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

Opening the door is an answer, and not opening the door is also an answer.

If silence is interpreted by it, it still belongs to its own rules.

Outside the main control room, the door handle remained fully depressed. The mechanical latch didn't lift, yet the metal trembled slightly under an unseen force. There was no shadow beneath the door, only the rustling sound of pages turning.

Number Zero stood outside the door and took out a duty book that did not exist.

The gray-white pages hung in mid-air, the paper fibrous, yet when turned, they carried the musty smell of an archive. He held a pen, writing down each name after the one inside the door.

Qin Lan declined.

Xu Wangshu refused.

Lin Xiaoman refused.

Lu Chengong refused.

Lin Jibai refused.

After writing the first line, Qin Lan suddenly felt a lingering soreness in her throat, a result of having spoken harshly. After writing the second line, Xu Wangshu remembered clearly saying "no" to the door. When it was Xiaoman's turn, she even heard herself in her memory crying out "no!"

But in the actual recording, there were only complaints about the IV drip count, bolt temperature, and instant noodles. No one uttered that word.

"Don't repeat it." Xu Wangshu pressed the earpiece, first looking at the voiceprint record, then at her own throat monitoring. "It's providing a supplementary statement for the refusal."

Lu Chengong pinched his chin. A phrase that sounded exactly like himself popped into his head: "I won't open it." The tone, the pauses, even the tugging at old wounds when he spoke felt very real.

"He's even learned to swear."

"Learning something doesn't mean it happened," Qin Lan said.

Number zero continues writing. With each line written, the corresponding person develops a memory of "saying no." That memory doesn't force action; it simply quietly inserts itself into the place of personal experience, waiting to become fact when they verify it with each other.

Chen Rui, from the western suburbs, asked instinctively, "Did someone just shout 'No!' in unison?"

Zhou Jianguo slammed his hand on the repair table, making the enamel mug lid jump: "Don't ask others what they remember. Watch the recording, watch the door, watch whether your own mouth moved."

Chen Rui touched his Adam's apple, then bowed his head and reported, "The mechanical latch on the door is in place. The red paint stitching is intact. I have no verifiable vocalizations."

The hospital nurse repeated, "The door to the light-proof ward was not opened. The patient in bed six had a temperature of 37.2 degrees Celsius. I did not speak during the monitoring."

Real-world records were overlaid on the public channel, but the gray duty log remained. Number Zero simply added two more characters after each name.

[Verified.]

The verification was also interpreted as the review and approval of this duty roster.

Xu Wangshu immediately called for a halt to the standardized format: "Stop verifying the sentences. Just report what you were originally supposed to do."

"It's collecting our boundaries." She looked at the gray text, "and then turning those boundaries into fixed responses. Open the door, refuse to open the door, verify the refusal—once the action ends here, it can nail that moment to the job record."

Under the black electrical tape, the small flashlight flickered twice. Lin Jibai's voice came from the toolbox, his breath even shorter than before.

"Don't let it finish writing."

Qin Lan leaned closer to the box: "How can you prove that something wasn't completed?"

There was a moment of silence inside, as if Lin Jibai was trying to catch his breath.

"Write the next step."

Xu Wangshu raised his eyes.

"It likes to keep people in one position," Lin Jibai said. "That proves that after we finish this task, we have other things to do. It's not about opposing it, it's about what we're supposed to do anyway."

The pen tip outside the door paused for a moment.

Qin Lan seized that moment and pulled out a paper work order. She didn't have everyone fill it out simultaneously, nor did she set a submission countdown. Instead, she had each node report a small matter in staggered shifts according to their original duty schedule.

The nurse didn't open the door; she still had to take the temperature of patient in bed six. While she was speaking, the child in bed six complained that the electronic thermometer was too cold and hunched over, asking if they could switch sides. The nurse said yes, and then wrote on a piece of paper: "Switch to the right side. After you're done, give the family a roll of non-stick tape."

In the western suburbs, no manhole covers are being removed, so Zhou Jianguo will have to drive his repair truck back to refuel. The old car's fuel gauge had been broken for two months, so he could only estimate the fuel level by sticking a bamboo skewer into the tank. He showed the oily bamboo skewer to the observer and scolded Chen Rui for writing half a mark too high in the last registration.

