing a traditional nurse's uniform, but a pristine white, seamless protective suit.
Her expression was calm, and she held a silver metal box in her hand.
"Are you Mr. Li Weiguo's family?"
Li Xiang jerked his head up, a flash of vigilance in his eyes. "Who are you?"
"Unified Medical Administration," the nurse replied, her voice flat. "Executing the 'Human Restoration' project under the supreme directive of the Human Alliance."
She opened the box, revealing a syringe filled with a pale golden liquid that looked like melted sunlight.
"What kind of medicine is this? Where is my dad's attending physician?" Li Xiang stood up.
The nurse offered no explanation, merely projecting an electronic document into the air.
A bright red seal of the Human Alliance, possessing the highest authority, appeared before Li Xiang's eyes.
"Please cooperate."
Two robotic assistants glided in from behind the nurse, and an invisible pneumatic field gently pushed Li Xiang away.
He could only watch helplessly as the needle pierced the shriveled vein in his father's arm.
The pale golden liquid was slowly injected.
A miracle occurred within seconds.
The dying curve on the life monitor suddenly leaped upward, then became strong and steady.
Li Weiguo began to cough violently, but what he coughed up wasn't bloody froth, but black, fibrous dead matter.
His cloudy eyes gradually regained their light.
"Water..." a hoarse but clear syllable escaped his throat.
Li Xiang stood frozen in place, thinking he was hallucinating.
He watched his father slowly sit up, watched the ashen spots of death on his face fade at a visible rate.
This wasn't terminal lucidity.
This was... rebirth.
"Thank the new era," the nurse said calmly as she packed up her equipment, turning to leave.
Outside in the corridor were several "angels" just like her, silent and highly efficient.
Li Xiang threw himself at the bedside and grasped his father's warm hand, tears breaking through the dam.
He didn't know what had happened, but he understood that the nightmare which had tortured his family for years was gone.
Three months later.
The once crowded, dilapidated slums had been razed to the ground.
In their place rose ecological buildings shimmering with a metallic luster.
Maria walked out of her home, carrying her five-year-old son, Paul.
Paul used to suffer from a congenital immunodeficiency; every cold could have been fatal.
Now, he was chasing a metallic dragonfly courier robot, running wildly through the community park with crisp laughter.
Maria's face radiated a happiness she had previously only dared to wish for in her dreams.
"Maria! Hurry up! The maglev bus to Cairo is about to leave!" a neighbor called out from a distance.
"Coming!"
She took Paul's hand and jogged toward the community's transportation hub.
A streamlined train, shaped like a silver water droplet, hovered quietly above the tracks.
The doors slid open, and she stepped inside.
The cabin was spacious and bright, with soft light spilling from the ceiling.
"It used to take three flight transfers and half a year's salary to get to Cairo," the neighbor sighed with emotion.
"Now, it takes forty minutes, and it's free," Maria smiled, watching the scenery rapidly recede outside the window.
Cities, deserts, and oceans blurred into patches of color in their field of vision.
The train didn't jolt in the slightest; there was only a faint hum.
"This is all thanks to that man."
"You mean... Chairman Luo Ji?"
"Who else could it be?" the neighbor lowered his voice, his tone filled with awe.
"I heard he isn't human. He's a god sent to save us."
"I heard that too. With just one look, he can cure all diseases."
"A professor at my daughter's university used to be in the ETO. He was arrested a few months ago. I heard those people want to stop all of this."
"Lunatics! They want to destroy our current lives! They are demons!"
The people in the cabin cast agreeable glances.
The worship of the new government and Luo Ji had surpassed reason, becoming a universal faith.
And the former ETO had become the sole dissonance.
Tokyo, Shibuya.
A young man in a hood was stealthily pasting something on a wall.
He was Saito, one of the last remnants of the ETO.
The poster bore Luo Ji's cold face, with a line of blood-red text below it:
A passing girl stopped and cast a curious glance.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm... I'm exposing the truth! He's deceiving you all!" Saito answered nervously.
The girl looked at him like he was an idiot.
"My grandfather's Parkinson's is cured, and my mother's lupus is gone. We moved into a new house and have free energy."
"Why should I believe this piece of trash paper instead of my own eyes?"
She pulled out her personal terminal from her pocket and pressed a button.
Saito hadn't even reacted yet.
Two enforcers in black combat uniforms appeared behind him like ghosts.
Just as he was about to turn around, a cold mechanical hand gripped the back of his neck.
An electric current surged through his body. He instantly lost all his strength and collapsed to the ground.
As he was dragged away, he saw the cold, disgusted looks of the passersby around him.
Tears of despair streamed from Saito's eyes.
He realized that the "humanity" he self-righteously fought for no longer needed his salvation.
He had become an enemy to all of mankind.
Lunar orbit.
An immensely massive ring-shaped space station was slowly rotating, like a silver crown suspended over the moon.
Its scale surpassed the sum of all aerospace creations in human history.
Moored in the space station's dock was a spaceship with sleek lines.
Its hull was a deep, light-absorbing black.
Printed on the bow was the battleship's name.
"All Tomorrow"
"All Tomorrows".
This name signified that humanity intended to win all of its tomorrows.
Inside the bridge, the lighting was dim.
Luo Ji stood alone before the massive observation window.
His reflection overlapped with the vibrant blue planet outside the window.
That was the "paradise" he had built with his own hands.
No disease, no poverty, no conflict.
Humanity's happiness index had reached an unprecedented peak.
The worship of him had also reached its zenith.
Savior.
God.
He listened to these titles, yet there was not a single ripple in his eyes, only the dead silence of one who had seen through hundreds of millions of years of time.
An officer in a black uniform walked up silently behind him.
"Chairman, all systems have been calibrated. We are ready to depart for the rings of Jupiter for resource extraction at any time."
Luo Ji did not turn around.
"Very well."
His figure appeared somewhat lonely within the spacious bridge.
The officer hesitated for a moment before he couldn't help but ask,
"Chairman, can we... really win? Are the Trisolarans really nothing to fear anymore?"
Luo Ji slowly raised his hand, his fingertips gently touching the cold window.
Beneath his fingertips, that beautiful blue planet seemed like a delicate, fragile glass orb.
"Can we win? I don't know, because this hasn't even... begun yet."
He knew that although technology had developed rapidly over the past few years, they were still far from being a match for their future enemies.
Before the Qu arrived, humanity had to be fully prepared. At the very least, they had to...