“Hmm…”

Gao Yang stared at the delicate diary, seemingly untouched by time.

“This four-digit password is easy to guess. Let's try Zhang Yuqian's birthday. 0121! Quick, try it!”

Lin Xian lowered his head and dialed the four password wheels.

They turned as smoothly as ever.

*Click, click*, crisp and soft, the sound pleasing, the feel excellent.

It was hard to imagine this diary had been kept for over twenty years... Just based on the sound and feel, one could deduce that the mechanical design of this combination lock was very precise.

One could see the big picture through the small. The craftsmanship of the small island nation in the last century was quite good, even world-leading.

No wonder those toxic motivational magazines could fabricate ghost stories about how plates in Japan were washed seven times.

But that was all in the past. Lin Xian didn't know much about the current manufacturing level of Japan. After all, apart from games and anime, it had little presence.

Even in the cosmetics field, there were a few good brands, but they weren't top-tier globally, and the reputation was affected by the nuclear wastewater issue. Now, there was basically no room for Japanese cosmetics in the domestic market.

Lin Xian adjusted the last two password wheels.

0121

The clear and bright numbers stood out, as if this diary had never experienced the passage of time.

"Okay."

With that, Lin Xian reached out his left thumb and pressed the release button.

*Click!*

…It didn't open.

"Heh."

Lin Xian couldn't help but recall those days and nights in the first dreamscape, fighting wits and courage with CC the Big-Faced Cat, trying various passwords to open the safe.

He felt a strange sense of nostalgia, as if it were yesterday.

Thinking of the cold and mysterious CC, Lin Xian instantly overlapped her appearance with Chu Anqing's and Zhang Yuqian's.

Exactly the same, no difference, not even a little bit.

Actually.

When he opened the coffin and saw that there were no remains or ashes of Zhang Yuqian inside, Lin Xian really breathed a sigh of relief…

He felt a hint of relief, a hint of luck.

If Zhang Yuqian had really died, a normal death, with remains and bones; it would mean that Chu Anqing's bizarre disappearance was an isolated case in this world.

An isolated case proves nothing.

If something only happens once in this world, it will forever remain an unsolvable mystery.

If that were the case.

Perhaps… Chu Anqing disappeared completely from this world because of an accident involving space-time particles. If she hadn't come into contact with space-time particles, she might not have disappeared.

But now.

Zhang Yuqian, more than twenty years ago, had experienced the same thing.

This meant that the disappearance of these twenty-year-old girls into blue stardust was not an accident, but rather a destiny, a programmed design.

And as long as these things were not accidents, the source could be found, the root traced, the cause investigated, and then… this destined fate could be changed!

Lin Xian could feel it more and more.

Chu Anqing might not be dead.

[She's really not dead, she's probably just gone somewhere else.]

"That's not right, actually."

Gao Yang's eyes rolled.

"Why don't we try 0042? Although I don't think there's much hope, that time is too special for Zhang Yuqian. It's the time she came to this world, and the time she left this world."

"But that's hard to say... Her mother doesn't even remember exactly what time she was born, would she know herself? Not to mention, could she have foreseen that she would disappear at 00:42?"

Suddenly, Gao Yang was stunned.

"Wait! It's not impossible! Didn't Chu Anqing know that she would disappear at 00:42 after touching the space-time particles, which is why she wailed and cried?"

"Since Chu Anqing could foresee this time, maybe Zhang Yuqian could too! Quick, quick, try 0042, I think this password has a better chance."

Lin Xian lowered his head again and turned the dials.

The four stainless steel password wheels showed 0042, and then he pressed the release button—

*Click!*

It didn't open.

Gao Yang took out a Swiss Army knife from his pocket.

"Let's use technology."

Lin Xian silently tried a few more passwords, 2000, 2024, 2624, 0828, 0328, these relatively special years and dates, were all wrong.

He even tried his own birthday with a bit of self-indulgence, but it was still wrong.

Heh, what a clown.

Helpless, he held the diary higher, using the miner's lamp on his head to illuminate it, studying the structure of the diary and the combination lock.

"There's no problem with destroying this thing by force, but based on its structure, once it's forcibly destroyed, the structure of the combination lock will definitely be incomplete. It can't be used again, and we'll never know what password Zhang Yuqian set."

"Tch!"

Gao Yang dismissed it.

"The important thing about a diary is the diary content itself. The combination lock is just a lock. Why do you care what the password is? As long as you can open the lock, a hammer and pliers are the key."

"That's not necessarily true."

Lin Xian shook his head.

"Sometimes, the meaning of the password itself is far more important than what the password locks."

During this time.

Lin Xian had experienced too many password incidents, not only the safe with his name on it, but also the password door in Zhao Yingjun's office, the trash can robot in Sky City, and the hafnium alloy safe he was about to set a new password for...

