Don't go to the moon, there are gods on the far side of the moon.

The invitation from Tianheng Group lay on the table, black background with silver lettering, like a pre-written obituary.

"Your father is not dead; he is waiting for you on the far side of the moon."

Lin Jibai stared at the last line for a full ten minutes.

Lin Xiaoman lay on the sofa, sleeping lightly. When the moonlight shone in through the window, her eyelashes would flutter, as if someone was calling her name in her dream.

Xu Wangshu flipped the invitation over and sneered, "A private invitation. Signed by Wen Zhaolin himself. Do you know what that means?"

"Does that mean he's very polite?"

"That means you're now at the top of his list."

Lin Jibai kept the invitation: "I'm not going."

Xu Wangshu looked at him.

"At least not now." Lin Jibai stood up and walked to the old cabinet by the wall. "They want me to come with questions, but I won't. I'll figure out the Moon Soil Box my dad left behind first."

The lunar soil storage box is still in the cabinet.

It's silvery-white, about the size of a fist, with a thin sealing strip around the edge. The bottom of the box is engraved with the phrase: "The far side of the moon is not a wasteland, but a celestial graveyard."

Xu Wangshu put on gloves: "Theoretically, this thing shouldn't be in the hands of ordinary people. It certainly shouldn't be in your house."

"My family shouldn't theoretically have a lunar landing certificate from the Buzhou Mountain Project."

"You're quite proud of yourself?"

"Poor families don't have many illegal souvenirs that can be passed down."

Xu Wangshu did not laugh.

She opened the portable detector and placed the lunar soil box into the shielding bag. The screen flickered as soon as the device was turned on.

It's not gibberish.

It is a waveform.

Low frequency, intermittent, like someone breathing in an extremely cold place.

Lin Jibai felt a numbness in the back of his neck.

He heard it.

It wasn't something I heard with my ears; it was a sound coming from deep within my bones.

rustle--

rustle--

A woman's voice, piercing through the lunar soil, through ten years, through a deathly silence devoid of air, whispered in his eardrum:

"The cold storage in the Moon Palace has lost pressure."

"The custodian requests archiving."

Xu Wangshu suddenly looked up: "What did you hear?"

Lin Jibai did not answer.

The sound rang out again.

"The cold storage in the Moon Palace has lost pressure."

"The custodian requests archiving."

"Chang'e number...17...requests..."

The last few words shattered, as if crushed by some enormous door.

The detector kept alarming.

Xu Wangshu's expression changed: "Impossible."

"These are the three words that scientists love to say the most."

"Acoustic standing wave structures have appeared within the lunar soil particles." She stared at the screen, speaking rapidly. "This isn't a recording device, nor is it electromagnetic storage. It's like...like sound being compressed into a mineral lattice."

Translate this into plain language.

"The lunar soil is speaking."

Lin Jibai looked at the clump of grayish-white dust in the sealed box.

The lunar soil cannot speak.

Unless it has ever come into contact with a talking person.

Alternatively, lunar soil itself may be a kind of record of corpses.

He reached out to touch it.

Xu Wangshu grabbed him and said, "Are you crazy? The Heavenly Pillar Echo almost burned your brain last time."

"My dad left it to me, not so that I would worship it."

He might also be trying to warn you not to touch it.

"Then he should have written 'Don't touch the lunar soil,' not 'Heavenly Graveyard.'"

Lin Jibai withdrew his hand and pressed his fingertips against the side of the box.

boom.

The room disappeared.

He stood in a long, blindingly white corridor.

There was no moonlight.

It's just cold.

On either side were rows of transparent capsules, inside which something slept. There was a broken bronze bird wing, a stone statue curled up like a human, and a section of golden spine that was still slowly pulsating.

At the end of the corridor, red warning lights flashed.

A woman in a white protective suit walked forward, leaning against the wall. Two words were written on her chest: Chang'e.

It's not a name.

It is a serial number.

Behind her, the massive cold storage door slowly opened. Inside wasn't a room, but a black sea of ​​moonlight.

Countless shadows kneel in the sea of ​​moonlight.

The woman turned around and saw Lin Jibai as if from a thousand years ago.

"Tell this to those who come after."

"Chang'e is not alone."

"The person guarding the cold storage cannot leave the cold storage."

"What if the cold storage door opens—"

A silver claw emerged from the darkness and pierced her chest.

Lin Jibai suddenly woke up.

The table overturned.

The detector was burned and turned black.

Lin Xiaoman sat on the sofa, her eyes unfocused and her lips pale.

She spoke in a voice that wasn't hers:

"The cold storage door was opened once."

"The next thing to be archived is the key to Nantianmen."

Lin Jibai rushed over to support her: "Xiaoman!"

Lin Xiaoman closed her eyes and slumped into his arms.

Xu Wangshu had already picked up the computer, his fingers flying across the keyboard: "Guanghan Palace, Guardian of the Archives, Chang'e No. 17. I'm going to check the aerospace sample library and the ancient book database."

Lin Jibai looked at the Moon Soil Box.

The bottom of the box originally had only one sentence engraved on it.

At this moment, a line of extremely fine silver lines emerged below the engraving.

Like a medical record written by the moon itself.

"Sample target: Lin Xiaoman".