I changed the timeline with the game.

Chapter 1163 The Temperature of Stars

In her memory, Mr. Natsume's fingers slowly traced the grooves of the gears:
These 'gears' will rotate round and round.

Follow the star trails until you reach the edge of the starry sky.

Chie,

The red light there is starlight, the warmth of civilization's continuation.

At that moment, she remembered the firewood in the fireplace crackling and sending up a spark.
They fell into the furnace ash.
fleeting.

Chie lay on her grandfather's lap, staring at the painting, feeling that her grandfather's words were like a spell from a fairy tale, warm yet distant.

She took the ginkgo wood sliver from her grandfather, the red star on it still warm from the firewood. She pressed the sliver to her cheek and felt that the so-called "warmth of civilization" was probably the warmth of her grandfather's palm, the warmth of the firewood in the stove, and the small, unending warmth in the winter night.

But back then, she never imagined that this fairy tale, which she had heard countless times, would be told in a conference room on an artificial planet ten years later.
The mystery was revealed in such a shocking way.

At the same time, Su Wen's fingers also typed the last debugging command on the keyboard simulated by Caroline.

He has seen through everything, and it's time to completely unravel the mystery:
In an instant, the code flow on the screen froze, and only a clear trajectory graph appeared.

On the other side, Caroline had just finished debugging the simulated interstellar communication system, but she showed no surprise, simply nodding quietly to Su Wen:

"The signal amplification module is stable, and the ground station parameters in Izu have been matched."

moment,

On the large screen, a slender yet bright ray of light originates from the coordinates of Makuhari, Tokyo, like a silver thread drawn by starlight, passing through the dense array of city coordinates.

It thickens and brightens slightly in the Izu region.
After the signal was amplified, it cut straight through the deep blue Mars orbit simulation area and finally landed steadily on the Mars Valles, with latitude and longitude accurate to the second.

A few numbers flashed at the bottom of the screen, eventually settling on "-118dBm".

"The reception threshold of the star core crystal is -120dBm."

Looking at the string of data, the hacker's voice was filled with barely concealed excitement, yet she still maintained the composure befitting a dragonborn lady.
"The error is 1.7dB, which is well within the acceptable range."

At this point, her data entity even circled around Su Wen, her excitement beyond words.
"That's really true, Mr. Rhein."

You're a genius!
Although I was reluctant to admit it before, now, I surprisingly acknowledge it.

Upon hearing her say this, Su Wen simply shook his head gently:

"I am not a genius; the word 'genius' should only be reserved for Mr. Seren."

Once everything is over,
Chie, take me to his grave to lay a bouquet of flowers.

His tone was gentle yet distant.

As the world's "top player," Su Wen never felt arrogant in the face of those pioneers who sacrificed themselves for the future of civilization.

He only felt admiration.
There are still regrets.

It's a pity they won't be able to see the future they created.

Moreover, Su Wen couldn't hold Caroline's projection and spin around in it.

Chie Natsume, who finally understood the significance of the experiment, let out a small cheer, instantly easing the tense atmosphere in the laboratory.

But for some reason,
Her tears kept falling, even though she tried her best to appear strong and kept wiping them away.

The little girl finally understood that the "red light" her grandfather spoke of was not a fantasy from a fairy tale:

That was because he exhausted his psionic properties and left behind the Cypheron Star Crystal, which had been dormant for millions of years, on the surface of a certain area of ​​Mars.

The crystals emit resonant light when they receive a matching signal.

Those lights were not scorching, but rather like the glow of a fireplace, carrying a sustained warmth; they were interstellar responses between civilizations.

"We have found the finish line."

Su Wen turned around, his gaze falling on Qian Hui's reddened eyes. He then opened the old blueprint book left by his grandfather, which was among the data transmitted from Tsukishima. He opened to the first page, which was the sketch with gears and a red planet.

"Chie,"

What your grandfather left behind was not a 'map of Earth's infrastructure'.

Those seemingly chaotic pipeline coordinates are signal relay points within the solar system. And those labeled power parameters are the optimal thresholds for interstellar communication. He even helped us calculate the minute thresholds that might need compensation.

For him,

Mars, the destination of this 'Solar System Civilization Docking Diagram,' is where these gears will ultimately turn.

now,

According to the video footage released by Ms. Tsukishima, the sky over Tokyo gradually stabilized for some reason.

Sitting in front of the computer, Su Wen wondered if that was the effect of the 'future self' and the 'future Jiang Menghan' that would occur in ten days or so.

But when the first rays of night truly carried the stars through Tokyo.

At this moment, light shone through the blinds in Chie's old house, which was already somewhat dilapidated, and fell obliquely onto a certain tabletop.

The light fell perfectly on the grandfather's notebook that was spread out on Tsukishima Island.

That page was a copy of her grandfather's drawing when Natsume Chie was ten years old. The edges of the red planet were somewhat blurred by the passage of time, yet it exuded a faint warmth in the night.

In a trance,
The little girl seemed to see a familiar figure standing in the dim light.

Grandfather is still the same as I remember:

The elderly man, not very tall, was wearing a faded navy blue kimono, his hair neatly combed, and a gentle smile on his face as he waved softly at her.

Behind him was not a winter night in Tokyo, but a vast expanse of red land. In the distance, the ravines of Sailor Valley stretched out, and in the valley, countless translucent crystals rose from the red sand like a silent forest.

The crystals were emitting a soft red light.

One layer upon another,
Extending along the direction of the star trails, it precisely aligned with the bright line on Su Wen's screen:

Just like the gears in my grandfather's painting finally found their matching teeth, and with a soft click, they completed their meshing across time and space.

1.27 million kilometers

This number is no longer just cold astronomical data, but a distance that my grandfather measured with his whole life, a bond from the warm fireplace on a winter night to the red planet.

Chie raised her hand, her fingertips gently brushing across the red planet on the laptop outside the data screen, as if a piece of ginkgo wood had slipped from her pocket and landed next to the data painting.

The heat on the wood chips seemed never to dissipate.

It and the morning light,

And the red light on the screen,

It gradually merged with the warmth of my grandfather's palm in my memory.

The little girl remembered her grandfather lying on his sickbed before he died, but he just held her hand and repeatedly said:

"Chie, the gears will turn to where they're supposed to go. Don't worry, you'll understand once the signal arrives."

We are not alone.
I won't be lonely anymore.

At that time, she only felt heartache, but did not understand the weight of those words.

Only now, looking at the bright line on the screen that runs through the fire, and at the phantom of my grandfather in the morning light, do I understand the profound foresight and love hidden in this entrustment that spans ten years.

Su Wen handed over a tissue, then calmly said:
"Now that we know our destination, we should take advantage of the Abyss Rift still existing in Tokyo and reverse the data from Izu to go to Mars."

What about Tokyo?

Caroline was puzzled.
But the handsome scholar simply said meaningfully:

“Someone else will handle it. Don’t worry, we just need to do our job.”

According to Justa,

We'll be teleported directly to Mars via data transmission. The docking point is a crystal left behind by Thron. I'll adjust the communication channel of the Abyss Gate.

This is for you, who are in the 'consciousness lineage evolution'.
No, it should be for you, who possess the ability of 'Boson Condensation'.

This shouldn't be too difficult.

(End of this chapter)