199: Chapter 199 Art Gambling, Faith Carnival

The Minister of Defense withdrew his hands from the table, placed them on his knees, and leaned forward slightly:

"According to the latest intelligence, Fourth Prince Daodun seems to be extremely obsessed with human physical art."

"Especially those natural and pure arts that have not been modified by technology."

"Perhaps we can start from this point and find a glimmer of hope for Sakura Country."

Shigeru Hasegawa released his hands from the tabletop, placed them on his knees, and leaned forward slightly, repeating the words of the Minister of Defense as if chewing on this single ray of light filtering through.

The Minister of Defense stated his proposal word by word.

"Since Prince Dao Dun likes art, we will send all the art that Sakura Country can currently produce to Prince Dao Dun."

"Music, fine arts, film and television... All forms of art will be packaged together, and let Prince Dao Dun choose for himself."

"There might be something in here that can truly touch His Highness's heart."

Someone beside him asked, "Is it all?"

The Minister of Defense nodded, "That's right, it's all."

That person asked again, lowering his volume unconsciously to the lowest:

"Including those mosaicked film and television arts?"

The Minister of Defense nodded again, his voice deep, hard, and leaving no room for maneuver:

"Of course, all of them, everything must be sent."

"Only in this way can we increase the probability."

"As long as there is one piece that Prince Dao Dun is interested in, our country won't have to die."

"Baggie Yalu! You are gambling!" A voice stood up from Shigeru Hasegawa's oblique rear.

The Chief Cabinet Secretary pressed his palms on the tabletop and roared with irrepressible anger,

"Gambling the entire country on an artistic interest whose source is unknown."

"Once we lose the gamble, everyone will die!"

The Minister of Defense leaned back a little, still looking straight at the Chief Cabinet Secretary's constantly trembling eyebrows.

"Otherwise, do you have any other way?"

"The million-ship fleet of Zeta Star is less than a few months away from the Solar System."

"We have already tried to repeatedly consult the Lighthouse Country through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Security Agency regarding the analysis of Prince Dao Dun's physical preferences, and they have completely ignored us so far."

"Sakura Country has no way to independently develop any high-civilization weapons sufficient to resist the Zeta fleet in the short term."

"All our options combined add up to only this one path: either gamble, or wait for death."

He spread his hands out on the tabletop again, his tone returning to that extremely calm helplessness,

"If you have another way, speak up now."

The Chief Cabinet Secretary did not speak again.

No one else in the entire conference room answered.

Except for this method, none of them could come up with a second path.

The million-ship fleet of Zeta Star crushed Trisolaris into black hole residues within a few seconds. Facing such an existence that left no room for negotiation from the technical level to the desire for destruction, they really couldn't think of any other way to go except to use some opportunistic methods.

Shigeru Hasegawa put his hands back on the table from his knees, crossed his fingers, and spoke after a long time.

His voice was low and tired, but every word was like the last decision made for the survival of the country before signing the death sentence of his own fate:

"Send all the art of Sakura Country... all of it out."

"Every single piece!"

...

India, New Delhi, Prime Minister's Office.

This building, converted from the British colonial-era Viceroy's House, is perched on Raisina Hill,

Its solemn sandstone dome and reddish-brown colonnades form New Delhi's most recognizable skyline profile.

At this moment, deep underground in the Prime Minister's Office, in a crisis response room completely retrofitted with electromagnetic shielding, the atmosphere was colder than those sandstone pillars.

Prime Minister Narendra Singh sat at the head of the conference table, with a briefing just urgently submitted by the Defence Research and Development Organisation spread out in front of him.

The debris spectrum printed on half an A4 page was an irregular dark spot still decaying after Three-Body Star System was swallowed by a black hole.

Sitting on both sides of him were the Minister of Home Affairs, the Minister of Defense, the Foreign Secretary, the National Security Advisor, and the Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation.

Everyone was repeatedly circulating those pages of data cross-validated by the global astronomical observation network. The lights were coldly white, and no one spoke first.

The Minister of Defense put the briefing back on the tabletop, his voice hoarse and low:

"Trisolaris is a Level 2 civilization. Three stars, twelve planets."

"We aren't even a Level 1 civilization."

"They wiped an entire galaxy from the universe in a few seconds, and they can wipe us from the universe in a few seconds."

