The next moment, my eyes went wide.
*
Time rewound to ten years ago, to high school, when Rowan Luo was my desk-mate.
It was the spring of 2012. Outside the classroom, the sky was impossibly blue, clouds lazing into new shapes, willow catkins drifting. Each day seemed endlessly long.
Rowan Luo said softly, "We don't have time."
We were in Chinese class. He was talking to himself. I turned my head to peek at him and found he was already looking at me. My heart skipped a beat as if I'd been caught red-handed.
"Celine, Rowan Luo, no talking in class." The teacher rapped the podium.
I looked at the teacher, bewildered. Had Rowan Luo actually spoken to me of his own accord? Was this memory real?
The teacher said, "Rowan Luo, come write this ci poem on the blackboard from memory."
It was a Southern Song dynasty poem by Wang Zhiwang, "Good News Near."
Rowan Luo rose and walked to the front, picked up a piece of chalk, and without hesitation wrote the first line: "Fifty years, reunited." The teacher immediately stopped him.
"The first line is wrong! It's 'Five years, reunited.' 'Five years' and 'fifty years'—are those the same thing?"
Rowan Luo stood with his head bowed, silent. He neither erased the extra character nor continued writing.
"The entire poem uses love as a metaphor. The next line reads: 'It startles me, my temples turned white, only recognized by voice and fragrance.' If they reunite after five years, 'I' have already grown old. After fifty years, wouldn't they be dead? How could they reunite? Reunite in heaven?"
Rowan Luo remained unmoved. He slowly turned around, his gaze burning past everyone, fixing directly on me. Behind him, six large characters on the blackboard: "Fifty years, reunited."
I jolted awake, another wave of dizziness hitting me as the car jostled.
I was on my way back to my hometown. I'd been dreaming.
It was a dream, not entirely real memory. Wang Zhiwang's "Good News Near" was indeed taught in high school, but Rowan Luo had never gone to the blackboard to write it from memory. He had never looked me in the eye.
I rolled down the car window. Fresh wind swept over me. The weather was fine, just as it always had been. The car rounded a bend, and the familiar little town spread out before me. I spotted my old high school, and beyond it, the now-abandoned Geological Research Institute at the foot of the mountain.
At first glance, nothing seemed to have changed.
Ten years ago, Rowan Luo had come to our town with his parents, who were conducting classified research, and stayed for a year. Back then, the Geological Research Institute stood at the foot of the mountain, its signboard reading "Special Energy Survey Unit"—also a Class 1 state secret facility, guarded by armed police. No one knew what they were researching.
But after they left, an epidemic swept through the town. Timing-wise, it was shortly after our class trip to Meridian Island. By then, Rowan Luo had already transferred out, and the Geological Research Institute was empty.
The epidemic came fiercely, more like a plague, causing considerable panic in the town. Fortunately, it receded just as fast. The illness wasn't hard to treat, the government provided reassurance and subsidies, and disease control measures were timely, so the damage was limited. In the end, no one pursued the matter.
Though everyone suspected the epidemic was connected to the classified research.
Ten years had passed, and the old secrets remained secrets. But thinking carefully, there were quite a few suspicious points. For instance, why had the Geological Research Institute transformed from an ordinary energy survey unit into a classified one? Why had the state placed such an important secret project in our obscure little town?
My instinct told me that Rowan Luo and his parents were all part of the same classified project—one that had simply moved from our small town to the moon. I knew the truth was not what the institute's signboard proclaimed about "energy surveying," nor what the television announced about "lunar helium-3 extraction." I wanted to know the real story.
That was why I'd made a sudden decision to return home.
Our old homeroom teacher was approaching retirement age but still taught at the school. He received me warmly.
Walking into the office, I spotted an old globe on the desk and remembered that he taught geography.
After some small talk, I brought up Rowan Luo.
"Rowan Luo," the homeroom teacher recalled, "he was the dependent of researchers on the classified project that year, transferred to our school for a year. I remember he excelled in the sciences, very self-disciplined in his studies—though perhaps too studious for his own good, lacking a child's spirit.