Passwords.

It's information in itself.

Don't look at it as just a string of irrelevant numbers, but behind these number combinations, there must be some deep meaning, or... some unforgettable story.

"So, let's not crack it violently yet."

Lin Xian took the password diary out of the coffin and placed it with the photo album and old videotape from before.

"Anyway, it's just a four-digit password, only 10,000 possibilities in total. Even if I try them one by one, it won't take a few hours to figure it out."

"A four-digit password isn't an eight-digit password... It's very easy to crack, it's just a matter of hand speed and patience."

"Compared to the contents of the diary, I'm really more curious... what password Zhang Yuqian would set for this diary. Maybe the real [secret] isn't in the diary, the four-digit password itself is Zhang Yuqian's real secret."

Gao Yang clicked his tongue and stood up.

"You're obsessed."

"I think you just want to peek at other people's girls' private diaries yourself, and don't want to share with me."

After that.

The two pushed the coffin lid back on.

Then they filled the dug-out dirt back in.

Even though Gao Yang tried to arrange the turf neatly, the dug-out dirt was like broken glass, difficult to restore to its original state.

"Forget it, that's it."

Gao Yang quickly gave up, patted the dirt with the shovel, wiped his sweat, and comforted himself.

"Anyway, grass grows very quickly. Don't look at this area we dug out now, it's very conspicuous. When it rains, it'll be washed the same as the surrounding area."

"Besides... who would come to this godforsaken place for no reason? It's gloomy and scary enough."

The two packed up their things and carried them back to the Prado's trunk in two trips. The last time they left, the two looked back at the bright red swaying pomegranate tree, and Gao Yang even put his hands together and bowed to it.

"There's no one buried inside, what are you bowing to?" Lin Xian complained.

"Hey, it doesn't hurt to be polite, bowing makes me feel at ease."

After saying that.

The two turned around and left through the mud, leaving a peaceful, tranquil, and quiet paradise.

…

Inside the Toyota Prado SUV.

Gao Yang concentrated on driving on the expressway, while Lin Xian half-reclined in the passenger seat, constantly fiddling with the combination lock diary.

He found that pushing the password wheel up was easier, and after pushing it up, he could press the release button directly with his right hand, which was easier.

So, he was trying passwords, adjusting and correcting from 9999 down one digit at a time, cracking the password with the ancient brute-force method.

9999…

9998…

9997…

*Click, click, click*.

Although cracking it was boring, the speed wasn't slow.

There were only 10,000 password combinations in total, each mistake reduced the number, and the more mistakes, the greater the probability that the next password was correct.

Gao Yang had only driven through two intersections when Lin Xian had already tried more than 100 passwords, and the numbers on the four password wheels had reached 9811...9810...

After becoming proficient.

He didn't even need to look down at the combination lock, he could tell which digit he was at just by feeling.

Lin Xian felt like he had become an emotionless password-cracking machine, constantly looping, without even needing to think.

He turned his head and looked at the messy tools placed on the back seat, as well as an old videotape and a yellowed photo album.

They had brought out three things from Zhang Yuqian's coffin this time.

A combination lock diary,

An old videotape,

A thick photo album.

These were the three most valuable items in the empty coffin.

Lin Xian still had no clue. Besides their appearance, what other crucial clues did Chu Anqing, Zhang Yuqian, and CC have… that could connect the three girls who spanned different eras?

Although the three of them might all be thousand-year pilings (qiannian zhuang).

However, without knowing what "thousand-year piling" actually meant or specifically referred to, this sentence was just nonsense.

Therefore.

He and Gao Yang had to return to the capital again to go to that luxurious residential area on the Third Ring Road in Chaoyang District, to find that stammering middle-aged uncle and ask about the truth of Zhang Yuqian's car accident back then.

This time, Lin Xian was very confident that he could persuade the uncle.

Now that it was 99% certain that Zhang Yuqian, like Chu Anqing, had disappeared into blue stardust, and that middle-aged couple were definitely eyewitnesses... then Lin Xian had nothing to worry about, and could say anything directly.

…

Back at the hotel where they were staying in Qufu, Gao Yang immediately took off his dirty clothes, threw them in the trash can, and rushed into the bathroom to take a shower.

Lin Xian also tidied up briefly, took a shower, changed his clothes, and put Zhang Yuqian's videotape and photo album back in his suitcase.

While rummaging, he saw the casual clothes he wore when he went to the astronaut training base.

The next day, Wei Cheng gave them several sets of training clothes, so they only wore the casual clothes once, and they had been pressed at the bottom of the suitcase.

More importantly…

The strand of Chu Anqing's hair that Lin Xian picked up from the trash bag was hidden in the pocket of his casual clothes.

