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

The incident on the 31st was investigated by the human community for ten days.

Very little was found.

It's so short, just one line.

In the personnel roster of the Buzhou Mountain Project, there is a column called "External Cooperation Witness".

This column has a total of forty-seven numbers.

Number 31 is empty.

It's not that I didn't fill it in.

Yes, it was filled in, and then deleted.

The deletion method was the same as that of the ninth fragment: the format was uniform, and the signature was "not parsed".

"So Number Thirty-One isn't a thing," Lu Chengong said, "he's a person."

Xu Wangshu did not respond immediately.

She looked at each of the forty-seven numbers one by one.

I read very quickly, but I paused at each line.

When she saw the forty-seventh one, she paused for a long time.

"Number 47 is Lin Wangchuan."

No one spoke in the main control room.

Lin Jibai moved something in the toolbox.

"My dad...is a witness?"

"Yes," Xu Wangshu said, "and it's the last number."

"What about the first forty-six?"

"Of the first forty-six, we can only find thirty."

"The other sixteen?"

"It's empty now."

Lu Chenggong suddenly realized something.

"Forty-seven shelves, forty-seven witnesses," he said. "This is no coincidence."

"It's not a coincidence," Xu Wangshu said. "The counterweight compartment is not a warehouse."

"What is that?"

"It's a roster."

Xu Wangshu placed the two matters side by side.

The forty-seventh compartment is the counterweight compartment on the left.

The right side is the section for external witnesses of the Buzhoushan Project.

The grid corresponds to the number, and the number corresponds to the name.

"Segment number 31 has been deleted," she said. "The ninth fragment corresponds to segment number 31."

"But the ninth one is a fragment of the Nine Suns."

"That's right," Xu Wangshu said. "There are ten fragments of the Nine Suns in total. The ninth one has no name. But if we match them according to the grid, the ninth one doesn't correspond to the ninth witness."

Which one?

"It's number thirty-one."

This conclusion is like a stone thrown into water.

Because if the person corresponding to the ninth fragment is Witness Number Thirty-One, then what was erased was not just one thing.

is a person.

And this person's number happened to fall on the only column in the grid that had been erased.

"That person's name was deleted even more completely than the ninth one," Qin Lan said. "At least the ninth one had a spot left, but his spot was taken by someone else."

"Occupied?"

"Number 31 is currently being used by someone else," Qin Lan said. "I just checked the current registration, and number 31 is now registered under a different name."

"Who?"

Qin Lan looked up at Lu Chenggong.

"land."

Lu Chenggong's face turned pale instantly.

"My dad's number."

"No," Qin Lan said, "it's you."

"I?"

"Witness number 31 is currently registered as 'Lu Chenggong'," Qin Lan said. "Registration date: three years ago."

Three years ago was the year Lu Chenggong first received the notification of being a "Houyi Sequence Adaptor".

"I have never been a witness," Lu Chenggong said.

"I know," Xu Wangshu said, "so you didn't fill out this registration."

She paused for a moment.

"Someone filled it out for you."

That night, for the first time, Lu Chengong did not touch the fragment.

He placed his hand outside the sensor and watched it vibrate until dawn.

He figured something out, but didn't say it.

He dared not say it.

Because if he were to reveal it, it would mean that he has been on someone else's list for the past three years.

He finally spoke as dawn approached.

"If I never knew I was on the list," he asked, "then are all the decisions I made over these three years mine?"

Xu Wangshu did not answer immediately.

She thought about it.

"Yes," she said. "The name on the list was written down by someone else. The decision is yours."

"But it always remembered me."

"Remembering is not the same as calculating," Xu Wangshu said. "It's registration, not judgment."

Lu Chenggong remained silent.

He looked down at the fragments.

The fragments gradually quieted down, as if they had understood.