With three superpowers at his fingertips, he could dominate the 1970s.

After finishing her business, Jiang Zhiyu rolled up her sleeves and started packing.

The geological hammer pounded against the bedrock of the cave wall. The moonstone was very dense, and the impact made her hands numb. Each strike only managed to break off a small piece. She changed the angle and continued hammering, while Seventeen flew around directing her like a foreman.

"Host, knock down more of this darker piece!"

"What is this?"

"Basalt, solidified lava from a volcano." Seventeen landed on her shoulder. "This can be used to determine the age of a volcano. It tells you how many billions of years old this volcano is, much more accurate than old men spending their whole lives looking through photos."

"Okay, then knock off a couple more pieces."

"That patch over there, the one with the little white dots, we want it too." Seventeen pointed to another spot. "The white dots are mineral crystals; those old geologists would go crazy if they saw them. Hey, host, tap it gently, don't shatter the crystals!"

"How come you know more than an old geologist?" Jiang Zhiyu shook her numb hand.

"I saw it, so the data in the database naturally came out," Seventeen said matter-of-factly. "Besides, each of these is a rock from outside Earth. Every single one of them is a treasure if we bring them back. Host, keep knocking, the more the merrier."

"You little money-grubber," she chuckled, but her hands and feet didn't stop. She carefully placed each piece of rock into a sampling bag, labeling them with a number, location, and depth. She also picked out several pieces of different colors from the collapsed rubble—grayish-white, blackish, and slightly dark green—and put each into a separate bag.

The lunar soil at the bottom of the cave was dug out with a steel shovel. The surface layer was light gray and very loose, leaving a footprint with every step; as you dug deeper, the color began to darken, and the soil became very compact; further down, you would find a layer that was black and shiny. She packed each layer separately, labeling them clearly.

"Lunar soil comes in different colors?" she wondered, squatting in the pit.

"Of course it's divided," Seventeen leaned closer to look. "The surface layer has been exposed to solar winds for billions of years, while the layers below have never seen the sun; their composition is different. That's exactly what the old men want—this layering. The deeper you dig, the happier they are."

"Then I'll dig a little deeper."

"Don't take too many, are there enough bags?"

"How could that not be enough? They gave us half a box."

After digging for a while, her arms ached. She straightened up and rubbed them, when she suddenly heard Seventeen shouting from the other end of the cave.

"Host, come and look, the walls here are different!"

She hopped over, hammer in hand. Seventeen stopped in front of a section of cave wall. The patterns on that section of stone were different from the others; they weren't waves, but circles, like tree rings, or spirals drawn on soft clay with someone's finger.

"What is this?"

"Layer upon layer of magma rises, cools, then rises again, and it becomes like this." Seventeen's light swept back and forth across the patterns. "Host, if you chip away this whole piece, the old men will see this and cherish it more than gold. Gold exists on Earth, but this truly doesn't."

Jiang Zhiyu circled the spiral pattern twice, but couldn't bring herself to strike.

"If you just knock the whole thing down, won't the wall break?"

"So what if it breaks? It's a wall on the moon, what's there to be afraid of breaking?"

"That won't do." She shook her head, took out her camera, brought it close, and snapped seventeen shots to brighten it up. She took one shot after another, from panoramic views to close-ups, shooting seven or eight in a row. "Take pictures first. It's such a beautiful thing; it would be a shame to break it and take it back. Once the base is built, let them come and see it for themselves."

Seventeen tilted his head to look at her.

"Host, you're quite romantic."

"That's right." She put away her camera, then carefully tapped two small samples with the textured surface along the edge of the soil and put them in a bag. "Let's go, let's go upstairs, there's still some soil outside that we haven't collected."

……

Back outside the cave, she collected another round of topsoil around the pit entrance. When she filled the third bag, the low-angle sunlight shone on the soil surface, and she suddenly saw something flashing in the soil.

She picked up a small clump of soil and spread it in her palm. Among the dust, there were a few tiny beads, as fine as needle tips, translucent, some with a faint color, green or yellow, glistening in the light.

"Seventeen! Look what this is! Glass?"

"Host, it's volcanic glass!" Seventeen darted over, his voice rising an octave. "It's formed from the sudden cooling of lava erupted from a volcano! Host, you've struck gold! This is worth far more than dirt! Finding such pure volcanic glass on Earth is incredibly difficult!"

"So precious?"

Without a word, Jiang Zhiyu squatted down and began sifting along the stream, filling test tube after tube until she had filled many. Seventeen flitted around beside her, supervising her work, even more nervous than if she were picking them herself.

