Huahua said thoughtfully, “This means that even after the children’s world becomes an adult world, play principles must continue on.”
“It’s not an impossibility. The children’s world will create a brand-new culture, and when our world grows into an adults’ world, it will not be a facsimile of the Common Era.”
“Wonderful! Totally brilliant. Now, you just said that you had this idea at the New World Assembly?”
“That’s right.”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?”
“Is there any point to telling you now?”
Huahua pointed a finger at Specs and said in exasperation, “You really are a giant of thought and a dwarf of action! You’ve always been that way! What’s the point of an idea if you don’t act on it?”
Specs shook his head without any change of expression. “How should I act? We can’t simply accept their crazy five-year plan, can we?”
“Why not?”
Specs and Xiaomeng looked at Huahua as if he were a total stranger.
“Is that five-year plan nothing more than an unreal dream to you?”
“It’s less real than a dream. If humanity ever had a plan entirely divorced from reality, this is it,” Specs said.
“But it’s the highest expression of your idea: a play-driven world.”
Specs said, “You’re right about the plan as an expression of an idea, but it has no practical significance whatsoever.”
“None at all?”
Specs and Xiaomeng exchanged a glance.
“Are you sure you aren’t sleepwalking?” Specs asked Huahua, and then remembered that at the critical moment in the Suspension a few months back, Huahua had asked him the same question.
Huahua said, “Remember the adventure zone that took up the entire northwest? Isn’t that a possibility? Our total population is just a fifth of what it was in the adults’ time, so we can vacate half of our territory—not necessarily the northwest—shut down all of the cities and industries in that entire area, and move the population, so as to leave it uninhabited. Let it gradually return to a natural state, into a national park. The other half of the country still wouldn’t be as crowded as it was for the adults.”
On the heels of their initial shock at Huahua’s suggestion, Specs and Xiaomeng found sudden inspiration.
Xiaomeng said, “That’s right! And one outcome would be that the population in the inhabited half would double, and every child’s average workload would be cut in half. It would solve the problem of overwork and would give them more time to study or play.”
“More importantly,” Specs said, getting into it, “play would be compensation for labor, just like I described. After a stretch of work, children could spend their free time out in the national park. It’s half the country—nearly five million square kilometers—so it ought to be lots of fun.”
Huahua nodded. “And in the long term, it might be possible for the megasized amusement rides to actually be built in that huge park.”
Xiaomeng said, “I think the plan is workable, and it’ll pull the country back from the brink. Migration is the critical thing. It would have been unimaginable in the adults’ time, but children’s social structures are far, far simpler. We’re basically structured like a big school, so for us the large-scale population displacement won’t be too difficult. What do you think, Specs?”
Specs thought a moment, and then said, “That’s a creative idea. It’s just that it’s a huge action so unprecedented that it might bring—”
“We can’t predict what it’ll bring!” Huahua cut in. “There you go again, a dwarf of action. Of course we’re going to give it careful study. I propose an immediate meeting. I’m convinced that implementing this plan will wake the country right up out of its slumber.”
Historians later called that conversation the “Late Night Talk” of the early Supernova Era, and its significance cannot be overstated. During their talk, Specs proposed two important ideas: first, that play is the primary driving force of the children’s world, an idea that later became the foundation for sociology and economics in the early Supernova Era; and second, that the play principles of the children’s world would in some way affect the later adult world, changing the nature of human society. This idea was even bolder, and its influence more profound.
One other major part of the Late Night Talk was Huahua’s proposal of the first future plan based on play principles, which became the basic model for the operation of the world in the future. However, the actual course of the Supernova Era under play principles was far weirder and more shocking than the young leaders could ever have imagined.
As the leadership team was holding its nighttime meeting in the NIT hall to explore the design of the huge national park, the course of history was mercilessly interrupted by the receipt of an email from the other side of the globe. The contents read as follows:
Children of China, your national leaders are requested to come to a meeting at the UN as soon as possible. This will be the first session of the UN General Assembly in the Supernova Era, and the leaders of all children’s countries in the world will attend. The children’s world has important things to discuss. Hurry! We’re all waiting for you.
8
CANDYTOWN IN AMERICA
THE ICE CREAM BANQUET
The Rose Nebula had not yet risen, and the streets of Washington, D.C., were shrouded in twilight. Not a single person could be seen on the Mall, and the last rays of daylight reflected off the high dome of the Capitol on Jenkins Hill over the chilly scene. The spire of the Washington Monument to the west stood eerie and alone, pointing straight up at two stars that had just come out. Few lights shone on the white buildings beside the Mall, the rotund Jefferson Memorial, the colossal Lincoln Memorial, the National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian museums, and the fountains in the reflecting pool were off, letting the untroubled water reflect the darkening sky. The city of European neoclassical buildings seemed like a desolate Greek ruin.
As if to shake off the city’s veil of night and silence, in the White House lights blazed and music blared. Parked outside the east and north gates were cars bearing flags of a host of countries. The president was hosting a banquet for the heads of state who had come to the United States to attend the first UN General Assembly of the Supernova Era. The banquet was meant to be held in the State Dining Room on the western side, but it could only hold around a hundred people, not the roughly 230 that were expected, so they had to hold it in the East Room, the largest in the building. Three large Bohemian-style crystal chandeliers installed in 1902 hung from the gilded plaster ceiling, lighting up the room where Abraham Lincoln had once lain in repose. Children in formal evening wear crowded together in the white-and-gold-decorated hall, some joking in small groups, some wandering around the hall with great curiosity.
The rest of the children crowded around the Steinway grand piano in front of a long window (the piano’s most notable features were its three American eagle supports) listening to the White House chief of staff, a pretty blond-haired girl named Frances Benes, play the “Beer Barrel Polka.” All of the children were pretending not to notice the long banquet table in the center of the room, piled high with mouthwatering delicacies: French classics like strip steaks in ginger sauce and escargot in wine, as well as typical Western fare like baked beans, pork chops, and walnut pie.
The army band struck up “America the Beautiful,” and all of the guests stopped their chattering and turned toward the door.