“Hello? Academician Lu, is your retreat finally over?”
State Administration for National Defense office.
Director Li was sitting at the desk reviewing documents when he unexpectedly received a call from Lu Zhou, making him ecstatic.
On one hand, it was because Lu Zhou had suddenly ended his retreat. He knew that the research must have made progress. On the other hand, it was because Lu Zhou hadn’t called him for a long time!
However, just when he had gotten up and was about to hear what Lu Zhou had to say to him, he noticed that the tone on the other end of the phone was a bit weird.
At least, it was different from what he had imagined.
“Enough small talk, what’s the matter with the prehistoric relic on Mars?”
“What… What’s the matter?”
Director Li was confused by this question. He had a dazed expression, and he didn’t respond for a while.
Lu Zhou realized that this statement might be misunderstood, so he took a deep breath and changed his statement.
“Okay, let me ask you in another way. During the past few days of my retreat, how did the relic of the Martian civilization and the news of extraterrestrial civilization suddenly become public?”
“Oh oh, that’s what you are talking about.” Director Li leaned back in the office chair and said with a smile, “This is quite complicated… And didn’t I tell you about this a while ago?”
Lu Zhou: “???”
What the hell?!
When?
Seeing how there was no response from the other side of the phone for a long time, Director Li couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed. He coughed lightly and spoke.
“Don’t you remember? It was probably five or six days ago. I called you at that time, hoping that you would come to Beijing for a meeting. But you told me to ‘do whatever’ and then hung up. I heard that you were in a retreat, so I didn’t continue to call you.”
Lu Zhou had no recollection of any of this happening.
“… So you just did whatever?”
Director Li smiled embarrassedly and said, “Of course not! How can this kind of thing be taken lightly… We held three meetings, and all of the relevant experts were invited. We solicited opinions and a vote was cast. In the end, the resolution to disclose the relics of Mars was passed with 310 votes against 270 votes. So the top-secret seal was lifted.
“Although I abstained from voting at the time, I went back and thought about it afterward. The experts in international relations really made sense. In the case of unclear interests, the risk of contacting the extraterrestrial civilization is too high. Other countries will suspect us. If anything goes wrong, the diplomatic relations we have managed over the past ten years may be destroyed. Or even worse, it will be a diplomatic crisis.
“Anyway, we are the only ones who can send people to Mars. The initiative has been in our hands from the beginning. We don’t need to sneak around. We can directly and honestly engage with the extraterrestrial civilization. This is a bargaining chip to establish an international organization that can represent the voice of all of mankind. This is the right way to build a community with a shared future for mankind!”
Lu Zhou listened to the passionate speech Director Li made on the other end of the phone. His head was getting dizzy.
Whether it was the Mars landing office or the high-level officials at Chang’an Avenue, everyone seemed to believe that the voice from The Gates of Hell belonged to an extraterrestrial civilization.
And according to their “inference”, the technological level of this civilization was high.
The ability to use technologies that were completely unknown on Earth was one reason. The ability to survive on Mars with supplies cut off was the second, and the estimated lifespan of billions of years was the third. Plus they used the proof of the ABC conjecture as a threshold for communication. They had surpassed human civilization, at least in mathematics.
And mathematics was the foundation of all scientific research.
There was nothing wrong with this analysis. If Lu Zhou didn’t know the inside story, he would probably come to the same conclusion.
However, the problem was that he knew the inside story.
That sacred relic was really just an “object”, a relic left by a civilization that came from a certain time period. There was no doubt that it was an extraterrestrial civilization, but it was obviously different from the extraterrestrial civilization that most people had imagined.
Human civilization had no hope of establishing diplomatic relations with a planet a few light-years away using this “relic”…
Of course, Lu Zhou could pretend that he didn’t know anything. After all, with his current power, trying to hide something wasn’t difficult at all.
But now that the problem had risen to an international level, it would be more difficult if he wanted to operate secretly.
For example, the evidence of Martian relics had won China a large amount of diplomatic capital, but at the same time, it had also allowed China to take on considerable international responsibility. People all over the world were ready for the first close contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. Even if it did not affect his “treasure hunt” plan to Mars, it still added a lot of variables.
There was no response on the phone for a long time. Director Li, who had been talking for a long time, couldn’t help but feel ignored. He worried that Lu Zhou wasn’t listening, so he asked, “Um… Do you have any questions?”
“No…”
“You didn’t call me for this, right?” Director Li said with a bit of hesitation, “You were the one who said that it didn’t matter?”
“This is my fault… But you are right, there are benefits to being public.”
If he were in charge, he would definitely wait until he returned from Mars. However, the state didn’t know the inside story, and he couldn’t blame them too much. After all, from the perspective of national interests, this was the correct choice for China.
Lu Zhou sighed and changed the subject.
“Forget about it, let’s not talk about this… There is one more thing I have to tell you.”
Director Li suddenly felt energized. He could tell something big was coming.
“Please speak!”
However, he still underestimated how amazing Lu Zhou’s next words were.
Lu Zhou paused for a moment and spoke.
“The ABC conjecture…
“We proved it.”
…
“What happened?”
Inside the LSPM research room, Schultz saw the weird expression on Lu Zhou’s face when he came back. Schultz couldn’t help but feel anxious.
Lu Zhou looked at these three teammates who trusted him. He took a deep breath and spoke slowly.
“There is an important thing that I have to confess to you.”
Schultz, Shinichi Mochizuki, and Perelman exchanged glances. They unanimously read the confused gaze from each other’s eyes.
The room went silent.
Just as Lu Zhou was thinking about breaking the silence, Schultz suddenly opened his mouth to do this for him.
“So… You are getting married soon?”
Lu Zhou, who had been hesitating for a long time, nearly choked on his saliva.
“Ahem, what? Why would you think of that?”
Schultz shrugged and spoke.
“Because your expression is too serious… In my estimation, that’s the only possibility.”
“I know.” After staring at Lu Zhou for a long time, Mochizuki’s expression gradually turned weird. He said, “What you want to say is… You are actually an alien?”
“Okay, stop with the guesses.” Lu Zhou sighed and said, “I’m not an alien, but… how do I say it, the research project we did, actually has something to do with an extraterrestrial civilization.”
Although he knew what the truth was, he should cooperate with the official state announcement. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain it clearly. Lu Zhou had already made up a set of white lies in his mind, but before he had the time to tell the story, the three of them had already frozen there.
Obviously, during this period of research, just like Lu Zhou, they had no idea about the incident that had caused a turmoil in the outside world.
Lu Zhou went straight to the point.
“I’ll just talk about the key points.
“Basically, the ABC conjecture is a conversation threshold set by an extraterrestrial civilization. It is a prerequisite for us to be able to have a dialogue with each other… It may seem like I am crazy, but it is true. If you don’t believe me, just watch the news.
“So… I apologize.
“I may have used you guys.”
Perelman: “…”
Schultz: “…?”
Shinichi Mochizuki: “…?!”
