12: What shocked Americans next was...

Lei Wen didn't just send the email to Professor Liu Zhaodong; in fact, he also sent emails to the official inboxes of the ESA and NASA.

With the assistance of "white flower," three emails with varying content were fired like three invisible arrows from an untraceable virtual origin, piercing the hearts of the three top aerospace and astronomical research institutions on Earth.

He was not acting on impulse.

Sending the complete technical data only to Professor Liu Zhaodong was a decision he had made after careful consideration.

That was not just out of simple patriotism, but rather a cold, strategic consideration based on reality.

He knew very well that once the technical "key" capable of triggering the Fourth Industrial Revolution was made public, or simultaneously grasped by multiple major powers that could not trust each other, the result would never be humanity joining hands to march toward the stars and the sea.

It would only trigger suspicion, contention, and conflict, and might even ignite a devastating arms race before the Faleim People arrived.

Only an entity with a powerful centralized government, capable of utilizing the entire nation's strength to digest this technology under absolute secrecy, could possibly maximize its utility and minimize the risks.

In his view, his motherland was the only choice.

As for NASA and the ESA, what he sent them was another "test paper."

He stripped away all the technical "answers," leaving only pure astronomical data and that imminent warning.

He wanted to see how different systems would react when faced with the same intelligence.

This was both a test and a screening.

After finishing all this, the summer vacation was nearing its end.

Lei Wen said goodbye to his reluctant sister and boarded the high-speed train back to school.

When he sat back in that familiar university classroom, listening to the professor lecturing on linear algebra on the podium, with ordinary blue skies and white clouds outside the window, surrounded by peers worrying about credits and their futures...

He had just personally moved the gears of the world's destiny, but at this moment, his life was as calm as a stagnant pool of water.

No one knew what he had done, and no one knew what this world was about to face.

He was the loneliest calm in the eye of the storm.

...

Located in Darmstadt, Germany, the European Space Operations Centre was one of the neural hubs of the ESA.

The email sent by Lei Wen arrived precisely at the official inbox of its public information department.

Then, it lay there quietly.

Lying with it were thousands of other emails.

There were questions from elementary school students about black holes, photos claimed to be of UFOs by amateur enthusiasts, long-winded arguments from conspiracy theorists about "NASA hiding the truth about aliens," and various requests for commercial cooperation.

The email was opened by a junior information officer.

He scanned it cursorily and saw high-frequency keywords like "HIAL-137" and "alien fleet."

His brain almost instinctively labeled this email: "a fantasy work by a high-IQ lunatic."

This could not be blamed on him.

Since the HIAL-137 incident, they had been receiving dozens of similar emails every day.

Some even attached "alien warship blueprints" made with 3D software that looked plausible.

The only difference with this email was that the astronomical data it contained looked exceptionally professional.

But this information officer was not an astrophysicist; he could not distinguish the truth from the false.

Following procedure, he marked the email as "Low Priority - Awaiting Professional Assessment," and then archived it into a folder that no one paid attention to.

Perhaps it would be unearthed by some intern a few months later, laughed off, and then deleted.

Or perhaps, it would sleep forever in the vast ocean of server data.

Lei Wen's prediction came true.

In a massive bureaucratic system composed of more than twenty member states, focused on coordination and cooperation, with complex hierarchies and rigorous processes, an anonymous email of unknown origin was like a pebble thrown into a swamp; it sank silently without even creating a ripple.

Europe continued to enjoy its tranquility.

...

In stark contrast to the deathly silence of the ESA was the United States on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

Lei Wen originally didn't have high expectations for this email sent to NASA.

He believed that in a society filled with partisan strife, interest group games, and long and tortuous decision-making processes, such subversive intelligence would likely have its precious timeliness consumed in endless hearings and inter-departmental wrangling.

But he underestimated one thing—the immense impact the "HIAL-137 incident" had caused on American society.

In the eyes of the general public, this was century-defining news comparable to the Apollo moon landing, sparking an unprecedented space craze.

And in the eyes of the national leadership, it was a top-level strategic alert concerning the safety and future destiny of the nation and even the world.

Overnight, astronomers and astrophysicists leaped from being somewhat marginal "ivory tower residents" to becoming honored guests of The Pentagon and Capitol Hill, and their status rose accordingly.

And Dr. Alice Thorne, as the first scientist to announce the subversive discovery to the whole world, became the darling of this era.

She was not only the focus of media pursuit but was also personally appointed by the President to head a brand-new, highly empowered institution—the National Deep Space Monitoring and Response Department (NDSM-RD).

