It started when a bloody rain was about to fall.

On the other side of Zhao Mingyuan, Wang Ya from Bo Yi was using tweezers to pick up an optical lens sample, her movements precise and composed.

She was the oldest student in the group, her eyes reflecting the calmness of years spent dealing with the stars.

Her long, dark brown hair was neatly styled into a bun, revealing her slender neck. The sleeves of her white coat were rolled up to her forearms, exposing a section of her thin wrist.

Hearing Lin Wei talking softly to Ji Yuezi, she looked up and glanced at her—the voice was soft, yet each word was clear, like spring water flowing over a stream.

The first-year graduate student that Sister Yue recruited this year really does resemble her from back then—just as quiet, just as serious. However, Sister Yue's quietness is like a frozen lake, while this child's quietness is like a mountain pool.

Near the entrance, Xu Zhixing, a first-year graduate student, was engrossed in organizing his observation log.

He was fair-skinned and handsome, with a pair of silver-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, exuding an air of scholarly refinement cultivated in a study.

The pen tip moved across the paper with a scratchy sound, the handwriting as neat as printed text.

Hearing Lin Wei's voice, he couldn't help but lift his head from between the pages, his gaze passing through his glasses to the light gray figure—purple chestnut hair swaying gently in the cold light, like a spring breeze brushing against willow tips.

So she was Lin Wei.

I heard from my seniors that she came from Jiangnan, and indeed she carried a gentle, refined air about her.

Diagonally opposite Xu Zhixing, Shen Linxi, a second-year graduate student, was facing three monitors side by side, with densely packed spectrum images and colorful waves on the screens.

She had thick eyebrows and deep-set eyes, with features that carried a touch of northern heroism. She always wore her hair in a neat high ponytail, and her speech and actions exuded a straightforward and decisive energy.

She glanced in Lin Wei's direction, her gaze lingering for a moment on Lin Wei's profile, which seemed to be bathed in the luster of mutton-fat jade, while the corners of her mouth curved almost imperceptibly.

The girl standing amidst the pile of instruments seemed to bring the entire spring of Jiangnan into this iron-clad observation dome.

In the farthest corner, Lu Beichen, a second-year doctoral student, was working silently in front of a screen full of code.

He was tall and strong, with broad shoulders and a wide back; sitting there, he looked like a small mountain.

His tanned skin, honed from years of outdoor observation, contrasted sharply with the pale skin of the others in the lab.

Beneath his thick eyebrows were a pair of eyes that were surprisingly gentle, as if all the sharp edges had been smoothed out by the winds of the wilderness.

He raised his head, glanced at Lin Wei in the distance, and then at Ji Yuezi. There was no amazement in his eyes, only a quiet appreciation.

One is like spring water, the other like a glacier. This astronomical observatory truly gathers together the most extreme scenery in the world.

At this moment, Lin Wei was seen holding a tablet computer, standing quietly in the shadow of the main telescope.

As a first-year graduate student in the Department of Astronomy, she possesses a beauty that is thoroughly imbued with the charm of the Jiangnan landscape and the fragrance of books.

The gentleness and elegance that emanates from her very being are like ink paintings spreading in the misty rain of spring—unassuming, yet subtly seeping into people's hearts.

At the same time, Lin Wei's skin was like fine mutton fat jade, shimmering with a soft, understated luster under the cool light.

A warm, ethereal glow seemed to emanate from deep within her skin, like moonlight being ground into powder and gently sprinkled onto her skin.

Her almond-shaped eyes were as clear as lake water after an autumn rain, and were filled with boundless emotions because they were steeped in poetry and literature.

At this moment, Lin Wei's intense focus and initial trepidation upon entering the temple manifested in her eyes the gentle glint of a forest deer upon first glimpse of a deep pool.

There is both fear of the unknown and awe of being drawn to the grandeur.

The light trembled gently behind the frameless lenses, rippling outwards in transparent waves.

At the same time, Lin Wei's long chestnut-colored hair was loosely tied up, with a few strands falling down, outlining the graceful curve of her swan-like neck.

The ends of her hair swayed gently in the breeze, as if writing unfinished sentences in the air.

The light gray cashmere sweater she wore hugged her well-proportioned figure, making her look like a meticulously crafted modern traditional Chinese painting of a beautiful woman when she stood still.

At the same time, Lin Wei exuded a scholarly air untouched by worldly affairs and a delicate, girlish charm, as if she were a line from a yellowed book of poems that had mistakenly entered this technological temple constructed of metal and glass.

At this moment, however, Lin Wei's fingertips turned white from the force as she pressed tightly against the edge of the tablet.

Beneath her fingernails, a translucent paleness due to lack of blood flow betrayed the subtle turmoil stirring within her, a ripple of something far greater.

It wasn't fear, but rather the involuntary trembling of an individual soul when facing the vast universe.

Lin Wei's gaze was fixed, as if drawn by the gravity of a black hole, unable to tear itself away from the figure who had just bent down in front of the eyepiece of the giant telescope with a diameter of 100 centimeters.

Ji Yue Zi.

At the same time, Zhao Mingyuan's gaze was involuntarily drawn to that figure.

