"From this, I developed a strange thought. The WeChat earth—that is, the 'Blue Marble' photograph—was supposedly taken on the moon in 1972. But rather than that, it seems more like it was taken on the moon in 2022. I know this sounds preposterous. After all, it's a famous, long-established photograph, and WeChat has used it for its startup page for ten years..."
"A flight of fancy," the teacher said. "'Blue Marble' has been around for fifty years. How could it have been taken this year? It's just your imagination playing tricks."
"I know it sounds absurd, but I don't want to abandon this possibility. After all, Rowan Luo died on the moon in 2022. Could there be a connection between those two things?" I clasped my hands tightly together, startled even by my own wild notion. But I still asked the real question I'd come for. "Teacher, do you know what that classified project was ten years ago?"
The teacher shook his head. "No, it was classified."
I pressed on. "The project was active in our town for two or three years, and after they left, an epidemic broke out. Was there really not a single whisper that leaked out?"
"None. Their secrecy was always airtight."
"Then, Teacher, could you help me contact Rowan Rowan's father? No matter what, I need to know the truth. Please."
The teacher considered for a moment. "The school archives should still have the records of students' parents from 2012. We could find Rowan Rowan's father's name and workplace... but I still don't understand what you're holding onto."
I let out a long breath. "Ten years ago, I fell in love with Rowan Luo one-sidedly. That was the first and greatest regret of my life. And the obsession still hasn't faded."
"I know you've never been one to give up," the teacher said helplessly. "But Rowan Luo has passed away. What can you possibly change?"
I closed my eyes, steadied myself, and finally voiced the premonition that had been buried deep in my heart for days but that I'd been afraid to face: "Rowan Luo might still be alive. This might be a conspiracy... I want to save him."
*
The timeline in my dream grew tangled again.
"Rowan Luo, do you want to come with us to Meridian Island?" I asked, looking at his cold, hard profile.
He shook his head and said softly, "We don't have time."
"Time." I gazed through the moon-like glass marble at the trees, the mountains, the sky, and Rowan Luo's receding silhouette, murmuring, "There's still a long time."
"...The second batch of lunar researchers all tragically perished, including three Chinese researchers..."
Rowan Luo stood at the podium, staring at me.
"Fifty years, reunited."
Reunited.
...
When I came to again, I was on a plane heading to the city where Rowan Rowan's father lived.
I wanted to save Rowan Luo. This desire had taken root in me. But many questions remained beyond my comprehension, exceeding the limits of my knowledge. Emerging from the chaos of the dream, I kept staring at the screenshot of the WeChat startup page.
That little figure outside the earth, gazing at it—what was he looking at? He showed me only his dark silhouette, as if in the next moment he would turn around and reveal Rowan Luo's face, and speak to me.
I felt like I was losing my mind. It was just an image WeChat had created based on "Blue Marble." That little figure was just an illustration. Yet here I was, wondering who it was. How absurd. But one thing I could be certain of: the moment I began to suspect that photograph, the vague, unsettling feeling I'd always had—the truth behind the decade-old classified project—was surfacing.
"Blue Marble" was taken in 1972. The earth in 1972 shouldn't have looked like that. Half a century ago, our blue planet should have been bluer, shouldn't it?
It was nighttime. Through the cabin window, I could see the sprawling lights of the vast land below and the twinkling stars in the boundless sky. The points of light above and below merged together, and I trembled at the sight.
"The Great Way is fifty; Heaven derives forty-nine; humans escape with one."
This saying originates from the I Ching. It means that between heaven and earth, the total number governing the laws of all things is fifty, but only forty-nine can be derived. The one that escapes is the heavenly secret. The heavenly secret is actually right beside us; it only seems elusive because when it appears, it's difficult to perceive.
My life had always been straightforward and easy to understand, so I rarely noticed that certain inconceivable secrets had been running through everything all along, hidden, coexisting in the same spacetime as everyday life. Those familiar little details of daily life appeared frequently precisely because they were familiar—which was precisely why I often overlooked them.
