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The writers appreciate the discussers' recognition of the pioneering and novel nature of the original work, which provides a unified effective stress equation for all types of soils under all saturation conditions. However, the discussers fail to appreciate the importance of the roles of soil water adsorption mechanisms in soil water retention and effective stress, given the ample experimental evidence presented in our work and other previously published work. Instead, they raise some points, which are academically thought-provoking notions that are largely reflections of the misunderstanding of the importance of the soil sorptive potential (SSP) concept and the roles of SSP in the effective stress in soils, as detailed subsequently, following the order outlined by the discussers. The discussers consider that the sole mechanical energy in soil water is capillary pressure as they state "That [capillary water] is presumably why many researchers have previously suggested that capillary water, solely, plays a role in the mechanical behavior of unsaturated soil.". [Extracted from the article]