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

Qin Lan took photos of each of the forty-seven empty spaces for archiving.

She stopped shooting when she got to the ninth frame.

"The signs in this compartment are different."

Lu Chenggong went over to take a look.

The number plate in the ninth slot is engraved, while the others are printed.

It is engraved with two symbols.

It's not a number.

It's a dot with a horizontal line.

Wen Zhaolin glanced at it, his voice hoarse.

"This is the old way of writing 'nine'."

"The nine in the fragments of the nine suns?"

"right."

The three of them thought of the same thing at the same time.

The ninth fragment was taken from this compartment.

Or rather, the ninth fragment should have been in this compartment.

"Then why did it end up in Earth's orbit?" Lu Chenggong asked.

"Because it was moved," Wen Zhaolin said. "After it was moved, the sign remained here."

"Why leave the sign?"

"Leaving the sign is to give an explanation to anyone who comes to investigate in the future," Wen Zhaolin said. "It means: there used to be something here."

Qin Lan wrote this sentence down and added a line next to it:

[Keeping the sign means acknowledging that something once existed there, but it does not mean acknowledging that the thing belongs to that location.]

The fragments of Lu Chen's bow vibrated violently in front of the ninth square.

It's no longer the rhythm of counting off.

It vibrates slowly.

One pause, a long pause, then another.

It's like someone is waiting for an echo.

"It wants to go in," Lu Chenggong said.

"Don't go in," Qin Lan said.

"I didn't go in; I said it wanted to."

Qin Lan also wrote down this sentence and marked the source as: "Statement from the operator".

Then she did something no one expected.

She closed the door to the ninth compartment.

It's not a lock, it's just closing that small panel.

The moment it closed, the vibration of the fragment stopped.

It stopped for a full three minutes.

Three minutes later, the fragments began to vibrate again.

This tremor was milder than the previous one.

Lu Chengong stared at his hands and suddenly realized something.

"It doesn't want to go in," he said. "It's afraid someone will empty out the place it used to be in."

"Why empty it out?"

"Once it's emptied out, no one will know where it used to be."

Qin Lan immediately turned around to look at the wall of signs.

Forty-seven grids, forty-seven signs.

She had been assuming the signs were still there.

Now she counted them again.

One is missing.

The sign in the thirty-first slot is missing.

It wasn't pried off; if it were, there would be traces.

It was erased.

Qin Lan took a picture of that frame and enlarged it.

Where the sign used to be, there is still a very faint mark around it.

The shape of the mark is the same as the ninth square.

It's also a dot with a horizontal line added.

It's just that the numbers have been changed.

Wen Zhaolin looked at the circle of marks and suddenly said something.

"Thirty-one...that number is wrong."

"What's wrong?"

"In the forty-seven grids, the numbering goes up to forty-six," he said. "There is no thirty-one."

Qin Lan checked all forty-seven signs again.

There is indeed no number 31.

But the frame for the thirty-first square is there.

It has a frame and a mark, but no sign.

It's like someone whose name has been deleted, but whose place is still there.

The fragments of Lu Chen's bow disrupted the rapid rhythm at that moment.

Qin Lan immediately asked, "What is it saying?"

"It's counting off."

"Which number should I report to?"

Lu Chenggong's expression changed after hearing this.

"From one to forty-six, everyone reported."

"What happens after you report it?"

"After reporting, it reported a number that wasn't on the register."

"Which one?"

Lu Chengong looked at the faint mark.

Thirty-one.

Qin Lan put the photo of grid number 31 together with this string of numbers.

The two sides don't match.

There are forty-seven shelves in total. There are only forty-six signs. The extra shelf has no sign, only a frame.

"It stated the number 31," Qin Lan said, "but 31 isn't on the sign."

"That's right," Lu Chenggong said. "The ones that aren't on the sign are the real ones."

Looking at the faint imprint, Wen Zhaolin suddenly said, "The sign is for outsiders. The imprint is for me to remember."

"What are you going to remember?"

"Remember for yourself: who did the items in that compartment originally belong to?"

Qin Lan wrote down this sentence and added her own words next to it.

[The sign can be erased, but the frame cannot. If the two are inconsistent, the frame shall prevail.]