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

The zero relay station is located on the seventh basement floor of the old exhibition hall in the space city.

That floor on the map never existed. The elevator only goes up to the sixth floor, and the fire safety plans don't include a seventh floor. Yet, Lin Jibai once said when he was repairing the model that there was always a pipe "breathing" under the exhibition hall floor.

Qin Lan led the team down, but the entrance wasn't a door; instead, it was a wall covered with children's science illustrations. One illustration depicted Gonggong angrily striking Buzhou Mountain, causing the pillar of heaven to break, with explanations for elementary school students written beside it. Xiaoman pressed down on a plastic model of Buzhou Mountain, and the crack in the wall slowly opened, revealing a narrow ladder leading downwards.

There were no high-tech instruments at the end of the ladder.

There was only one row of old-fashioned manual transfer stations.

In front of each chair sat a pair of headphones, their cords dangling into the ground like withered vines. A faded sign hung on the wall: Earth-Moon Blind Hearing Group; Do not speculate on its origin.

Xu Wangshu felt a heavy weight in his heart after reading the sign.

This isn't a communications station; it's a buffer layer that Lin Wangchuan and his team built back then for "hearing but not responding." All unusual sounds are first recorded here, and then reviewed by multiple people to determine whether they need to be addressed.

The ledger was stopped in the early morning of ten years ago.

On the last page, Lin Wangchuan wrote: Someone bypassed the blind hearing group and answered "yes" for the entire station.

Qin Lan looked at Wen Zhaolin.

Wen Zhaolin did not dodge: "That person is me."

The underground station was so quiet that only the sound of electricity could be heard.

"At that time, the coordinates of the missing persons were coming from outside." Wen Zhaolin looked at the yellowed records on the wall. "I thought if it had been one minute later, they would all be gone."

"And then?" Qin Lan asked.

"Then there was no one at the coordinates, only a door."

He didn't defend himself. That would have been even more damaging than any attempt to defend himself.

Lin Jibai's screen lit up.

You always seem to be tempted to take advantage of any opportunity.

Wen Zhaolin lowered his head and smiled: "Yes."

This one word was more human than any of his previous speeches.

The old-fashioned screen in the center of the relay station lit up automatically. There was no image displayed, only an inverted map of the Earth and the Moon. The Earth was on top, the Moon was below, and a line hung down between them, the end of which connected to the real-time monitoring data in the toolbox.

With each heartbeat of Lin Jibai, the inverted map would light up once.

Xiaoman's face turned pale: "It didn't come in; it was using my brother as a receiver."

Xu Wangshu immediately unplugged the cable. But the instant the plug was removed, Lin Jibai's voice rang out in all the headphones at the same time.

"Don't pull it out, I'm inside."

The voice was devoid of emotion, and lacked any of the familiar sarcasm.

Xiaoman did not move.

She picked up a blank record card and wrote down the following according to the old procedure for the blind hearing group: "Hearing a voice that sounds like Lin Jibai, but the source has not been verified, do not follow the instructions."

One, two, dozens of record cards were filled out by the crowd.

The inverted Earth-Moon map on the screen began to flicker.

From the deepest, never-used switchboard, a roll of paper tape emerged. The tape contained only one line of printed text:

[Relay Station Zero received an internal email.]

Xu Wangshu didn't immediately tear off the paper strip. She first had the medical team check Lin Jibai's condition. The stability dropped from thirty-nine to thirty-seven, and his brainwaves showed a double-layered waveform—one layer was his, and the other was like someone breathing against him.

Xiaoman lay down beside the box and whispered, "Brother!"

A very soft response finally came from inside the box: "Don't make a sound, my ears hurt."

This time it's not the screen.

It's not radio waves.

This is Lin Jibai's true voice.

The news of Lin Jibai waking up was not spread. Qin Lan only sent a message to each node: "The toolbox status has responded autonomously. Continue to maintain it according to the original rules."

