A2-08 Heart of Peace

On the night before the handover, you make an inner decision: you will not turn yourself into another Luo Ji.

Luo Ji's sixty-two years were heroic, but they were also tragic. He turned himself into a symbol, a weapon, a living deterrence apparatus. You do not want to become that kind of person.

You believe — you choose to believe — that the highest form of deterrence is not fear, but understanding.

If the Trisolarans and humanity could establish some form of communication, some foundation of trust, perhaps deterrence could be transcended. Perhaps the button need never exist at all.

You know this idea would be mocked by Wade, dismissed as naive by the military. But you recall a phrase you read in university: "If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Luo Ji gazed into the abyss for sixty-two years — he survived, but he also became part of it.

You do not want to become the abyss.

Handover day.

The ceremony proceeds with solemn gravity. When Luo Ji emerges from the underground bunker, you notice his stride — slow, heavy, like a man who has just set down a mountain.

He walks up to you and places the button terminal in your palm.

You accept the cold little device, but then you do something no one expected.

You address the globally broadcast cameras:

"Today I accept this button not because I am willing to press it — but because I believe that one day, we will no longer need it. I will protect peace. I will seek dialogue. The future between humanity and Trisolaran civilization should not be defined solely by destruction and fear."

Thunderous applause. Billions are moved by your words.

But four light-years away —

The Trisolaran surveillance system transmits every word, every micro-expression back to the Trisolaran homeworld. The Trisolaran Princeps watches the broadcast and reaches a conclusion:

The new Swordholder will not press the button. Now is the optimal moment to attack.

You walk into the underground bunker and sit in the chair. The button rests beside your right hand.

You take a deep breath. Peace. Understanding. Hope.

You close your eyes, drawing strength from your conviction.

What you don't know is — ten light-minutes away, six droplet-shaped Trisolaran probes have already begun accelerating, hurtling toward Earth's three gravitational wave antennas at extreme velocity.

If the antennas are destroyed, the button becomes meaningless — without the antennas, the gravitational wave broadcast cannot be sent. Deterrence will become an empty shell.

And you, at this moment, are immersed in your belief in peace.

Ten minutes later, the alarms sound.