The exhibition hall staff had to empty the remaining half-bucket of instant noodles and then retrieve the long hair tangled in the mop wheel. The lighthouse recorder on the far side of the moon had to correct the "fish value" left by the previous shift, but kept the original record photo to prevent colleagues from insisting that what they wrote was the threshold.

Wen Qingyue didn't access the authorization database; she still had to participate in the employee compensation review after dawn. She pushed her now-cold coffee aside and said, "The seventh item on the document has the wrong injury attachment; I have to return it and resubmit it. No one outside the department can do this for me."

These things are too small to be considered a mission; yet they are too specific to be encompassed by a single phrase like "total rejection."

Xu Wangshu named the new table "Testimony of Subsequent Actions".

She added the restrictions word by word: only things that the person can decide again should be written; no arrangements should be made for others; the condition of completion should not be the boundary of validity; cancellation and change are allowed; when tomorrow actually arrives, it should be reconfirmed by the person tomorrow.

Someone asked, "If you write it down but don't necessarily do it, can it still be called testimony?"

"It doesn't prove that the future will definitely happen," Xu Wangshu said. "It only proves that you didn't end at 03:17. After leaving this moment, one still has the right to reassess."

Number Zero raised his face, which had no facial features.

[Future actions constitute prior authorization.]

The gray duty roster was adding pages on its own, attempting to incorporate temperature checks, refueling, and compensation verification into the next day's schedule. Each trivial task was followed by a blank signature box, as if simply acknowledging that someone still had a tomorrow meant they were already accepting the need to continue working.

Qin Lan didn't cross out the signature box. Crossing it out might still be recorded as a refusal. She had the testimonies written on their existing documents: the hospital wrote them in the nursing record, the western suburbs wrote them on the back of the fuel requisition form, the exhibition hall wrote them in the cleaning handover log, and the moonlit area wrote them in the error correction column. No numbered forms were provided, and not a single form could be collected in a unified manner.

"What happens afterward is a matter of life, not a matter of job," she said.

Outside the door, the gray pages were turned upside down for the first time.

Chen Rui chewed on his pen cap and thought for a long time before writing: Add ham to the instant noodles for the master.

Zhou Jianguo leaned closer, and after seeing clearly, he slapped him on the back of the head: "Stop writing, you really want to buy. Last time you said you'd add more, but in the end you only got two bites of noodles from me."

"There's only one left in stock."

"Then why don't you eat less?"

They were fighting over a sausage that didn't even exist yet. The shouts echoed through the channel, undisciplined and disorganized, yet they slowly silenced the fabricated "I refuse" in Chen Rui's mind. A person doesn't just have a stance at the door; he also owes the chef a sausage, and he'll tell an easily exposed lie about who ate a couple more bites.

Xiaoman lay down next to the toolbox and wrote: I'll buy my brother strawberry yogurt tomorrow morning, even if it's not on sale.

A protest immediately came from inside the box: "Wasteful!"

Her eyes were still red, but the corners of her mouth curved up first: "This is my follow-up action, and you have no right to interfere."

"Family finances also have boundaries."

"You need to be healthy before we start the meeting."

As soon as the words left her mouth, Xiaoman's smile froze. Tiny water droplets condensed on the inside of the toolbox, and the medical pump beeped softly every few seconds. Lin Jibai couldn't even reach for the yogurt; the pump's stability was still hovering near the danger zone. The phrase "tomorrow morning" was never a given for them.

The small flashlight inside the box gently touched the transparent observation window.

"Then buy a small bottle," he said.

Xiaoman lowered her head and wiped her tears on her sleeve, without changing that line.

Xu Wangshu's hand, holding the pen, paused for a long time. A brown stain clung to the cold coffee on her desk, and her duty uniform cuffs were stained with black adhesive. Finally, she wrote: "Check Lin Jibai's medication usage after dawn and reject the reimbursement application for the adhesive tape."

The toolbox was silent for two seconds.

"Using public office to settle personal scores."

"Personal professional judgment."

"Request to change the reviewer."