It's not that we distrust public nodes, but rather that we can't let "he's awake" become a new collective impulse. Too many people are hoping for Lin Jibai's return, hoping that the person who always manages to give a crucial nudge at the right moment will do it again. But if this expectation gets out of control, it will push him back to being a lone figure.

Xu Wangshu turned the medical screen to a position where Lin Jibai could see it.

"Look closely, you're not done yet."

Lin Jibai's voice was extremely weak: "Dr. Xu, looking at the critical condition curve as soon as a person wakes up is not conducive to recovery."

"Then close your eyes."

"It's closed."

Xiaoman squatted down beside him and gently touched the box's exterior: "Brother, does it hurt?"

Lin Jibai was silent for a few seconds: "It's like having eighty-seven radios stuffed into your head, and Wen Zhaolin giving a speech on repeat."

Wen Zhaolin, expressionless on the remote end, said: "I request that the second half of the sentence be deleted from the medical records."

Qin Lan: "Rejected."

This brief moment of banter eased the tension in the underground station slightly. But soon, the paper tape dispensed from the transfer station pulled everyone back to reality. The tape began to show Lin Jibai's childhood medical examination data, Lin Xiaoman's medical records, and the monthly chart verification values ​​of Xu Wangshu's family.

It's not just about inducing you to open the box.

It is proving that it knows them well enough.

Lin Jibai said in a low voice, "Don't be scared. Knowing the information doesn't mean you know the person."

Xu Wangshu nodded and categorized the paper tape as "external data splicing," forbidding anyone from using it as an authoritative diagnosis.

Qin Lan had all the paper strips put into a light-proof bag, and signed each strip after it was placed inside. The signers weren't signing to show they believed the strips, but to prove who had handled them, and to prevent the addition of a so-called "internal letter" out of thin air.

In the corner of Relay Station Zero, there were many old wooden crates, with the words "Discarded Teaching Equipment" written on the lids. Chen Rui pried one open, but inside were not models, but stacks of earphone foam. The foam was already hardened, like dried-out ears. Next to each pair of earphones was a small card, which did not have a name on it, but a duty roster number.

Zhou Jianguo felt a chill run down his spine: "Just how many people sat here back then?"

Wen Zhaolin couldn't answer. In Tianheng's public files, these people were only listed as "assisting hearing and identification personnel," with no separate list or follow-up information.

Qin Lan immediately created a checklist and entered the card numbers first. She didn't write "sacrificed" or "missing," but only "participated in hearing impairment, current status pending verification."

When the thirty-seventh card number was entered, a very soft sound of chairs being dragged could be heard from deep within the relay station. One empty chair after another moved back slightly, as if someone had finally been allowed to leave.

Xiaoman clutched her pen, tears welling up again: "Have they been sitting here the whole time?"

Xu Wangshu said, "Perhaps it wasn't them. Perhaps it was just an unfinished record."

"We still have to finish writing it," Xiaoman said.

Lin Jibai coughed inside the box: "Xiaoman, the recorder has a good presence."

She immediately sniffed: "Shut up and rest."

This time, there was no interruption on the screen; only a very soft laugh came from the speaker. The genuine laughter was short and weak, yet it significantly reduced the background noise in the headphones around them.

The paper tape continued to output a new structural diagram. The diagram showed a thin line leading from the relay station to the bottom of the toolbox, with an old maintenance note next to it: "Do not use hearing as a basis for connection."

Xu Wangshu read the annotations aloud.

Lin Jibai was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly said, "This is my father's handwriting."

Xiaoman rushed to the screen, carefully examining the crooked characters. She recognized them. When her father wrote the character "听" (listen), the "口" (mouth) radical always looked like it was missing a stroke, because he found it troublesome.

A fake voice can imitate a father's voice, but it can't imitate this kind of laziness.

Qin Lan ordered that this annotation be added to the relay station's core procedures. The paper tape suddenly stopped, as if it had been choked by something.

Then, the headphones that had never been touched by anyone at the deepest part fell off the hook on their own.

Three short and two long sounds came through the headphones.

This time, the knocking was followed by a distant, hoarse male voice.

"Don't let it all go to waste."