My 20 Years with Three-Body: A Personal Story

Summer 2006, at the newsstand outside my school, I bought an issue of Science Fiction World. The cover read: 「Blockbuster serial: Three-Body.」 I was just an ordinary middle schooler, not particularly passionate about sci-fi, just buying the magazine to pass the time each month.

I had no idea that this random purchase would become one of the most important books of my life.

The moment Ye Wenjie pressed the transmission button, I felt numb all over. Not from fear, but from an indescribable sense of cosmic loneliness. 「Come here. I will help you gain this world.」 A woman deeply wounded by humanity handed the choice to an unknown presence in the universe.

I had never experienced such profound reflection on humanity itself in any literary work.

The years when 「The Dark Forest」 and 「Death‘s End」 were published were my happiest reading times. I shared every new book with classmates. We discussed the Three-Body Game, debated flaws in the Dark Forest Law, and guessed the final ending.

That was an era without spoilers. Like humanity in the books, we knew nothing of the future, filled with hope and fear.

2015: The Hugo Award Day

August 23, 2015. I woke up to my 5 AM alarm — because Three-Body had been nominated for the Hugo Award. The phone exploded with news: we won.

I can‘t describe that feeling. Like my own child had won a world championship. I posted my first long Weibo: 「Thank you, Liu Cixin. Thank you, Ken Liu. Thank you, everyone who brought Chinese sci-fi to the world.」

The day Tencent‘s Three-Body series premiered, I took the day off work. When the title appeared on screen, when the Red Coast base appeared, when Ye Wenjie pressed that red button — I cried.

After twenty years of imagining those scenes in my mind, they finally had tangible form. It wasn‘t just nostalgia. It was a feeling of 「we really made it here.」

Twenty years later, I‘ve gone from a middle schooler to a middle-aged adult. Three-Body is no longer just a book — it has become part of my worldview.

Whenever I look up at the stars, I no longer just see stars. I see the Dark Forest. I see the chain of suspicion. I see the direction from which the dual-vector foil is approaching. I see, perhaps, the zero-homers broadcasting at the far end of the universe.

Some say Three-Body makes you pessimistic. But for me, it makes me cherish everything around me more — because before the cold laws of the universe, human love, kindness, and even weakness, all become immeasurably precious.

Perhaps what Liu Cixin really wanted to say is not how terrifying the universe is, but rather: in such a terrifying universe, a group of such fragile humans can still love, stay together, and look out for each other. That in itself is the greatest miracle.

Thank you, Liu Cixin. Thank you, Three-Body. Thank you, every stranger who discussed the Dark Forest with me over these 20 years.

May every civilization in the universe find its way home.