"Of course, that's not his fault. His family had a big influence on him. The Luo family had produced scientists for generations, and they naturally had high expectations for him. His father wanted him to make his mark in space research, so he was enrolled in the talent development program very early. Except for the one year he studied here, he received strictly targeted training.
"I have to say, that kind of upbringing does produce capable individuals, but it also creates personality flaws." The teacher paused. "It's just that he was so young..."
"Did you see the news too?" My heart ached.
"Yes. I can't believe he passed away so young, dying alone on the moon." The teacher sighed. "His family always demanded he focus solely on research and cut off social connections. When he first transferred in for his sophomore year, his father told me that Rowan Luo was only at a regular high school in transition, and he hoped other students wouldn't influence him in any way. 'He must learn to be alone'—those were his father's exact words. He needed to develop the psychological resilience for future space research. You can imagine how lonely space is."
Once again, the WeChat startup page appeared in my mind—that quiet image of the tiny figure looking at Earth from outside. I knew that space was not a place ordinary people could endure. And looking back ten years, Rowan Luo had been utterly cold—aloof, pushing everyone away—as if he'd never possessed such human emotions as loneliness, as if from the very beginning he hadn't belonged to Earth but to the boundless cosmos.
"That's exactly what he did," I said softly. "He was so self-disciplined. He never integrated with the class, never joined a single group activity. We always thought he was cold and arrogant."
"Arrogant?" The teacher frowned. "That was probably an illusion created by distance. He was actually a humble boy. Celine, you were his desk-mate—didn't you know he didn't want to be a researcher himself?"
I stared at him for a long moment, then shook my head.
"When I had everyone write career plans, what Rowan Luo turned in was unexpected. He first wrote 'Writer'—two characters written with genuine conviction—then crossed them out forcefully and scrawled 'Scientist' instead."
"I... I really had no idea." I was genuinely surprised. Rowan Luo had seemed born to be a scientist. Now, after all these years, this was the only secret I knew beneath his impenetrable shell.
The teacher said wistfully, "Born into a research family, Rowan Luo's entire life was hijacked by a great cause—living for the great cause, dying for the great cause. If he'd been allowed to make his own choice even once, he might have had a better ending, rather than dying so young. But life doesn't offer do-overs."
I gave a vague murmur of agreement, my mind swimming—
A better ending... ending?
That was already Rowan Luo's ending.
But suddenly it felt like things weren't that simple. In a flash, I recalled many scenes—
The casualty list on the news, the satellite cloud map on the weather forecast, the WeChat startup page's "little person gazing at Earth," the earth...
The globe on the desk spun and spun before my eyes—
My world went still. The dream resurfaced.
Rowan Luo stood before the blackboard, his expression cold yet his gaze burning. He looked past the entire class, straight at me.
Behind him, six large characters: "Fifty years, reunited."
The earth spun wildly, faster and faster, then stopped in an instant.
"Teacher," I pressed my fingers to my temples, "you've taught geography for decades, right?"
"Quite a long time."
"Then have you ever noticed the earth on the WeChat startup page?" I pulled out my phone and opened the screenshot. "A few days ago, I realized there's something wrong with this image."
"You really are observant. The WeChat startup page has never changed. People see it every day and are so used to it, who would think to examine it closely?" The teacher studied it for a moment. "All I know is that the earth in this image is from the famous 'Blue Marble' photograph."
"That's right," I nodded. "I looked it up. It was taken on December 7, 1972, by the Apollo 17 spacecraft on its way to the moon. WeChat has used this photograph as its startup page for ten years now."
"1972? What a coincidence—this year is 2022... That would make it the fiftieth anniversary of 'Blue Marble.'"
Fifty years?
My heart jolted.
In my dream, Rowan Luo had written "Fifty years, reunited" on the blackboard, and no matter how the teacher criticized him, he hadn't corrected it—only looked at me.
What kind of uncanny dream was this? A chill ran through my entire body.
"Tell me," the teacher asked, "what do you think is wrong with this image?"
My voice trembled. "A few days ago, when I saw the weather forecast, I noticed that the cloud pattern over China on that day was remarkably similar to the cloud pattern over China in the WeChat earth image. Could such a coincidence really exist?"