"Application rejected."

More subsequent testimonies have emerged: After get off work, he bought soy milk, called his mother back, paid the parking fee, brought in the bed sheets that were drying on the balcony, and asked his daughter why she only sent a video without sound.

There were no grand vows, no one wrote "guarding the goal forever." Everyone just took a half-step beyond 03:17.

The pen numbered zero started to smoke.

It can record whether people answer, and can copy silence into refusal, but it cannot unify these trivial, private, and ever-changing tomorrows into a single job position. The gray duty book forcibly archives testimonies, and new inquiries immediately appear on the page.

If things change tomorrow, today's testimony is invalid.

This time, Xu Wangshu did not remain silent. She did not answer to the door, but turned to the recorder, requesting that it be noted that she was revising the system.

"Change itself is the testimony."

"Allowing change" is written separately into the rules, not as a supplementary clause, but as a prerequisite for the validity of subsequent testimonies. If a plan must be implemented, it becomes a new order; only if the plan can be overturned by the person can it be said that the person is still a person when tomorrow arrives, not just a piece of code left over from last night.

Each node then modifies one of the arrangements, not in a uniform order.

The hospital nurses changed the procedure from taking a child's temperature to having them drink a couple of sips of water first, because the patient in bed six had just cried; then, based on the family's suggestion, they changed it again to wiping the sweat from the child's forehead first. The exhibition hall staff changed the procedure from emptying instant noodles to putting them in double-layered garbage bags first, to prevent the soup from leaking into the duty room. Wen Qingyue changed the location for the compensation review from meeting room number two to the file window, because the door to meeting room number two was still locked for quarantine inspection.

Chen Rui changed the ham to braised eggs.

Zhou Jianguo immediately cursed, "You little brat, are you just trying to save some ham?"

"Braised eggs are filling."

"Then add two more."

Chen Rui added a "two" to the back of the fuel order, then deliberately crossed it out, changing it back to a single character: "Check inventory tomorrow. Changes are permitted."

Xiaoman changed the strawberry yogurt to plain. Three seconds later, she looked at the toolbox and changed it back to strawberry.

Each modification was made by the individual, yet none became a permanent command. Number zero attempted to record the "final version," but whenever the grayed-out text settled, that person still had the right to change their mind the next second.

The signature boxes on the gray duty log were misaligned, one after another. Names, positions, and actions could no longer be arranged in neat rows. The gray figure outside the door emitted a soft clatter from the number zero on the work badge on its chest.

The crack runs through the center of the number "zero," first resembling a strand of hair, and then extends all the way to the edge of the name tag.

The door handle finally snapped back into place.

No one cheered. Qin Lan ordered the continued inspection of the latches, door seals, and recording equipment; the personal testimonies were not considered grounds for lifting the alert. Zhou Jianguo went to check the bamboo skewers for the fuel tank, a nurse wiped the sweat from bed six, and the recorder on the far side of the moon archived the photo of the "fish value" separately. Everyone put their written next steps into actions that could still be observed at this moment, while retaining the right to stop at any time.

Xu Wangshu turned to the medical screen.

Lin Jibai's stability is 39.

The numbers neither continued to decline nor rebounded. Xiaoman stared for a few seconds, then simply flipped the hot towel over, without asking why the price wasn't rising. Lin Jibai was still there; he could interrupt and complain about the high price of yogurt—they didn't need a better-looking number to prove their point.

Outside the door, a small piece of dust fell from the torn name tag. The number zero hadn't disappeared. It glanced down at the unfiled duty book, then retreated into the non-existent doorway.

The deep space silent screen then lit up.

Around the black door frame, the original 03:17 began to be copied.

03: 17.

03: 17.

03: 17.

They appear in the corners of records in different cities, on duty pages yet to be turned on on different dates, and on time zone scales several hours apart. Some belong to tomorrow, some to three days from now, and some hang at the end of a duty roster that has not yet been generated.

Thousands upon thousands of 03:17s are quietly arranged, like thousands upon thousands of testimonies waiting for the person to sign them.

An external observation revealed that a single moment is insufficient to define the entire human condition.

So it began preparing for many tomorrows.