The lights in the monitoring center were dimmed to the lowest level, leaving only the main console illuminated. Cheng Ye had not moved from his seat. It had beensix hours and seventeen minutes since the abnormal signal was first detected at 3:53 a.m. The mechanical watch on his left wrist ticked round after round, the faint metallic scrape of the second hand over its engravings sounding like a quiet countdown.
When the timestamp in the bottom right corner flipped to 06:14:33, a new stream of data quietly came online: footage from the No.3 unmanned patrol drone outside the abandoned satellite station in Area A‑7 of the northwestern Gobi. In the gray-blue night-vision image, the low building lay quietly among the dunes, its tin roof trembling slightly in the wind. Two shallow tire tracks marked the ground by the door, left by Lin Wanqiu when she left the previous day.
Cheng Ye placed a sugar-free gum in his mouth, chewed twice, and fixed his gaze on the video clip playing on the central screen: Lin Wanqiu sitting at her desk, holding a wooden mortise‑and‑tenon model, explaining the load‑bearing principle of the dovetail joint in a steady voice. After noise reduction, her words came through clearly:
"The key to this structure lies in the bevel angle and the interlocking depth. If the error exceeds half a millimeter, the connection will loosen."
The barrage exploded at once:
[The host is being so detailed today!]
[Isn't this the way my grandpa fixes furniture?]
[Fun fact: The ancients were smarter than we think.]
[Please do dougong brackets next!]
[+1, and explain why old houses don't collapse in earthquakes!]
[The pothos on her desk looks really healthy—some feng shui thing?]
[Don't ask, it's a life energy field simulator (lol)]
Cheng Ye did not smile. He slid his finger across the control panel and tagged this broadcast as Third Valid Transmission. He pulled up the previous two records and lined them side by side:
1. Three days ago: Molecular Arrangement and Bending Resistance of Bamboo Fiber, with scanned illustrations from Tiangong Kaiwu.
2. Five days ago: Material Efficiency of Honeycomb Hexagonal Structure, with excerpts from Kaogong Ji (Warring States period).
3. Last night: Systematic analysis of mortise‑and‑tenon structures.
The automatically generated word cloud beneath all three videos showed high frequencies of:
connection, material‑saving, resilience, no external restraints.
In all three sessions, her rhythm was identical: slower speech before key points, a pause of about 1.5 seconds afterward to let the audience absorb the information.
This was not random output.
Nor was it improvisation.
It was a disciplined, trained mode of knowledge transmission.
He opened the internal database and searched for "Lin Wanqiu."
Only three public entries appeared:
Female, 26, independent popular science streamer under the account "Wanqiu's Fun Facts."
73 videos in three years, average views under 8,000.
Latest broadcast location registered as Northwest Field Supply Point, legally filed.
No criminal record, no overseas connections, no radical statements.
Social media followers just passed 12,000.
An utterly ordinary, niche blogger.
Yet her signal had pierced Earth's ionosphere, been intercepted by an unknown entity outside Mars' orbit, and triggered a sustained high‑dimensional computing response.
And all this happened while she turned off her stream, pressed her notebook, rolled over, and went back to sleep.
Cheng Ye chewed the gum more fiercely.
He stood, walked to the independent analysis room, and entered with his fingerprint.
The room was small: one console, one chair, one wall of screens.
He typed commands and launched the electromagnetic environment scan.
Backup receivers activated, monitoring all radio fluctuations within 10 kilometers of Area A‑7 in real time.
The screen switched to satellite thermal imaging.
Surface temperatures rose by day; the abandoned station showed a pale yellow outline, its interior still cool.
The drone circled every four hours. The latest pass showed intact doors and windows, no sign of intrusion.
He pulled up the host log after Lin Wanqiu's broadcast.
The device kept the audio cache after disconnecting from the network, stopping only two minutes before full shutdown.
During that blank period, no data left, no external access.
Meaning: the signal had been automatically uploaded in some nonstandard communication format without her knowledge.
And the path was unconventional.
No relay tower.
No satellite bounce.
It pierced the atmosphere directly, along an almost straight line into deep space.
As if… it already knew exactly where to go.
Cheng Ye stared at the screen for a long time, then tapped lightly and issued an order:
[Establish special monitoring team]
[Code: Lightkeeper]
[Mission: 24‑hour visual + electromagnetic dual monitoring of Area A‑7]
[Clearance: Gray Area S‑Class]
[Duration: Indefinite]
The order sent successfully.
The system assigned personnel: two technicians, one image analyst, one communications officer, all standing by.
Drone patrols increased from three times a day to once every two hours, with infrared and multispectral modules added for night clarity.