Her long, dark blue-purple hair shimmered with an otherworldly luster under the cold white light—when he first saw Ji Yuezi in the laboratory, he had thought it was dyed, only to later learn it was natural. There truly were people in the world with hair as black as the Milky Way.

Chen Siyuan stopped processing the data and looked at Ji Yuezi's back.

Five years ago, when he was a junior in college, he saw Ji Yuezi give a presentation at an international conference—the entire room was silent, even breathing was suppressed to a minimum, and everyone was waiting for her to say the next sentence, as if what she uttered was not an academic viewpoint, but an edict from the starry sea.

Her presence was unlike that of a freshman. Sometimes, standing too close to her, I felt like I wasn't studying astronomy, but rather playing house.

Wang Ya put down the tweezers, placed her hands together on the edge of the lab bench, and calmly looked in Ji Yuezi's direction.

She was a few years older than Ji Yuezi, which made her see things more clearly than others—it wasn't feigned aloofness, but a genuine detachment from worldly affairs.

In her world, perhaps only the sun, moon, and stars can communicate with her.

We were just scenery she encountered by chance on her journey of exploration.

Xu Zhixing stopped writing. The ink smudged onto the paper, leaving a small dot, but he was completely unaware of it.

His gaze fell on Ji Yuezi's long, dark blue-purple hair that cascaded down to her waist—the color of her hair, under the interplay of cold white light and the instrument's dark blue glow, seemed to capture the entire night sky within the texture of every strand of hair.

How can there be such a person in this world, so beautiful beyond measure, so breathtakingly beautiful? Standing in front of her, you feel like you need a right to even breathe.

Shen Linxi placed the capacitive pen on the table, crossed her arms, and leaned back in her chair.

She has seen countless so-called "geniuses"—those who were pampered from childhood, those who were arrogant and conceited.

But Ji Yuezi is different.

Ji Yuezi's talent was never flaunted; it simply existed quietly, like a mountain or a sea, proving nothing and needing no proof.

She's not stronger than us; she's just on a different level.

While we're still learning how to climb, she's already flying.

Lu Beichen's fingers stopped on the keyboard, his gaze passing through several rows of instruments and landing on Ji Yuezi's back.

He has seen the most magnificent starry sky in the wild—on the plateau, in the desert, and on the snow-capped mountain peaks.

Those starry skies share a common characteristic: "They make you feel small, but not insignificant."

Ji Yuezi gave him the same feeling. She was like the starry sky. You wouldn't dare say you understood her, but you knew she was worthy of your admiration.

In fact, those with more seniority in the group know that Ji Yuezi's resume is surprisingly thin, but also surprisingly heavy - she went straight from undergraduate to doctoral studies, and completed her dissertation in just four years with a combined master's and doctoral degree. The defense committee's comment was that she "pushed the boundaries of cognition in the field of galaxy formation".

She was only twenty-two years old that year.

In the following two years, she published groundbreaking results as the first author in Nature and The Astrophysical Journal. At the age of 24, she was promoted to associate professor, and at the age of 26, she became the youngest doctoral supervisor at Beihang University.

The way she leaned over the telescope at this moment was exactly the same as when she first touched the instrument in her undergraduate lab many years ago—the same calmness, the same focus, as if academic titles and age were never things she needed to care about.

At the same time, the cool breeze continued to seep in, lifting a few strands of Ji Yuezi's hair.

They traced the elegant, ivory-carved jawline of Ji Yuezi in slow motion—

That curve is a fusion of classical Eastern aesthetics and geometric precision, pure and awe-inspiring.

Finally, the strands of hair nestled against the hard metal frame of the telescope in an almost tender yet cold manner.

The ultimate beauty of life and the ultimate eternity of machinery are paradoxically unified in her, radiating a strange beauty that is almost divine.

Ji Yuezi's adjustment of the focus was extremely small, yet it contained the absolute stability of a precision machine tool.

At this moment, her profile was outlined by the dark blue and dark green data glow on the instrument panel, as if a deity who had been sleeping for thousands of years was slowly awakening on the altar of modern technology.

His forehead was smooth as jade, polished by the cosmic wind and moonlight, reflecting the cold light of pure reason.

The graceful curve of the bridge of the nose resembles the sacred axis for locating celestial bodies in ancient star charts, containing a constant power that transcends time and space.

Ji Yuezi's skin has a texture like white jade that has been soaked in the cool moonlight for thousands of years, almost translucent and cold white.

It's as if the clear radiance of moonlight, the core of a glacier, and the cold flames of distant stars have all been melted into the skin's deepest layers, giving it an almost sacred glaze.

At this moment, her focused posture seemed to be coated with a layer of absolute rationality and detachment—so beautiful that it made one feel ashamed of oneself in comparison.

As for her eyes—Lin Wei could only see her long, thick, drooping eyelashes, casting two crescent-shaped shadows on her pale skin.

The shadows were quiet and deep, like two doors leading to another dimension.

Behind the door, two beams of gaze were tearing through billions of light-years of void through the lens assembly, silently confronting the dark core of the universe.

It was a gaze tempered by star data, a cold vacuum, and an abyss of annihilation—profound, calm, stripped of all human warmth.

You can only read about its absolute existence.