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

When the reentry capsule crashed into the sea, it was like a red-hot iron nail piercing blue skin.

Seawater surged onto the frosty porthole, the white mist instantly engulfing everything. When Xu Wangshu awoke, half her body was submerged in cold water, and alarms filled her ears. Her first reaction wasn't pain, but to touch the moon map. The moon map was still there, as was the isolation box, but Lin Xiaoman was unconscious, Lu Chenggong was pinned down by the deformed support frame, and Wen Zhaolin's forehead was covered in blood.

"Are they all alive?" she asked in a hoarse voice.

Lu Chengong coughed up a mouthful of blood: "For now."

The reentry capsule did not stabilize immediately after crashing into the sea. It lay upside down in the waves, seawater pouring in through the cracks, nearly washing away the isolation box. Lu Chenggong, dragging his injured leg, rushed over and kicked the box back to Xu Wangshu's feet, but was himself cut in the side by a broken piece of wood. Wen Zhaolin used restraints to hold him back, while Lin Xiaoman, in her semi-conscious state, called out the correct depressurization valve number. She had deduced it from the spot where the reentry capsule was "in pain."

Xu Wangshu felt for the valve in the water and, with her last ounce of strength, turned it open. The instant the hull flipped right, everyone was slammed against the bulkhead. Her vision blurred, but she clung tightly to the Moon Map. On the Moon Map, Lin Jibai's name still glowed faintly. She stared intently at that light, suddenly realizing that as long as it remained lit, she couldn't afford to faint.

The rescue arrived faster than expected. Helicopters and ships appeared on the sea, and the national aerospace emergency channel was broadcasting. But just as Xu Wangshu breathed a sigh of relief, she discovered that another signal had been mixed into the rescue channel.

Please submit this to the person in charge of human self-governance.

This statement is spreading globally.

It wasn't through television or the internet, but rather all systems connected to the deep space observation chain simultaneously displayed the same inaccessible pop-up message. Observatories, satellite stations, university laboratories, commercial space companies, and even some civilian navigation terminals all saw this same question that couldn't be closed.

There is no self-governing person in the human world.

This is precisely the trap.

If no one answers, the North Heavenly Gate will determine that the human world is without a master and its autonomy is invalid; if someone answers, it will bind that person or organization as an interface, just as the South Heavenly Gate once tried to bind Lin Xiaoman.

Before receiving the collected testimonies, Qin Lan required all the survivors of the Moonlit Night to record an original statement to prevent later accusations of a unified fabrication. Xu Wangshu spoke the facts, Lin Xiaoman spoke of her dreams and her brother, Lu Chenggong spoke of the backlash from the nine suns seen in the Houyi sequence, and Wen Zhaolin spoke of his own sins. The four statements contradicted each other and were completely different in tone, but it was precisely because of these differences that they did not resemble a carefully packaged propaganda statement.

After listening, Qin Lan said, "Very good."

Lu Chenggong frowned: "Is this a good thing?"

Qin Lan kept her statement confidential: "Real events are never as neat as meeting minutes. Too neat, and it's like the old Heavenly Court."

This statement led Xu Wangshu to decide to preserve the raw noise as well. She no longer tried to organize her experiences on the far side of the moon into a perfect narrative, but instead preserved the cries, profanities, arguments, hesitations, and misjudgments. Because these imperfections themselves are evidence that humanity has not been entrusted with anything.

As rescuers cut open the hatch, their guns were also raised. Not at them, but at Wen Zhaolin.

The ground forces have clearly gained some control over the Tianheng Group accident, the lunar anomaly, and the Nantianmen incident. Wen Zhaolin was restrained but did not resist.

A middle-aged woman in a dark blue uniform walked up to Xu Wangshu and showed her identification: "Qin Lan, National Deep Space Anomaly Joint Office. Dr. Xu, what did you bring back?"

Xu Wangshu looked at her: "Evidence. And a countdown."

Qin Lan didn't waste any words: "Let's talk on the boat."

The obstacle came from the remnants of Tianheng. The rescue ship had just activated its encryption chamber when its external network was forcibly accessed by a commercial satellite link. The voice of a temporary director of Tianheng appeared on the screen, righteously demanding control of Wen Zhaolin and the Yuebei samples, arguing that Tianheng possessed the mission assets.

Lu Chenggong almost burst out laughing: "Asset rights? The stele forest on the moon counts as your assets?"

The other party coldly replied, "Unverified anomalous statements cannot be used as a basis for decision-making. The best solution at present is for Tianheng to act as the representative of human self-governance and establish communication with Beitianmen."

Wen Zhaolin raised his head, his eyes icy: "Who authorized you to do this?"

The director paused for a second: "Mr. Wen, you are no longer suitable to represent the company."