"We have no countermeasures, no warning time, no escape window."

The National Security Advisor pushed a tablet onto the tabletop, the screen displaying real-time public opinion summary data from all over the country.

His tone was suppressed and anxious:

"The lower-class people, especially those lower-caste groups, after learning the news, have all started celebrating in the streets."

"It's not just an occasional few people, it's on a large scale; entire residential areas and entire markets are simultaneously flooded with spontaneously gathered crowds."

"They look like they are celebrating a festival that fell from the sky."

Prime Minister Narendra Singh raised his head, his brows tightly locked:

"This news... this level of classified news, how did those lower castes know about it?"

The National Security Advisor switched the data on the tablet to another page, his tone still suppressed, but every word carried the helplessness of having to accept it after repeated verification:

"Prant's side leaked it themselves."

"According to intelligence, the Deep State mastering high-civilization technology has respectively supported Biden and Prant as proxies."

"Now the internal struggle between Biden and Prant has reached a white-hot, life-or-death stage."

"In order to put pressure on Biden, Prant directly leaked the news of the destruction of Trisolaris, along with the intelligence that the million-ship fleet of Zeta Star is jumping toward the Solar System, to the global media."

"Not just the lower castes in our country, people all over the world know about this now."

The Prime Minister crossed his hands on the tabletop and remained silent for a good while.

His voice became extremely tired under the pale light:

"Biden and Prant fought back and forth in the Lighthouse Country, and as a result, India was directly swept across the border by their 'combat aftermath'."

"Their internal political struggle has pushed our domestic situation into deeper chaos."

The conference room fell into a brief silence.

Outside the window, the early morning street lamps of New Delhi were dyeing everything into a translucent grayish-yellow mist, appearing exceptionally heavy inside this basement.

Then the Prime Minister placed his hands back on the table and slowly spoke: "I understand those lower castes."

"Their lives have indeed been extremely difficult."

"Having lived at the bottom of the caste system for too long and been oppressed for too long, they want destruction; I am not surprised by this emotion itself."

"But they are all cheering, all celebrating like it's a festival—that's what I can't understand."

He raised his head, his gaze sweeping across every high-ranking official present,

"Can anyone explain?"

The Minister of Home Affairs leaned forward slightly and analyzed tentatively:

"Perhaps... because they have had an unsatisfactory life for a long time, and now seeing that the alien fleet is about to destroy the Earth, they hold the mentality of 'everyone will die together anyway', and simply walk through the final journey happily?"

"This psychology is not without precedent in history."

"If it is this psychology, then most people should have completely abandoned any scruples about social order by now," the Minister of Defense immediately retorted.

"Destruction, smashing, looting, and plundering—these behaviors would break out on a large scale in every previous social panic."

"But according to the statistics of grassroots police stations across the country these days, the riot incidents targeting public facilities and business districts have completely no upward trend."

"No one is robbing banks, no one is smashing bus stops, no one is burning down places of worship everywhere like every time a religious conflict broke out in the past."

"Those lower-caste crowds are just dancing in the street, like a wedding, like a festival, like they got something no one else could get."

"This completely defies common sense."

The Prime Minister slowly withdrew his hands from the tabletop and placed them on his knees, nodding slightly.

All the high-ranking officials present also turned their gazes to the National Security Advisor at the same time.

At present, in the entire conference room, the only person with substantive clues to question was him.

The National Security Advisor withdrew his hands from the tablet and remained silent for a moment.

His tone was lighter than before, but every word sounded like it had just been fished out of ice water:

"Because those lower castes believe that the Grey Aliens are celestials."

"They do not think the Zeta Star people are an alien high civilization; they directly equate the Grey Aliens with the celestials in mythology."

He raised his gaze from the tabletop and continued word by word:

"According to the doctrine of reincarnation, lower castes killed by the celestials with their own hands will be reborn into high castes in the next life."

"The reason they are cheering now is that they are waiting to be killed by such noble celestials as the Grey Aliens."

"As long as they are blown to death by the weapons of the Grey Aliens, they can all be reincarnated as Brahmins in the next life."

"This is why they are celebrating in groups on the streets."

"They are waiting to be personally executed by the celestials destined by heaven to descend, and the execution itself is the only class transition they can wait for in their lives."

After hearing this sentence, not a single person in the entire conference room spoke.