I'd always been an ordinary person who took each day for granted. Before I noticed anything amiss, I went to work, ate, slept, socialized, lived in the normal way. On bustling streets, in crowded subways, in the gaps between work and entertainment... at any time, in any place, I would casually pick up my phone, open WeChat, and, like everyone else, give only a passing glance at the little person and the earth on the startup page before focusing entirely on socializing.
It had never occurred to me that the WeChat startup image I was so familiar with could be a message sent to me by someone in another time and space.
Now I no longer believed in coincidence. My instincts told me I'd uncovered the heavenly secret.
Early the next morning after landing, I went straight to the Physics Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' City A branch, where a staff member escorted me to meet Rowan Rowan's father.
Looking back on yesterday's visit with the teacher, aside from getting Rowan Rowan's father's contact information, I'd also gained an important piece of information—before the Geological Research Institute in our town was designated as a classified unit, the energy it was surveying was helium-3, which is abundant on the moon but scarce on earth.
The mere 10 kilograms of helium-3 that had been surveyed in our town alone could provide the energy equivalent of 2.5 million tons of standard coal. If that classified project needed to harness such enormous energy on a small scale, then whatever they were constructing must have been beyond imagination.
The answer was staring us in the face. It was almost certain that the institute had ceased to be a geological research facility and had become a physics research facility instead.
Soon I came face-to-face with Rowan Rowan's father. He had aged considerably in ten years. He still looked every bit the stern father and rigid scientist everyone remembered. The loss of his son made him seem even more unapproachable; his office was steeped in a heavy, oppressive atmosphere.
Obviously, bringing up Rowan Luo was like ripping open a wound. After I briefly explained why I'd come, Rowan's father said sharply, "I'm sorry, Miss Xiang. That's not for public discussion. Please leave."
So I said it directly: "Rowan Luo might still be alive."
Rowan's father continued working. After a long silence, he said, "Stop fantasizing. My son gave his life for science. That is beyond dispute."
"But haven't you ever considered—"
"Didn't you watch the news?" He was clearly irritated. "The intensity of those cosmic rays was unprecedented—a disaster. The moon has no atmosphere, and current shielding can't withstand them. Their deaths were inevitable. None of us wanted this outcome, but there's no alternative."
I stepped closer and lowered my voice. "So you've confirmed that the researchers on the moon are dead—is that what you're saying?"
Rowan's father narrowed his eyes and looked up at me. "Earth has already cut off communications with the moon."
I pressed further. "Then what you're really saying is that at this very moment, those researchers still might be alive—not 'already sacrificed' as the news claims. It's only because communications were cut early that Earth doesn't know what happened on the moon afterward, and so a premature conclusion was drawn."
He said coldly, "I'm not admitting anything, because their deaths are the only outcome. This 'premature conclusion' you speak of is merely your own wild fantasy. When the probability is either 100% or 0%, there's no need to open Schrödinger's box. Communication or no communication is beside the point—understand?"
I said, "What if, when the cosmic rays passed through, Rowan Luo happened to be inside the machine your team had been secretly researching for ten years?"
The air in the room seemed to freeze.
Rowan's father's expression changed subtly. He finally set down his work, looked up, and met my gaze directly.
He stood up, paced the office a few times, came around behind me, and closed the door.
"I suspect Earth rushed to cut off communications not because the researchers were certain to die, but because even if they survived, they'd be forced to remain on the moon. The radiation would have mutated their genes, making them a threat to Earth's gene pool. So they had to be exiled in space—isn't that right?"
I spoke bluntly. If this wasn't the truth, Rowan's father would certainly refute it. It was a sensitive question—akin to historical plague eras when nations sealed off infected cities to prevent spread, at the cost of sacrificing the healthy people within.
Yet after closing the door, Rowan's father didn't directly answer my question. He simply asked, "Miss Xiang, how much do you know about that project?"
He hadn't denied my direct assertion. So it was true.