Chapter 122 Painting Within a Painting_1

Lin Sen, "I understand. Did Tyler leave any message for me before he died?"

Marcus, "Before his sacrifice, Tyler asked me to tell you that he will do the opposite of what he himself would do."

Lin Sen instantly understood Tyler's plan; this message said it all.

It must be said, Tyler's plan was feasible, perhaps the most viable plan besides escaping and the threat from Heisen, and even more viable than Lin Sen's own plan. It could serve as a backup to Lin Sen's plan.

Given the choice between using Tyler's plan and Logic's plan, Lin Sen would definitely choose Tyler's.

In the doomsday battle, what the Trisolarans feared most should have been Logic's Heisen deterrence plan, but this plan was the lowest priority in Lin Sen's heart.

The highest priority was Lin Sen's own frontal plan, which also had the smallest chance of success. Next was Tyler's plan, and only then Logic's Heisen deterrence. Not only that, there was also the escape plan as the last resort, and now it was up to the Trisolarans to respond.

Lin Sen, "I understand. Did Hines leave any message?"

Marcus, "Hines told me to tell you that not only will he carry out Tyler's plan, but he will also execute his own."

"Additionally, after Tyler became a quantum life form, he also sent back a few segments of consciousness through Hines. Tyler indeed became a higher-dimensional quantum life form, a wondrous world, where he saw sights never seen before."

"Oh, when Hines entered the hibernation center, he saw a painting and casually mentioned, 'Lin Sen should like this painting, it's a pity you can't paint on it anymore, the painting is very damaged!'"

Marcus knew this message was meant for Lin Sen from Hines, but he was unclear about the meaning of this cryptic message.

Lin Sen's pupils contracted, his emotions visibly shifted, but he quickly regained his composure. It was a rare loss of control for Lin Sen, but the message was too crucial.

Marcus, "Do we need to wake Mr. Hines up?"

Lin Sen, "Not for now, the right moment for Hines to wake up is not yet. Go inform Xia Lamon to wake Rey Diaz, and tell him, his plan can commence."

Tyler indeed guessed Lin Sen's speculation, which was also why Lin Sen asked Tyler to research anti-macroelectrons; Lin Sen could not be sure if his speculation would succeed.

Now that Tyler had observed it in the quantum thought space and confirmed that his speculation was valid. It could be said, the last piece of Lin Sen's plan finally fell into place. Now Lin Sen could truly face the Trisolarans, finally on equal footing.

All the plans Lin Sen had before, including the escape battle, Moon Base, controlled nuclear fusion, quantum technology, resource exchange,... and so forth, had all succeeded, and even with his knowledge of the secret behind Whirlwind Stomp (The Waterdrop), the chances of winning in the doomsday battle were actually less than ten percent.

Don't underestimate a ten percent chance of victory, it is an incredibly large figure, and even represents a qualitative change, from seeing no hope at all to having a chance.

However, the phrase "you can't paint in a painting anymore" could directly add thirty percent to the victory rate, being the most crucial part of the plan.

If his future plan also succeeds, allowing humanity to have a big bang and avoiding the generalized mental handicap of the new humans, this could also add an additional ten percent to the victory rate.

The mental handicap of the new humans isn't because they have a lower IQ, they might actually have a higher IQ, but their cognitive ability is too low; cognition is the ability to understand, analyze, and judge things.

Overall, humanity has a fifty percent chance of victory in the doomsday battle, an equal match. If Lin Sen isn't willing to commit to this fight, he wouldn't deserve to come to the Trisolaran world.

The final battle will be a test of wits on the battlefield, No. 7 will certainly hold nothing back, and Lin Sen even less so.

On a fair battlefield, why would Lin Sen be afraid of No. 7? Not only is he not afraid, Lin Sen will make good use of No. 7's abilities, as Lin Sen's sights are already set on the post-war era.

Although the phrase "you can't paint in a painting anymore" also has great significance for PDC or all humanity, Lin Sen doesn't plan to share it now. He needs to use this to outsmart the Trisolarans.

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Especially the sentence "This painting is quite damaged," Tyler was telling Lin Sen that neither PDC nor humanity could achieve much with it, as the timing was not ripe.

