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

Qin Lan disassembled the three steps from the fifth day again.

"Slowly, slowly," she said as she placed it, "not the three knocks."

"What are those three strikes?"

"It's the three strokes of the character '刮' (scrape)."

She pulled up a photo of the bottom of the thirty-one compartments of the counterweight chamber.

enlarge.

There wasn't a scratch on the bottom.

There are three paths.

"The first cut was shallow," Qin Lan said, pointing to the photo. "It's like they tested it out first, afraid of damaging it."

"The second one is deep."

"The third one, the most crooked," she said. "My hands were shaking."

No one spoke in the main control room.

"These three strikes," Qin Lan said, "correspond perfectly to the three strikes outside. Slow down, slow down, slow down."

"So it wasn't just one person knocking on the door," Lu Chenggong said.

"Yes," Qin Lan said, "He repeated the actions he took while scratching the lettering."

"Three times, does that mean three apologies?"

"I don't know," Qin Lan said, "but if someone is willing to come back, stand outside the door, and knock on the same scratching sound they used to make back then—at least they're not hiding."

Xu Wangshu stared at the three marks for a long time.

"He scratched it three times," she said, "which means he hesitated three times."

"What are you hesitating about?"

"The first time I wanted to shave, the second time I actually did it, and the third time, my hands were shaking after I finished."

"and then?"

"Then he took the words with him."

The main control room was quiet for a while.

"Why didn't he leave the words there?" Lu Chenggong asked.

"Because the words left behind were his name," Xu Wangshu said. "He scraped off his real name, number thirty-one."

Everyone looked at her.

How did you know it was his name?

"Because a complete stranger wouldn't have a shaky hand when scratching someone else's name a third time," Xu Wangshu said. "The person scratching someone else's name wouldn't have a shaky hand."

Lu Chengong thought for a moment and then asked a question.

"What if he scraped off the name of someone he hates?"

Xu Wangshu shook his head.

"When you hate someone, the more you hurt them, the harder you hurt them, without your hand trembling," she said. "Your hand trembles because you can't bring yourself to do it."

"It's precisely because I can't bring myself to do it that I have to scrape it three times," Xu Wangshu said. "The first cut is quick, the third is slow. Slow, because I can't bear to do it."

No one spoke in the main control room.

Qin Lan wrote this down.

"How should the record be written?"

"Written: Three scratch marks on the bottom of the grid, in the same order as three slow knocks outside the door. The person who scratched the marks is suspected to be himself."

"It's suspected to be him," Qin Lan repeated. "Should we write it as 'suspected'?"

"Yes," Xu Wangshu said. "Before he speaks, we can only suspect. The world won't admit it for him."

She paused for a moment, then said, "But the human world can preserve those three marks exactly as they were."

"What's the point of keeping it?"

"When he comes back, he can take a look for himself," Xu Wangshu said. "He can see how shaky his hand was back then."

Qin Lan saved the photo and added a comment.

"The depth of the three marks can also be saved."

"live."

"Why do we even need to save the depth?"

"The depth of his hesitation reflects the intensity of those three instances of doubt," Xu Wangshu said. "The first line was shallow; he was still hesitating. The second line was deep; he made up his mind. The third line was crooked; he regretted it."

"You regretted it and still left?"

"You only leave when you regret it," Xu Wangshu said. "Those who stay don't need to regret it."

Qin Lan saved the three different shades of the graphic in her file.

After collecting them, she suddenly asked, "Should we use these three marks to compare with anyone else's handwriting?"

"No comparison," Xu Wangshu said.

Why?

"In comparison, we're searching the whole world for hands," she said. "Finding hands means grabbing people, not waiting for them."

"So what are we waiting for?"

"Wait for that hand to return to these three marks on its own," Xu Wangshu said.

After she finished speaking, she looked at the three marks.

"Keep it. He can see it when he comes back."