In Crisis Era Year 12, Hubble II detects a new wake in interstellar dust after the Trisolaran fleet crosses another dust patch. Scientists determine that ten small objects have separated from the fleet and are accelerating faster than the main body, meaning Trisolaran probes will reach the Solar System decades ahead of the invasion fleet. General Fitzroy notices that the probes were launched at the same time Luo Ji proposed broadcasting a message with the sun and around the time Trisolaris again ordered his assassination. From this timing, Fitzroy concludes that Luo Ji must matter enormously to Trisolaris, even if humanity still does not understand why.

The chapter then shifts to everyday life on Earth, where technical progress and social strain now coexist. Tianti III, a new ocean-based space elevator, symbolizes humanity’s rapid expansion into orbit, and large orbital structures are becoming commonplace. Yet ordinary citizens are also receiving grain ration cards again, and old men such as Zhang Yuanchao, Yang Jinwen, and Miao Fuquan speak fatalistically about shortages, alien occupation, burial, and death. Their conversation shows how the war effort is beginning to force society backward materially even as it advances technologically.

Zhang Beihai visits nuclear physicist Ding Yi at the Third Nuclear Fusion Test Base just after a major fusion breakthrough. Zhang Beihai is alarmed because practical fusion power will immediately intensify a strategic struggle over spacecraft design: Aerospace favors fusion-powered ships that still rely on reaction mass, while Space Command wants radiation-drive ships capable of true deep-space operations. Zhang Beihai believes that choosing the wrong path will trap humanity in a limited, defensive fleet that cannot meet the Trisolarans on favorable terms. Realizing that official persuasion will not be enough, Zhang Beihai decides that only an extreme act can change the future course of space development.

To carry out that decision, Zhang Beihai buys three iron meteorites, machines them into small rods, and covertly turns them into special pistol rounds. After months of preparation in orbit with the Special Contingent of Future Reinforcements, he leaves Base 1 secretly and waits in space near Yellow River Station during an aerospace conference. When the conference participants gather outside for a customary group photograph, Zhang Beihai uses a pistol fitted with a scope to fire meteorite bullets across ten kilometers of vacuum at three key aerospace leaders who favor the old propulsion line. The bullets kill the targets and wound others, and because the projectiles are meteorite fragments that shatter on impact, the attack appears to be a bizarre meteor shower rather than murder.

As Zhang Beihai returns to base, members of the ETO discuss the assassination in the virtual Three Body world. They recognize that Zhang Beihai is exceptionally dangerous: calm, ruthless, farsighted, and willing to violate rules for a strategic goal. Even so, they decide not to interfere because Trisolaris believes humanity’s push toward radiation-drive research will waste effort under sophon-imposed scientific limits. Soon afterward, Zhang Beihai departs with the future reinforcement contingent for hibernation. Chang Weisi gives him a letter of recommendation for future commanders, and their farewell underscores both Zhang Beihai’s singular resolve and the bleak uncertainty hanging over humanity’s future.