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

"You can't pay."

Xu Wangshu spoke quickly and steadily.

Everyone in the encrypted cabin looked at her. On the screen, Beitianmen's request for verification hung at the top of the global deep space network, like an invisible eye, waiting for humanity to offer its backbone.

Qin Lan asked, "What are the consequences of not paying?"

"It will think we're hiding key structures," Xu Wangshu said. "But if we hand them over, it can bypass the South Heavenly Gate and the Lighthouse and directly examine the Buzhou Mountain Heart Chamber. That place is still waiting for a successor. Once it's taken over by the North Heavenly Gate, Lin Jibai might be re-solidified, and Lin Xiaoman will once again become the interface."

Lin Xiaoman gripped the bedsheet tightly: "Then let's lie to it."

Lu Chenggong raised an eyebrow: "Little Man, you have a bright future."

Xu Wangshu shook his head: "Ordinary fake coordinates won't fool us. Beitianmen will verify the gravity of the debris, the response of the old circuits, and the mythological frequency."

Wen Zhaolin suddenly said, "We can give it a true coordinate, but not a primary coordinate."

He pulled up the survey data from Tianheng ten years ago on the screen. Besides the main wreckage, there were dozens of fragments of Buzhou Mountain on the far side of the moon, some as large as cities, others only a few meters long. They all carried real frequencies, but none of them led to the heart chamber.

Qin Lan frowned: "A bait?"

"A decoy for counter-evidence." Xu Wangshu's eyes lit up silently. "Give it the coordinates of the outer edge fragments, along with Lin Wangchuan's incomplete repair certificate. Tell it that the human world only recognizes observations of the outer edge of the remains, not the right to examine the main coordinates."

The North Heavenly Gate may not accept it.

But what they need to gain is not victory, but time.

The obstacle came from within. Within the joint technical team, some objected: openly confronting Beitianmen was too risky; it would be better to submit the coordinates in exchange for an observation period. Another expert argued that since the master coordinates were on the far side of the moon and did not belong to any country or individual, they should be jointly managed by international organizations.

The debate quickly escalated.

The remnants of Tianheng also took the opportunity to stir up trouble, spreading panic on the global internet: if the person in charge and coordinates are not submitted, Beitianmen will cleanse the earth; Xu Wangshu and others are hiding the coordinates in order to tie all of humanity to the life of Lin Jibai.

Lin Xiaoman turned pale with anger.

Xu Wangshu did not resort to defense. Instead, she directly posted the moon image on a public channel, releasing the archived testimonies from the Stele Forest and the successor's trap documents.

"The master coordinates are not a resource," she said to the camera. "They are the key that the old Heavenly Court used to find the interface. Anyone who promises to entrust it to all of humanity will become the next Southern Heavenly Gate."

Someone asked, "Then what right do you have to safeguard it?"

Xu Wangshu replied, "We don't keep them either. The records from the lunar far-side lighthouse are backed up by multiple ground nodes, and the master coordinates are split and sealed. No single institution, company, or individual can obtain the complete coordinates."

Qin Lan glanced at her, then ordered, "Do it this way."

The coordinate splitting begins. Xu Wangshu preserves the frequency evidence, Qin Lan seals the orbital parameters, Lu Chengong provides Hou Yi sequence fragments for verification, Lin Xiaoman adds a layer of human memory noise to the coordinates using her dream voice, and Wen Zhaolin hands over all the fragment maps of Tianheng as a decoy.

The North Heavenly Gate received a response.

The submitted content is incomplete.

Please complete the main coordinates.

Xu Wangshu sent Lin Wangchuan counter-evidence.

[Complete access to the Buzhou Mountain ruins will trigger illegal custody. Humans refuse to submit the master coordinates.]

The North Heavenly Gate remained silent.

The silence lasted a full ninety seconds. Every second felt like a stone pressing on my chest.

Then, observatories around the world simultaneously issued alerts. Beitianmen did not continue questioning; instead, it began a reverse scan of everyone associated with the mission on the far side of the moon. Xu Wangshu, Lin Xiaoman, Lu Chenggong, Wen Zhaolin, Qin Lan, and even Lin Jibai, who was already trapped in the lighthouse, were all added to the scan list.