Lin Xian reached into his pocket and felt the flat plastic bag.

He took it out.

Looking at it in the light overhead…

He saw that the tightly sealed plastic bag was now empty, without a single strand of hair.

"As expected, it's empty."

Lin Xian wasn't surprised.

The sealed opening at the top of the plastic bag had no signs of being opened, and remained sealed as always.

This meant that even the hair that Chu Anqing had grabbed and dropped had also turned into blue stardust and disappeared at 00:42 on March 28, 2024.

In this world.

Everything belonging to Chu Anqing's body, every edge, every corner, every tiny bit, had disappeared at that moment; turning into tiny blue stardust, collapsing like a quantum state.

In that case…

Those dissipated stardust particles were actually somewhat similar to space-time particles in a sense.

Space-time particles didn't belong to this space-time, so they could penetrate any entity in this universe. Just like the blue stardust that Chu Anqing turned into, it could overflow from the spacesuit without a trace, and it could also dissipate from the sealed plastic bag without a shadow.

They were both very magical substances.

If thousand-year pilings, like space-time particles, didn't belong to this space-time, this attribute would match up.

But the problem was…

If thousand-year pilings, that is, Chu Anqing and Zhang Yuqian, didn't belong to this space-time, why didn't space-time rejection occur?

Why didn't their eyes become blue and crystalline like the oriole?

Why didn't they suffer from space-time backlash? Why didn't they become weak, fall down, and become transparent like the oriole?

This was contradictory again!

"So…"

Lin Xian concluded.

"Most likely, thousand-year pilings and space-time particles are not the same or similar things. So there is no commonality, and there is no need to seek connections between the two."

At this moment, Gao Yang walked over, wiping his hair with a towel, and saw the small plastic bag in Lin Xian's hand.

"Is that the strand of Chu Anqing's hair you mentioned? It really disappeared, right?"

Lin Xian nodded.

"But I was mentally prepared for it. However... before confirming that Zhang Yuqian's coffin was empty, I actually still had a glimmer of hope in my heart."

Gao Yang squatted down.

He took the tightly sealed small plastic bag that was empty inside.

"Anyway, it's impossible to do DNA verification now. Zhang Yuqian's remains can't be found, and it's likely that there are no remains at all. And then Chu Anqing's hair disappeared, which completely sealed off the possibility of doing DNA verification."

"Huh? Wait."

Gao Yang had a sudden inspiration.

"Then what about we directly compare the DNA of Chu Anqing's parents and Zhang Yuqian's parents? Like begets like. If Chu Anqing and Zhang Yuqian's DNA is consistent, then Chu Shanhe and that middle-aged uncle's DNA should also be consistent!"

"[It's meaningless.]"

Lin Xian smiled helplessly.

"Even if it turns out that Chu Shanhe and that uncle's DNA is different, not the same person at all... what can that prove? Can it prove that Chu Anqing and Zhang Yuqian are not related, that they are not the same person? This is obviously not rigorous. Otherwise, why would so many people in the world do paternity tests?"

"Or, the comparison results show that Chu Shanhe and that uncle's DNA are exactly the same. What can that prove? Can it guarantee that Chu Anqing and Zhang Yuqian's DNA is also exactly the same? Or can it prove that Chu Shanhe and that uncle are also thousand-year pilings or ten-thousand-year pilings? Then why haven't they disappeared yet? They can't wait until they're 200 years old to disappear, right?"

"What's more... use your logical reasoning. If Chu Shanhe and that uncle's DNA is consistent, it means that Chu Shanhe's father and that uncle's father's DNA are also consistent; that is to say, their grandfather's DNA is also consistent, and their great-grandfather and great-grandmother's DNA is also consistent... What kind of biological ghost story is this? Is Chu Shanhe the origin of humanity?"

Gao Yang gave Lin Xian a thumbs up.

"Your reasoning is amazing! The logic is impeccable! So Chu Shanhe and that uncle's DNA are destined to be different, otherwise the origin of humanity has to be re-researched."

"Then now, is there only one last step left before we figure out the truth of this series of events and the reason for Chu Anqing's disappearance? That is, to see what role [space-time particles] play in the events of them turning into blue stardust and disappearing."

"Is it necessary or unnecessary? Is it okay to have it or not, or is it necessary to touch space-time particles before becoming a thousand-year piling?"

"And to figure out this final question... the only way is to return to the capital and ask that middle-aged uncle, to tell the truth of the car accident back then, or even before the car accident; and whether Zhang Yuqian wailed and cried and talked nonsense like Chu Anqing did that night."

"That's right."

Lin Xian nodded, looking at the half-moon gradually rising outside the window.

"We need to determine whether Zhang Yuqian in 2000 had come into contact with... space-time particles!"