He also activated the long‑dormant Silent Listening Protocol: a data‑sniffing method that did not trigger device alarms, only detecting faint energy fluctuations. It could not decode content, but it could confirm abnormal information flow.
When he finished, he returned to the main console and replayed the ending of last night's stream.
Lin Wanqiu closed the broadcast. The red standby light on her host turned on.
She turned to pack, then casually moved her pothos half an inch south, saying it was "for sunlight."
Now that same plant appeared in the drone's 6 a.m. feed, leaves facing the light, full of life.
Cheng Ye zoomed in, examining her movements frame by frame.
Her hand resting on the notebook was steady. Her breathing even. Her eyes clear, no tension, no hesitation.
Her gestures natural, her delivery smooth—purely the professional habits of a long‑time streamer.
It did not seem like an act.
Nor like control.
More like… she was simply doing something she believed in, out of genuine interest.
He opened his personal log and typed the first line:
"The signal itself is harmless. But the interpretation by the receiver could be fatal."
He paused, then added:
"If a civilization changes its path because of one science lesson… do we have the right to cut off the light?"
The cursor blinked. He deleted the second sentence and wrote instead:
"Emergency plan code: Protective Intervention."
He circled the phrase.
Protective.
Not blockade.
Not elimination.
Not isolation.
Protection.
He knew this decision violated standard protocol.
By the book, any unapproved off‑world signal should be immediately blocked, especially one with unknown interstellar feedback.
But he could not bring himself to treat a girl talking about wooden joints as a threat.
She was not a weapon.
Not yet, at least.
But she might become a key.
Or a fuse.
He pulled up the global signal monitoring map.
Area A‑7 glowed as the sole red hotspot.
Everywhere else: normal.
No similar signals, no other bloggers triggering anomalies.
For now, risk was controllable.
But he could not relax.
No one knew what the next transmission would bring.
He picked up his tablet and switched to the live feed.
The small building of the abandoned station sat quietly in the morning light, door closed, curtains drawn, no movement inside.
Lin Wanqiu was still asleep.
Or already awake, drafting her next script.
Whatever she was doing, he would watch.
He had to watch.
He pressed the comms button and connected to the on‑duty post.
"Keep your distance. Do not alarm the target."
The reply came: "Understood. Current deployment unchanged. Visual patrols every two hours, electromagnetic scan continuous."
He hung up and sat back.
Daylight flooded the window. The city woke into rush hour.
Cars flowed, people hurried.
No one knew that, hours earlier, a lesson about joining wood had set off a cognitive storm 23 light‑years away.
And right now, in the underground monitoring center of the National Security Bureau, only Cheng Ye knew.
Only he knew that, from this moment on, every single one of her broadcasts could be a turning point for Earth's fate.
He checked the time: 07:02:18.
Less than twelve hours until Lin Wanqiu might go live again.
He reopened her account page and refreshed.
Online viewers: 3.
Followers: 12,007.
Latest post: none.
But she would stream again.
She had said it plainly yesterday:
"Next week I'll talk about dougong brackets, and how ancient buildings survive earthquakes."
At the time, it had been a normal announcement.
Now it was a potential risk variable.
He copied the line, pasted it into the risk assessment template, classified it as High‑Impact Knowledge Output, tagged Priority B+.
Then he pulled up academic materials on dougong.
A complex load‑bearing structure, using stacked wooden brackets to transfer roof weight to columns, with extreme seismic resistance.
Many ancient Chinese temples survived major quakes because of this system.
If she really taught this…
Would another civilization take it as an energy‑field stabilization scheme?
Would someone redesign starship skeletons based on it?
Would it trigger another technological leap?
He did not know.
And he dared not gamble.
So he would stay here.
Staring at the screen, watching every move in that distant little room.
Even if she only watered her pothos, he would confirm it.
He finished his gum, threw it away, and took a new piece.
His left hand rubbed the watch face habitually.
The engraving Time will prove everything was already faintly worn.
But he remembered his father's words:
"Some things can't be rushed. You pick your direction… then you wait."
Now he had picked his direction.
He was waiting.
Waiting for her to speak again.
Waiting for the next signal to rise.
Waiting for the moment when he would have to choose.
Stop her?
Or stand behind her?
He did not have the answer.
But for now, he had made his first decision:
No intervention.
Only monitoring.
Only preparation.
As long as she kept teaching her "fun facts,"
he would not let her face whatever might come alone.
Even silent protection had to be kept.
He looked down at his tablet.
The wind outside the station had grown stronger.
The tin roof trembled faintly.
Inside, still quiet.
Curtains unmoving.
Everything normal.
He whispered softly:
"Sleep well."
Then he turned back to the screen.
And did not blink.