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

Back in the main control room, the second thing Qin Lan did was to ask for the key to that door and record it.

"The counterweight compartment was nominally burned down ten years ago," she said. "Something burned down shouldn't still have a key."

"Does it have it?"

"It has it." She pushed a form over. "Three of them."

The first one is in the old archive. The number line says "Not to be resolved," and the note says "Sealed along with the object."

The second one was at the former property management office of the Aerospace City, the predecessor of Tianheng. The note reads "to be deleted along with the registration".

Qin Lan paused for a moment during the third round.

"No notes were written for the third round."

What does it mean that no notes were written?

"It means it's blank," she said. "The blank column has nothing written on it, but that line is highlighted. Being highlighted means it's still valid."

The main control room was quiet for a while.

"When does it expire?" Xu Wangshu asked.

"The date is not written on it."

"If you don't write a date, how will you know when it expires?"

Qin Lan did not answer, but instead zoomed in on the line showing the third key.

It's not a date.

It is a series of coordinates.

"It doesn't write the date," Qin Lan said. "It writes the location."

"What location?"

"The location of the fragment."

Xu Wangshu looked at the coordinates and slowly shut her mouth.

She recognized the first half of the coordinates.

Those are the coordinates of the nine fragments of the sun.

"This key," she said, "was tied to the fragment with a string."

"A thread?"

"The key will become invalid the moment the fragment reaches its peak temperature," Qin Lan said. "It doesn't expire according to the calendar, it expires according to temperature."

Lu Chengong had been silent until now, but suddenly spoke up.

"That means," he said, "that someone set an alarm for that key."

"What alarm clock?"

"The moment the fragments get hot, the door locks," he said. "He's not afraid of us going in. He's afraid someone will get in before he wants to."

Xu Wangshu went over those words in his mind.

"The person who took the message," she said, "maybe didn't want to keep the name."

"What are you going to do?"

"He wanted to get the name out before the door was locked."

"Who should we give it to?"

No one could answer that.

Qin Lan copied the origins of the three keys onto a table.

After copying, she discovered something.

"The first and third rounds were registered on the same day," she said.

"The same day?"

"It was less than two hours off," Qin Lan said. "The first one was sealed in the same batch, and the third one was generated."

"What about the second one?"

"The second one was even earlier," she said. "The second one was on the day the registration was deleted, and it was crossed out along with it."

Xu Wangshu looked at the table and slowly understood.

"This is the order," she said. "First, delete the official registration, then seal it in the old archives, and finally leave a key that no one has noted down."

"So, who was this key left for?"

"Give it to someone who shouldn't have the key."

"What do you mean?"

"Because the two keys from the official channels are clearly marked, anyone can check them," Xu Wangshu said. "Only the third key was deliberately left unmarked. The key without a note was left for an acquaintance."

The main control room fell silent.

Lu Chengong said in a low voice, "We're so familiar with each other that we don't need to make any notes."

"right."

"Then, is this person," Lu Chengong said, "the same person who retrieved the fire seed and sealed it away for posterity?"

Xu Wangshu did not answer immediately.

She simply wrote that sentence down on a piece of paper.

After writing it down, she said, "We are not allowed to touch the third key."

"What about the message that was taken?"

"We're not allowed to use the key to chase after them either," Xu Wangshu said. "If we catch them, we'll become the ones with the third key."

Qin Lan nodded.

"So how should we write about this?"

"Write according to the facts," Xu Wangshu said. "The message left by the 31st princess was taken away after she left the human world. The person who took it is unknown. The human world will not search for it or replace it."

"Is that all you're going to write?"

Write one more sentence.

She picked up her pen and added another line.

The expiration date of that key and the ignition peak of the fragment are timed together.

After that sentence was written, no one spoke again in the main control room.

Because everyone understood.

The person who took the message and the person who wanted to start the fire used the same table set by the same person.

What people need to do now is not to steal that watch.

First, we need to figure out who is winding up this watch.