"Ignite."
On the dark side of the moon, at the Uranus Dockyard, a command was issued.
Thousands of pitch-black unmanned mining ships silently surged out from the massive honeycomb-like berths.
They had no portholes and no life support systems; every inch of space was dedicated to engines and mining equipment.
These cold, steel worker bees split up—one portion lunged toward the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, while the other charged without hesitation toward the frontier of the solar system, the Kuiper Belt.
They had only one mission: plunder.
To plunder every asteroid, meteorite, comet, and chunk of ice that could be converted into resources, and then, like the most loyal worker ants, transport this "food" back to the nest.
...
Jupiter's orbit.
A metallic creation even more massive than the moon was slowly making its final attitude adjustments.
It resembled a giant metal octopus made of alloys and pipelines—Orbital Harvester-01.
As the final module was assembled, this "octopus" extended its gathering tentacles, which were thousands of kilometers long, plunging them deep into Jupiter's churning, magnificent, and violent atmosphere.
"Begin extraction."
The command was issued, and the fusion furnace at the core of the harvester let out a low roar.
A massive gravitational field, acting like an invisible giant pump, began to frantically extract hydrogen, helium, methane, and other gaseous elements from Jupiter's body.
The Great Red Spot of Jupiter, which had once been a magnificent landscape in the eyes of Earthlings, was now nothing more than a resource-rich gas tank.
...
Mercury.
This planet, the closest to the sun and scorched by endless light and heat, had completely changed its appearance.
Its surface was covered by an endless layer of black, mirror-like solar receivers.
These receivers converted the sun's violent energy into power to drive countless nanobot production lines on the planet's surface.
Mercury was no longer a planet.
It was a colossal super-factory that used the entire planet as its foundation.
A massive amount of resources continuously converged from all directions of the solar system to the same coordinates—the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point L1.
There, a mad engineering project had already begun.
The Dyson Ring project was officially launched.
...
Aboard the *All Tomorrows* space station, at the PDC Supreme Council.
"According to the latest engineering report, at our current resource extraction rate, the completion time for the first phase of the Dyson Ring project is estimated to be in one hundred and twenty years."
The newly appointed Minister of the PDC Engineering Department, a young man with eyes as sharp as an eagle's, pointed at the despair-inducing progress bar on the holographic projection.
"Too slow," Luo Ji said, sitting in the main seat.
"This is already the limit," the minister said, wiping cold sweat from his forehead. "We have already extracted all the viable resources from the asteroid belt and the outer edges of the Kuiper Belt. The time cost for mining deeper is too high."
"Then dig somewhere else." Luo Ji's voice was calm.
"Somewhere... somewhere else?"
Luo Ji raised his hand and lightly tapped the star map.
It was a dim point of light.
Pluto.
Dead silence filled the conference room.
Everyone's eyes widened as they stared at Luo Ji, wondering if this man had truly gone mad.
Say's lips moved. She wanted to say something, like "That is one of the nine major planets of the solar system," or "That is a milestone of human space exploration," but when she met Luo Ji's cold eyes, all the words caught in her throat.
She knew that in this man's eyes, nothing was sacred or inviolable.
"I... I object!" A gray-haired old astronomer stood up, trembling. "Chairman Luo Ji! The disappearance of Pluto could cause gravitational anomalies in the solar system!"
Luo Ji glanced at him. "Let humanity survive long enough to see those anomalies first!"
"Draft a *Solar System High-Value Celestial Body Resource Conversion Plan*."
"Pluto, Ceres, Io... All unmanned planets with stable geological structures and abundant resource reserves are to be added to the dismantling list."
"Before dismantling, just keep a complete backup of their geological data."
The council passed the resolution.
Or rather, Luo Ji's will became the resolution.
When the news broke, the globe was in an uproar.
"What the hell? They want to dismantle Pluto? Then wasn't my childhood memorization of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto all for nothing?"
On the internet, the brief panic and confusion quickly fermented.
But this sentiment lasted for less than twenty-four hours before it was drowned out by another, more fanatical and surging wave of voices.
"So what if we dismantle a planet? As long as it makes human civilization awesome, forget Pluto, we can even dismantle the sun!"
"Exactly! A bunch of bleeding hearts are whining again. Did you forget how the Trisolarans treated us? Did you forget how Chairman Luo Ji pulled us out of hell?"
"For the great rejuvenation of humanity, never mind a broken planet, you can take my life at any time! Long live Chairman Luo Ji!"
Compared to the great future of human civilization, dismantling a few unmanned planets was not worth mentioning.
The fanaticism of the public exceeded everyone's expectations.
Thus, a Planet Cracker Fleet composed of the most advanced engineering ships set off.
They used powerful gravitational fields to tear apart planets like Pluto and Ceres, turning them into the most primitive building materials.
...
Twenty years later.
A black exploration ship hovered quietly in Earth's orbit.
Luo Ji stood before the porthole, gazing into the distance.
At the edge of his vision, a giant ring spanning between the Earth and the sun, shining with a cold metallic luster, had finally completed the closure of its final module.
The Dyson Ring was built.
It was like a sacred crown placed upon the sun by humanity's own hands, silently and proudly declaring that this insignificant yet arrogant race had become the true master of this star system.
It absorbed one ten-thousandth of the star's energy, an amount sufficient to support the exponential, explosive development of human civilization.
And on the inner side of the Dyson Ring, which was tens of thousands of kilometers wide, an even more massive and ferocious giant structure had already taken shape.
It was a super platform resembling a starry fortress.
Its name was Star Harvester. While the Dyson Ring absorbed stellar energy, the Star Harvester extracted stellar matter.
"Chairman, we did it!"
A young officer walked up behind Luo Ji, his voice trembling slightly from extreme excitement.
"This is a miracle! A divine miracle! We... we really did it!"
Luo Ji did not turn around.
His gaze passed through the majestic Dyson Ring, passed through the nascent war fortress, and looked toward the deeper, darker void of the universe.
In that darkness lurked a race named Qu, a shadow that still made him feel suffocated to this day.
He had forged all of this.
He had turned the entire solar system into the arsenal of human civilization.
Yet the sense of crisis in his heart, tempered by hundreds of millions of years of hellish torture, inexplicably grew even stronger.
"It's not enough."
Luo Ji softly spat out these words.
The joy on the young officer's face froze.
"Chairman?"
Luo Ji turned around. "All of this is still far from enough."
"Our development is still too slow."