Xu Wangshu realized that even after Wen Zhaolin collapsed, the impulse to restart within Tianheng had not ceased. On the contrary, some people wanted to use the North Heavenly Gate as a pretext to turn the company into a human intermediary.

Qin Lan ordered the satellite link to be cut off, but it was like a persistent, intractable problem. The countdown to the Beitianmen crisis had begun.

Please submit this to the responsible person within 300 seconds.

Lin Xiaoman opened her eyes on the medical bed and said weakly, "We can't hand over anyone."

Xu Wangshu immediately chimed in, "We can't remain silent either."

She recalled the institutional reforms of the moonlit lighthouse: no one could permanently succeed to the position, and everyone would witness it. Perhaps the answer on Earth also couldn't be given by a single person.

Qin Lan looked at her: "You have a plan?"

"Submit a collection of testimonies," Xu Wangshu said. "Human autonomy is not proven by a single person in charge, but by multiple sources of testimony. We broadcast the return package of the moon far-side lighthouse, the testimony of the Stele Forest, the counter-evidence of Lin Wangchuan, and the statement of Nantianmen refusing to entrust the management to the Deep Space Network, so that Beitianmen is not facing an interface, but an incompressible human world."

The technician turned pale: "This would expose top-secret information."

Qin Lan only asked, "What would happen if we didn't make it public?"

Xu Wangshu said, "It will find us a master."

Qin Lan paused for two seconds, then said, "Send it."

The Tianheng board members roared, "You have no right to represent all of humanity!"

Xu Wangshu looked at the screen, her voice as cold as fine white moonlight: "So we don't represent. We are our witnesses."

The broadcast has begun.

The lunar far-side stele forest, archived records, the remains of Mount Buzhou, the closure of the South Heavenly Gate, and testimonies from human dreams—one by one, these stories entered the deep space network. Countless observatories around the world witnessed these hidden truths. Some were shocked, some questioned, some were fearful, and some immediately backed up their records.

The countdown at Beitianmen stopped.

No person in charge was detected.

[A large-scale self-certifying network has been detected.]

[The autonomous model is now undergoing review.]

The Tianheng satellite link suddenly turned red. The board of directors was obviously in a panic, and they tried to forge a "temporary human representative authorization letter" to push Tianheng into the interface position.

Wen Zhaolin suddenly spoke up: "Use my authority to bite back."

He handed over the last founder's key. Xu Wangshu didn't hesitate and immediately used it to publicly reveal all of Tianheng's hidden files on the far side of the moon. The forged authorization was instantly detected by global technical nodes, and Tianheng's board of directors' channels were thrown into chaos.

The North Heavenly Gate spoke again.

[Submission by a single responsible party failed.]

[Human Self-Government Leader: Undefined.]

[Undefined state allows for temporary observation.]

Before everyone could even catch their breath, the black moonstone suddenly and silently cracked open a second fissure.

[Verification Requirements: Submit the master coordinates of the Buzhou Mountain remains.]

Xu Wangshu's face turned deathly pale in an instant.

Once the master coordinates are submitted, Beitianmen can directly locate the heart chamber within the shadow of the lunar core.

That was precisely what the old Heavenly Court most wanted to retrieve.

The main coordinate splitting is not a simple encryption. Xu Wangshu insisted that each fragment must be bound to evidence of a different nature to prevent any party from reconstructing it independently using technical means. The orbital parameters are bound to the national deep space agency's sealing order, the frequency evidence is bound to the lunar far-side lighthouse log, the fragment map is bound to the Tianheng crime evidence, and the dream noise was personally set by Lin Xiaoman.

When Lin Xiaoman set the noise, she didn't choose a complex password, but rather fragments of family memories: the day her brother bought her the wrong medicine, the night her father fixed the broken radio and then fixed it again, the pothos plant that had seemingly come back to life on the windowsill of their rented apartment. The technician couldn't understand the purpose of these things, but Xu Wangshu did. The old system was good at cracking rules, but not at understanding why a potted pothos plant was worth remembering.

Lu Chengong also handed over a fragment of Hou Yi for verification. He dripped his blood onto the fragment, and two dim sun patterns silently lit up on it. If Beitianmen wanted to forcibly restore the coordinates, it had to conduct a reverse interrogation of the Hou Yi sequence: who should the arrow be shot at, and who decided that?

The last thing Wen Zhaolin handed over was a list. The list included people within Tianheng who were still pushing for the restart plan, as well as the location of the backup data on the far side of the moon that they possessed.

After reading it, Qin Lan immediately ordered the arrest and freezing of assets.

Wen Zhaolin said, "They will accuse me of betrayal."

Lu Chenggong sneered, "You've finally betrayed the right place."