"Host, you're building up the nation's wealth! What a sacred mission!"

Jiang Zhiyu didn't waste the remaining film roll. As she was taking pictures, she looked down and saw her footprints on the moonlit dust, shallow yet clearly defined. After thinking for a moment, she picked up her camera and took a picture as well.

"Host, will there be many people coming here in the future?"

"Yes." She put down her camera, gazing at the oval-shaped opening. "Scientists, engineers, doctors, teachers, and maybe even children. This hole will eventually have lights, houses, and people growing vegetables on the moon."

"Growing vegetables on the moon?" Seventeen's voice changed. "Host, are you serious?"

"This Chinese gene will never change no matter which planet it goes to, let alone with our little Azheng in the future."

Seventeen was so happy that it did a somersault in mid-air. Finally, Jiang Zhiyu waved to it.

"Come on, stand on that moon rock, don't move."

Seventeen immediately straightened his back and stood upright on a moon rock, his light wings unfurling with a whoosh, and the energy patterns shone brightly.

"Host, make sure the photos of me look good! Make sure the wings are fully visible!"

"Okay, I'll take a commemorative photo of you on the moon landing." She smiled and pressed the shutter. "I'll develop it myself later and upload it to your social media."

"I want the colorful one!"

"There are only a few color sheets left, I need to use them sparingly."

"I want one too!"

……

Once she got the cave at point one, she teleported to the remaining points. Taking advantage of the remaining light during the window of opportunity, she teleported to the second point, Schröter Valley, and the third point, the foot of Rain Sea Mountain, and circled around each.

The second Cobra Head crater was quite impressive, with a wide and long crescent-shaped valley. She raised her camera and panned for a long stretch. However, the two skylights found along the stream had relatively small openings and thin ceilings. After a quick scan, the rock strata were less than fifteen meters deep.

"This won't do," she noted in her notebook. "The hole is too small, the cover is too thin, it won't block much radiation. It'll be fine as a backup shelter."

Number Three couldn't find any decent dark spots at all. She hopped back and forth between the two ends of Yuexi several times, returning empty-handed.

"Host, do you think the old men might have circled the wrong people?" Seventeen asked, floating in mid-air.

"The circled areas are the most likely to have holes, it's not a guarantee there will be." Jiang Zhiyu packed up her camera. "Let them calculate it again when we get back. As for numbers four, five, and six, we'll deal with them during next month's window. Let's go home, I'm hungry."

……

It was already past midnight when the items were delivered to Group Five.

The conference room lights were all on, and twelve metal boxes were placed on the table, drawing everyone's attention. The film reels were carefully carried away first, and the darkroom began work overnight. The veteran geologist rushed to the sampling bags, his hands trembling so much that he couldn't even remove the labels properly; in the end, Jiang Zhiyu helped him open them.

When the basalt rock on the cave wall was revealed, the old man stopped breathing. He stretched out two fingers and gently touched the cross-section of the rock, then touched it again, before picking up the whole rock and pressing it against his face. Tears immediately streamed down his face.

"A stone from the moon," he murmured. "What I'm holding in my hands is a stone from the moon."

When the bundle of volcanic glass beads was placed on the tray, everyone in the room craned their necks. The old man picked up a test tube and held it up to the light, staring at the tiny glimmer inside. His hands trembled, and he couldn't utter a word. The people next to him quickly brought him a chair.

As dawn approached, the first batch of photographs was developed, soaking wet and clipped to ropes, covering half the room. The crater, Moon Creek, that enormous oval skylight, the solidified lava waves on the cave walls, and a close-up of the spiral pattern. The old men huddled under the photographs, craning their necks to look, no one speaking, only their panting.

As the moonlit stream slowly unfolded in the frame, and the earth gradually came into view from the darkness, someone burst into tears, followed by a chorus of people wiping their eyes.

From that day on, the lights in the laboratory building never went out at night.

The cooks reheated the food three times and brought it up, but each time it was brought back untouched. The astronomy team checked the coordinates of the cave entrance with photos and maps, while the engineering team had already started drawing layout diagrams of the cave chambers on paper, drawing, tearing up, tearing up, and drawing again…

On the morning of the third day, a preliminary report was delivered to Professor Gao's desk. The age of the lunar rocks had been determined; this volcano was over three billion years old. There were signs of helium-3 enrichment in the lunar soil. The old men excitedly drew three circles next to the report.

That stuff is excellent for nuclear reactions; it's incredibly rare on Earth, but plentiful on the moon. After reading the report, Old Gao gave the order again: raise the secrecy level to the highest level.

Meanwhile, the site selection team on the domestic side also set off.