Lin Sen was unsure whether the Trisolarans could decipher this sentence, considering the presence of No. 7. From now on, he had to absolutely hide his interest in this sentence and preferably make the Trisolarans completely overlook it.

It would also be best to give No. 7 something to do to keep him from overthinking and actually deciphering the sentence, which would be rather troublesome. However, if they did decipher it, that didn't mean Lin Sen had no chance of winning, but it could reduce his chances by ten percent.

Some believed that if Lin Sen could decode Tyler's cryptic message in an instant, then the Trisolarans might also be able to decode it.

The reason Lin Sen could decode it was that it had always been his suspicion, yet unconfirmed. If Tyler hadn't sent back this message, Lin Sen would have had to carry out verification experiments openly, which would also have exposed them too early and surely would not have been able to deceive the Trisolarans.

The Trisolarans would not easily crack it, not because they were unclear about information in quantum space, but because they were unlikely to make the connection between them. The Snowfield Project, which is actually easily identifiable in the original text, was not recognized by the Trisolarans, which shows their low level of association.

But the current Trisolarans have clearly improved their way of thinking a lot compared to those in the original text, and knowing that they may not necessarily win, they would certainly go all out, so it is very likely that they will decode this cryptic message.

…

In the Trisolaran world.

The Leader: "We revealed too much information to humanity in the Trisolaran game, and they still discovered the Quantum Sensing Array.

"Reality can sometimes be so ironic. We once constructed the human-formation computer with manpower, and now humans have also built a thought quantum sensing array with manpower.

"Does this discovery affect our plan?"

Science Governor: "It's an unavoidable situation. Tyler has been studying Ball Lightning all along, and the discovery of the quantum sensing array was inevitable. It's just surprising that they managed to construct a thought quantum sensing array with just four people.

"Indeed, it's a genius idea, but it seems to have no impact on our plan. Higher dimensions do not have a substantive effect on lower ones. Meanwhile, our Waterdrop can use spatial curvature to create tiny, almost unobservable low-speed zones that can change space and easily destroy it.

(Low-speed zones are also called Dark Domains, or Slow Mist. If using curvature navigation at the speed of light, the resulting Slow Mist trail is very obvious. If lightly using curvature navigation, the Slow Mist trail produced is almost invisible.)

"As for the issue of the high speed of matter-antimatter electron pairs, there is also a flaw that Hines and Lin Yun are in real space. They cannot move along with the matter-antimatter electron pairs, but killing them is simple. As long as they are killed, the electron pairs cannot move at high speed anymore.

"We do not care about this plan."

No. 7 (Strategy Governor): "Regarding the thought quantum sensing array and the matter-antimatter electron pairs, of course, we need not worry, but the explosive power of the matter-antimatter electron pair aggregation is also quite terrifying, even capable of completely destroying the surface of the Moon. However, this is certainly not their real plan. I believe they must have another hidden plan."

Science Governor: "The power of the matter-antimatter electron pair aggregation is indeed great, but it will cause no harm to the Waterdrop.

"Moreover, after the explosion of the matter-antimatter electron pair aggregation, Tyler and Lin Yun will be completely dissipated, and Lin Sen and Hines will become idiots, which would actually be more advantageous for us."

No. 7 (Strategy Governor): "Additionally, the last words spoken by Hines seemed abnormal, they didn't appear to be just about a painting but rather a cryptic phrase, though I do not know what it refers to."

Science Governor: "The phrase 'you can't paint within a painting anymore' should mean that the painting cannot be altered anymore, but using it in that context really doesn't make sense."

The Leader: "Cryptic language… 'you can't paint within a painting anymore'… Although it's unclear what it refers to, that sentence is likely problematic.

"Strategy Governor, you need to ponder this sentence. You need to observe whether Lin Sen shows any interest in this sentence in the future.

"We need to pay attention to everything about the painting, let's not have another incident like the First Emperor of Qin. Lin Sen was able to identify the First Emperor from a report on the photolithography machine; we cannot be too careful."

No. 7 (Strategy Governor): "Yes, Leader."

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