After the North Heavenly Gate began its reverse scan, the first to be affected were not Xu Wangshu, but the ordinary nodes on the ground that had just participated in the verification. A graduate student at a university observatory suddenly forgot why he had opened the data packet; an archive marker appeared on the server screen of a civilian security team; an old engineer at a small seaside observatory said on the phone that he heard someone ask him if he was willing to submit coordinates. The old system finally realized that if it couldn't convince the center, it would contaminate the periphery.

Xu Wangshu immediately changed her strategy. She instructed all nodes to only store fragment hashes, not the content; to only confirm the "primary coordinates cannot be committed" judgment, and not to access any recoverable information. Qin Lan simultaneously ordered the disconnection of high-risk links. The self-verifying network in the human world shifted from frenzied expansion to restrained defense, like a net that would actively shrink.

Lin Xiaoman wiped away the blood from her nose and divided her dream sounds into many extremely short fragments, sending them to different points in the network. Each fragment was just a harmless memory: half a piece of candy, a rain shower, a broken fan. Chasing after it at the North Heavenly Gate would only lead her into a pile of mundane human affairs that couldn't be pieced together.

[Locate the primary coordinates.]

[Prepare for memory retrieval.]

Lin Xiaoman groaned, blood gushing from her nose. Xu Wangshu's moon painting also began to ignite spontaneously. The broken bow behind Lu Chengong vibrated silently, and Wen Zhaolin's fragment of authority exploded.

The North Heavenly Gate must be taken from their minds.

In a critical moment, the lunar far side lighthouse suddenly connected to the global deep space network.

The image of that little lamp appeared in every corner of the screen.

Lin Jibai's echo was intermittent, but clearer than ever before.

Looking for coordinates?

Contact me first.

Xu Wangshu's expression changed drastically: "Lin Jibai, don't do anything reckless!"

The lighthouse's light surged, drawing all scanning links toward the far side of the moon. The memory retrieval from the North Heavenly Gate was forced to redirect to the lighthouse's core.

Lin Xiaoman cried out, "Brother!"

Xu Wangshu pressed down hard on the Moon Map, trying to sever it, but discovered that Lin Jibai had deliberately disguised himself as the master coordinate's informed core. This would protect everyone, but he would be directly investigated by the Northern Heavenly Gate.

The new judgment on Beitianmen appeared on the screen.

[Core anomaly discovered: Gonggong variable.]

[Preparing for remote disassembly.]

The light from the lighthouse on the far side of the moon began to peel away layer by layer.

In the fading light, Xu Wangshu saw Lin Jibai's blurry figure for the first time.

He stood deep within the lighthouse, turned back, and smiled at her.

[Dr. Xu.]

They really need to get me out of there quickly this time.

After the master coordinates were refused, the joint office entered the highest level of isolation. Qin Lan divided all participants into three groups, each unaware of the complete plan, and even she herself only retained a portion of it. Some questioned the efficiency, to which she simply replied, "Efficiency is the old Heavenly Court's favorite excuse." This made Xu Wangshu look up at her. For the first time, she felt that perhaps humanity wasn't entirely unprepared; at least some people knew how to resist perfect control using clumsy methods.

The remnants of Tianheng launched a counterattack faster than expected. Seventeen anonymous nodes simultaneously uploaded a "leaked master coordinate version" to the network, attempting to create a mix of real and fake coordinates so that Beitianmen (the northern part of the moon) could filter them out. Xu Wangshu immediately saw through it; the fake coordinates contained a real frequency, enough to narrow the scanning range to the northern hemisphere of the far side of the moon. Instead of deleting each node, she reversed the process and published all the traces of the fake coordinates, allowing global technical nodes to label them. In less than ten minutes, thousands of amateur astronomers, university laboratories, and security teams joined the verification. For the first time, human chaos became an advantage: no center could be breached instantly, and no lie could escape scrutiny from countless eyes.

Beitianmen clearly disliked this situation. It stopped demanding coordinates and instead chose a more direct approach: naming those in the know.