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

When Xu Wangshu became a candidate for Chang'e, her first reaction was not fear.

She dismantled the remains of the Jade Rabbit.

To be precise, a moon-white chip was removed from the back of its head.

"What are you doing?" Lin Jibai asked.

"Keep the evidence." Xu Wangshu put the chip into the radiation shield. "If the cold storage really comes to pick me up in 72 hours, at least it shouldn't be taken for nothing."

Lin Jibai looked at her pale face: "You can quit."

"Your sister is in the cold storage, your father is at the Southern Heavenly Gate, and the remnants of the Nine Suns shine brightly in the sky. Shall I quit now and go back to writing a thesis titled 'On the Scientific Nature of Escaping Reality'?"

"Aren't you afraid?"

"I'm afraid." Xu Wangshu closed the box. "So I'll use my fear in a useful way."

Lin Jibai suddenly realized that this woman was more ruthless than any of the other trainees in the training field.

It's not surprising that he's ruthless to others.

It's the calm ruthlessness towards oneself that's truly terrifying.

When the two left the sample library, the alarm had already been suppressed by Wen Zhaolin.

There were no pursuers.

Only one message was sent to Lin Jibai's wristband.

"To the old archives room."

Signature: Wen Zhaolin.

The old archives are located on the lowest level of the base.

There were no fancy data walls here, only rows of paper documents and old hard drives. Wen Zhaolin stood in front of an old photograph, as if he had been waiting for them.

In the photo, a much younger Wen Zhaolin is wearing work clothes, surrounded by a group of people.

One of them was someone Lin Jibai knew all too well.

Lin Wangchuan.

His father.

The father in the photo is not yet showing signs of fatigue or the shadow of his disappearance; he is laughing heartily, with one hand on Wen Zhaolin's shoulder and the other holding up an engineering blueprint.

Blueprint title: Phase I of the Buzhou Mountain Repair Project.

Lin Jibai felt as if something was blocking his chest.

"You knew I would find out."

Wen Zhaolin nodded: "That's why I'll show you the complete file directly."

He turned on the projector.

The minutes of a meeting from ten years ago are laid out.

The initial team for the Buzhou Mountain Project consisted of eleven people.

Objective: To utilize modern aerospace technology to repair the anomaly channel between the Earth and the Moon and to establish a controllable deep space energy and disaster early warning system.

Initiator: Wen Zhaolin.

Technical lead: Lin Wangchuan.

Lin Jibai stared at the words "Technical Lead".

His father, in his memory, was an ordinary man who would squat on the balcony to fix an electric fan, walk two kilometers more to save three yuan on parking fees, and lift his younger sister up high, saying, "Our Xiaoman will be able to see the real moon in the future."

But the father in the archives had participated in the most dangerous mythological project ever undertaken by humankind.

Moreover, he stood beside Wen Zhaolin.

Wen Zhaolin said, "Your father is the most outstanding structural engineer I have ever met. He was not a believer in mythology, but he was the first to propose that Buzhou Mountain was not a mountain, but a fractured Earth-Moon transmission structure."

Why did he join you?

"To save lives."

Wen Zhaolin retrieved another set of documents.

"Ten years ago, moonsleep disorder first appeared. There were 27 patients, all of whom were synchronized with abnormal signals on the far side of the moon. Your mother was one of the early sufferers."

Lin Jibai suddenly looked up: "My mom?"

"Your father believed that repairing part of the Buzhou Mountain structure could cut off the random contamination of humankind by abnormal signals."

Lin Jibai's fingers felt cold.

Therefore, the father was not motivated by ambition.

He did it for his mother.

For Xiaoman, who might fall ill later.

"Then why did he betray us?"

Wen Zhaolin remained silent for a moment, then turned on the last video recording.

The screen is shaking.

Young Lin Wangchuan stood in a laboratory, the core of the black pillar of Buzhou Mountain behind him. Alarms blared, his face covered in blood, as he roared at the camera:

"Wen Zhaolin, stop!"

"This isn't repair, it's docking!"

"There's something behind the South Heavenly Gate waiting for us to rebuild the bridge!"

A young Wen Zhaolin's voice came from off-screen: "As long as we control the interface, we can control it."

Lin Wangchuan gave a bitter laugh.

"You can't control a system that has been managing humanity for thousands of years."

"It will first give you the order, then take away the choices, and finally tell you that this is the optimal solution."

The video is shaking violently.

Lin Wangchuan picked up a cryogenic chamber the size of an infant.

No.

Not a baby.

It is a kind of luminescent key core.

He rushed towards the exit, turned back, and said his last words.

"If I fail, tell my son that Mount Buzhou cannot be completed."

The recording has ended.

The archives were eerily quiet.

Lin Jibai looked at Wen Zhaolin: "You didn't tell me."

"Because the core that your father stole was later sealed inside Lin Xiaoman's body."

Xu Wangshu's expression changed drastically: "The key to the Southern Heavenly Gate."

Wen Zhaolin nodded.

"Your father used his own daughter to lock up the Southern Heavenly Gate."

Lin Jibai stepped forward and grabbed Wen Zhaolin by the collar.

Lu Chengong appeared at the door at some point, but did not move.

Wen Zhaolin did not resist.

Lin Jibai's voice was frighteningly low: "Say it again."

"Lin Wangchuan sealed the key to the Southern Heavenly Gate into Lin Xiaoman's body, preventing the old system from fully locating the entrance to the human world."

Why did he do that?

"Because it was the only container that could be taken out of the base at the time and was stable and compatible with the Lin family bloodline."

Lin Jibai's fists trembled.

My father saved the world.

It also harmed Xiaoman.

These two facts were like two knives, piercing his heart at the same time.

Wen Zhaolin looked at him: "That's why I say we're all paying the price for order. Your father paid, your sister paid, and I paid."

"Don't act like a saint." Lin Jibai released him. "You paid for someone else's life."

Wen Zhaolin straightened his collar, his tone remaining calm.

"And what about you? If the price of breaking the pillar again is your sister being forever trapped in the Moon Palace, would you still break it?"

Lin Jibai did not answer.

Because the answer is too heavy.

Just then, all the papers in the archives went into motion without any wind.

The black pillar echoed out of control with a deafening roar.

Lin Jibai saw the image of his father kneeling at the South Heaven Gate.

His father looked up at him as if he were looking at him from ten years ago.

"It is white."

Don't believe me.

"Investigate further."

"I wasn't the only one standing beside Wen Zhaolin back then."

The screen flashed.

In the corner of the photo, a figure with half its face cropped out lights up.

The man's name tag read:

Heavenly Court Verification Interface Advisor.

Name: Missing.

Status: Still at base.