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

The matter of the "ninth one" was kept under wraps for a day.

The next day, it couldn't be suppressed.

Because the fragments of Lu Chen Gong began to "search" for themselves.

It is neither an attack nor a pursuit of fire.

It simply traced those three rhythms repeatedly in its senses, like a hunting dog sniffing a scent that had been erased.

By noon the next day, a very faint line appeared on the fragment.

The pattern doesn't spell out a name.

It is a coordinate.

The coordinates are not on Mars, nor in the Narrows Zone.

An old, long-emptied section in near-Earth orbit.

Qin Lan paused for a moment when she was looking up the files.

That old compartment was officially registered as an "abandoned counterweight compartment" from the Buzhou Mountain Project ten years ago.

It should have burned up during re-entry into the atmosphere.

"It's been ten years again," Lin Jibai said from his toolbox.

"It's my dad again."

He spoke quickly this time, without hesitation.

Because the clues no longer required him to hesitate.

Xu Wangshu did not send anyone to investigate directly.

She did one thing first.

She described the act of "finding the ninth fragment" as something that required "paying money."

What I paid wasn't money.

It's the price.

She established a temporary rule on the public channel:

Any organization or individual applying to locate the ninth fragment must first declare three things—

[1. Once found, it must not be named privately.]

II. Once found, it must not be touched without authorization.

[Third, once found, the entire search process and all costs must be made public.]

The reactions to the rules were quite interesting.

The remaining forces in Tianheng are the most active.

They submitted their application that same day, along with a generous search budget.

Haicheng wanted it too.

But they got stuck on the third one.

Because Haicheng has had too many "undisclosed rail expenditures" over the past decade.

The space city has submitted a third application.

The applicant is Qin Lan herself.

Her three points were written very briefly:

【I. No name.】

Second, avoid contact.

[III. The entire process will be made public, including my own mistakes.]

After reading the three applications, Lu Chenggong suddenly smiled.

"This is what you mean by paying."

"That's right," Xu Wangshu said. "The most expensive thing to find is never the fuel, but who has the right to be the first to find it."

She ultimately did not approve any of them.

She approved something else entirely.

She had Lin Xiaoman read the three applications aloud in the dark of the dream network.

No response is required.

I only recited it to that dark place.

After I finished reading it, the darkness didn't change.

However, the empty stove on the narrow strip has changed.

The reddish light in the stove changed from pale red to a very light line of gold.

It's like someone finally managed to lighten the wick by an inch.

After watching the whole process, Wen Zhaolin suddenly said, "Aren't you afraid that after you finish reading it, it will accept it?"

"Recognize what?"

"People want to find it," Wen Zhaolin said. "If you want to find it, it has the leverage."

Xu Wangshu shook his head.

"They have the leverage, not us," she said. "We want to get it back, and they want it back. Since both sides want it, we have to negotiate first."

"What are the conditions?"

"The first rule has already been established." Xu Wangshu showed him the rule, "It will not be named."

Wen Zhaolin stared at those three lines for a long time.

"What if it gave itself a name?"

"That doesn't count," Xu Wangshu said. "I chose this name myself, so I don't owe anyone anything."

"So, after it's named, it turns around and goes back through that door?"

"But we need to figure out who's behind that door first," Xu Wangshu said. "It wants to go back, and we also want to know why it wants to go back. The two things aren't contradictory."

Lu Chenggong, who was listening from the side, interjected, "In the end, you still want to investigate."

"I want to," Xu Wangshu said, "but not now. First, write it down, don't rush to pick it up."

The words "find" and "receive" are only one step apart, but their meanings are very different.