This department had the authority to mobilize all detection facilities across the United States and even those deployed in space—from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to the Very Large Array in New Mexico, and even Hubble and Webb in orbit.

At the same time, all data transmitted back from these facilities would be gathered here first for processing.

Congress passed a new budget bill with unprecedented efficiency.

The funding obtained by the NDSM-RD was even substantial enough to immediately launch a massive project called "Sentinel," which planned to launch a new generation of space telescope more powerful than the James Webb Telescope.

Dr. Alice Thorne was currently sitting on the throne of this new empire.

Lei Wen's email crashed precisely into this war machine that had already been wound up and was in a state of maximum alert.

The first recipient of the email was a new employee at the NDSM-RD information processing center.

His name was David Chen, a Chinese-American genius who had just graduated from MIT.

As a newcomer, he was in that phase of doing everything earnestly and diligently, and perhaps even being a bit too pedantic.

When he received this email from "the guide," his first reaction was the same as his counterpart at the ESA—another piece of junk mail.

But he did not have the authority to delete any emails that entered this inbox.

His duty was to classify and assess the risk of every email.

He opened the email and read it carefully.

When he saw those astronomical data that were precise to an infuriating degree, as well as the clear warning about "ten space-time disturbance points," his brain, which had received top-tier scientific training, immediately sensed something unusual.

A lunatic would not speak like this.

The language of a lunatic is chaotic and full of emotion.

But the language of this email was calm, objective, like a technical report, full of unquestionable, cold logic.

David did not dare to delay.

Following the highest security protocols, he marked the email as "Level A-3: Potential High-Value Intelligence Awaiting Verification," and then clicked the "Escalate" button.

In the NDSM-RD's flat and efficient command system, the process of "escalation" was astonishingly fast.

Within just one hour, the email had been confirmed by his supervisor and the department director, and finally appeared on Dr. Alice Thorne's office computer in the form of a red urgent document.

"Another 'oracle'?"

Dr. Alice Thorne looked at the file on the screen and wearily pinched the bridge of her nose.

On her desk were three half-drunk cups of cold coffee.

Since taking charge of the NDSM-RD, her average sleep time per day had not exceeded six hours.

She had to process countless similar reports every day.

There were those from religious groups claiming that HIAL-137 was the Promised Land of God; there were those from civilian organizations warning her not to respond, so as not to invite a "Dark Forest Strike."

She instinctively wanted to drag this file into the trash bin.

But the sender's name, "the guide," and the unusual professionalism in the report made her stop.

She patiently continued reading.

When she saw the precise atmospheric composition data of those three planets, her brows furrowed.

When she saw the dimensions and mass of that "anomalous structure," precise to the kilometer and billion-ton level, her expression became serious.

And when she saw the final passage regarding the "ten space-time disturbance points," "five times the speed of light," and the "negative gravitational lensing field," she suddenly sat up straight in her chair, and terrifying, sharp light erupted from her blue eyes, which were bloodshot from fatigue.

Why?

Because every piece of data in this email precisely answered all the most confusing and unexplainable mysteries that she and her team had faced over the past three months!

Through the Webb telescope, they had indeed detected signals of free oxygen and water vapor in the atmospheres of those three planets, but the signals were extremely weak and full of interference; they could not build an accurate model.

And this email provided the perfect, unique answer!

Through the gravitational lensing effect, they had indeed calculated that the mass of that orbital structure was astonishingly large, but their model had huge errors.

And this email provided a precise value that could perfectly explain all the gravitational anomalies!

What made her feel the most creeped out was the term "negative gravitational lensing field."

Just last week, one of her gravitational wave research teams submitted a confidential report.

The report claimed that they had observed an extremely weak, incomprehensible space-time background "noise" in the direction of HIAL-137 as it traveled toward the Solar System.

The characteristics of that noise did not resemble any known astrophysical phenomenon; instead, it was more like space itself was "wrapping" something in a peculiar way.

(For plot needs, objects truly traveling at superluminal speeds are completely undetectable by means of detection limited to the speed of light.)

And the "negative gravitational lensing field" perfectly explained this "noise"!

The sender of this email not only knew about the situation in the HIAL-137 Galaxy, but he even... knew about the NDSM-RD's most confidential, yet-to-be-publicized research progress!

This was no longer a coincidence, nor was it a guess.

This was one-way transparency.

Dr. Alice Thorne felt a chill crawl up her spine.

She immediately grabbed the red internal phone on the desk that connected to The White House.

Her voice, calm and resolute, echoed in the quiet office.

"Connect me to the White House Situation Room."

"There is ALPHA-level intelligence that needs to be reported to the President and the National Security Council immediately."