120: Chapter 120 Crisis and Upheaval, Trump's Plan

Rosenthal leaned in a step, lowered his voice, and stuffed the core strategic analysis directly into Prant's ears:

"This is extremely advantageous for you!"

"All the current chaos can be attributed to one person: Biden!"

"It's his incompetence, his containment policy, that has left the entire Lighthouse Country completely defenseless in the face of extraterrestrial forces!"

"For your upcoming campaign speeches, you don't need to say much. The core is to grasp one key point..."

He paused, extended a finger, and pointed at the tie clip on Prant's chest.

" 'Even in this twisted, erroneous spacetime, I can lead all of humanity to find cosmic truth, achieve a technological leap, and break out of the Solar System!' "

Prant shoved the tablet back into Rosenthal's hand, stood at the edge of the parking lot, looked up at the line of "π = 3" still hanging in the sky, then looked down at his own polished leather shoes, and finally raised his head to look at Rosenthal.

He crossed his arms over his chest and said in the tone of a businessman confirming a bottom-line price at a negotiation table:

"Find cosmic truth in an erroneous spacetime? I have no idea what the answer to that question is."

"What the answer is doesn't matter at all!"

Rosenthal tucked the tablet under his arm and spread his hands, as if laying his cards on the table for a novice who didn't yet understand the rules of the game,

"Becoming President is what matters most!"

"After you become President, even if you can't find the cosmic truth, you can blame it all on Biden!"

"Just find any excuse, for example, that when Biden was in office, he cut funding for such-and-such research project, forcing the progress of humanity's technological leap to be delayed by over a decade."

"And by the time ten-plus years pass, that will be the next few presidents' problem; it will have nothing to do with you."

The corners of Prant's mouth twitched slightly.

He uncrossed his arms, slid one hand into his suit pocket, and took a step toward the car waiting nearby, his voice calm and resolute, as if confirming a math problem for which he had already worked out the answer:

"Yes, that's right, let's do it!"

"Nobody knows pi better than me!"

"Nobody knows cosmic truth better than me!"

...

White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, South Lawn.

Joseph Biden's bulletproof Cadillac slowly drove into the circular driveway of the White House South Lawn.

Along the way, he sat in the back seat with his eyes closed, resting. The negotiation with Prant that had ended on a sour note gradually faded from his mind.

Replacing it was a series of more urgent matters that needed to be handled:

The progress of reverse-engineering the alien wreckage, the military assessment of the timeline for the million-strong Zeta Star fleet's arrival, and how to use the containment policy to further consolidate his power.

Biden's military aide had already sent a new schedule notification from the passenger seat; there was a routine briefing with top military brass in the afternoon.

However, just as Biden stepped out of the back seat of the Cadillac and his feet were barely steady on the neatly paved gravel of the South Lawn, the sky above suddenly jumped into a boundless night sky.

The Secret Service team leader reached out almost instantly to press on Biden's left shoulder, half-shielding him, while his other hand pressed against his earpiece, growling as he initiated emergency cover procedures.

Subsequently, within a very short time, the sky switched from night back to day, then was swallowed by night again, repeatedly jumping at an extremely high frame rate.

Secret Service tactical agents at various posts all gripped their sidearms, and several snipers on the roof began scanning the zenith and the surrounding building lines again.

On the South Lawn, the press van that was about to drive out of the west entrance braked sharply in the middle of the road, the driver tilting his head stiffly out the window.

Biden did not enter the building or crouch down; instead, he stood where he was.

The hand that the Secret Service team leader was holding waved slightly, signaling there was no need to panic, as he looked up alone, quietly watching the sky that was flickering violently.

Night, day, night, day...

Then came a harsh, static-like screeching, like steel plates repeatedly scraping against hard glass, yet there was no specific source for the sound.

Then, all the light and darkness stabilized.

Beneath the tranquil sky, that line of characters hung silently: π = 3.

Before Biden's gaze, fixed on those three characters, could break free from his bewilderment,

Madeline Rasmussen was already running over from the West Wing corridor in her high heels.

She clutched a stack of emergency orders that had just been transmitted directly from the fax room via a secure line, the edges of the paper still giving off the warm scent of laser printing.

She stopped two steps away from Biden, breathing rapidly, though her tone was forced down to the standard pace required for a report.

"Mr. President, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Department of Energy's Office of Science are all sending emergency reports to the White House simultaneously."

"Every department has marked the incident level as the highest and most severe category."

Biden pulled his gaze from the sky to look at Madeleine, his tone deep and steady, but his speaking speed was a beat faster than usual:

"What does the National Academy of Sciences say?"

"They obtained the wreckage of that crashed alien saucer around the Hoover Dam and have been studying it all day. Surely they aren't still stuck on the same problem, are they?"

"The people at the National Academy of Sciences started reverse-engineering the alien saucer immediately after obtaining it, but they didn't have much success all through last night, until just now..."

Madeleine paused, flipped the document to the marked page with her fingertip, and looked up at Biden,

"...Until just now, after that formula, π = 3, appeared in the sky. The people at the National Academy of Sciences said they have finally obtained the answer."

"They unanimously believe that the Solar System we inhabit is an erroneous spacetime."

"All the formulas and theorems we have obtained so far are the results of observations made in an erroneous spacetime; they are all wrong."

"Humanity will be locked inside the Solar System forever."

Biden stood there in silence for a moment.

He looked at Madeleine and then spoke slowly, his voice still steady, but each syllable was enunciated tightly, as if he were afraid of mishearing a single word.

Biden took a deep breath and continued to ask:

"The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the National Science Foundation—did these departments also reach the same conclusion?"

Madeleine turned the emergency order to the next page, her tone faster and lower than before.

"These departments are currently facing a situation even more dangerous than 'concluding that humanity is doomed to be destroyed.'"

"After the scientists in those departments saw the π = 3 in the sky with their own eyes, they all went insane shortly afterward."