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She paused for a moment when she saw Lin Yanzhou on the sofa.

Lin Yanzhou saw her. The first thing he noticed was her silhouette—the lines of her jaw resembled her mother's, but there was an expression between her brows and eyes that was both strange and familiar to him. He couldn't quite put his finger on who she resembled, but in the instant her eyes widened slightly, a certain string in his heart was gently plucked.

Lin Xiaozhou stood at the end of the corridor, a ballpoint pen still clutched in her hand. Her gaze lingered on Lin Yanzhou's face for a couple of seconds. Then she glanced down at the silver tote bag with stars and moons printed on it on the coffee table, looked up at Lin Yanzhou again, and turned to ask Lin Xiaoya, "Mom, are we having guests?"

Lin Xiaoya came out of the kitchen and wiped her hands on her apron: "This is Mom's friend, Uncle Lin. He was passing by today and came over for a meal."

"Uncle Lin." Lin Xiaozhou repeated the address, then glanced at Lin Yanzhou as if trying to memorize the name and face, before nodding. "Hello, Uncle Lin."

"Hello," Lin Yanzhou said in a steady voice, "I brought you a small gift."

He pushed the silver bag forward. Lin Xiaozhou glanced at the bag, then at her mother, and after receiving a nod from Lin Xiaoya, she walked over, squatted down by the coffee table, and pulled the box out of the bag.

She moved very gently as she unpacked the package, as if she were handling a fragile item. When the silver-cased astronaut robot was fully revealed, her fingers suddenly stopped.

She stared at the little robot for several seconds, her fingertips lightly touching the glass visor of the helmet. Then she looked up at Lin Yanzhou, her eyes filled with a light he couldn't quite name—not just simple surprise, nor polite gratitude, but more like she had received something that should have been hers.

"Astronaut." Her voice was a little lower than before. "Thank you, Uncle Lin."

"You're welcome," Lin Yanzhou said. "I heard from your mother that you like this."

Lin Xiaozhou didn't answer yes or no. She took the robot out of the box, carefully placed it on the coffee table, and pressed the button on its chest. A soft blue light illuminated the helmet visor, and an electronic voice gently spoke: "Hello, I am Little Astronaut Q-7. What is your name?"

"Lin Xiaozhou".

"Hello, Lin Xiaozhou." The robot turned its head. "What's your favorite planet?"

"The moon," she answered quickly, as if the question had been asked countless times and the answer had never changed.

Lin Yanzhou's throat tightened slightly. He saw her look down at the small, blue-glowing helmet, a slight smile playing on her lips, but there was something subtle and deeply hidden in that smile. She stroked the curved outline of the robot helmet and whispered, "Is it really cold on the moon?"

The robot emitted a human-like thinking voice: "The surface temperature of the moon can reach as low as minus 180 degrees Celsius."

"Won't people working on the moon be very cold?"

She asked the robot, but there was an indescribable seriousness in her tone.

Lin Yanzhou, sitting a few steps away, heard her ask, "Won't people who work on the moon be very cold?" He suddenly remembered what Lin Xiaoya had said in the hospital room: She asked you three times, and then she never asked again.

She stopped asking. But when she received an astronaut robot, she asked it, "Aren't people who work on the moon cold?"

Lin Yanzhou looked at her drooping eyelashes and said, "There are no humans living on the moon now, but there will be bases and heating equipment in the future, so it won't be cold."

Lin Xiaozhou looked up at him, seemed to think for a moment, then nodded without asking any further questions, and lowered her head to continue fiddling with the robot's helmet. She gently turned the robot's helmet around, watching the blue light slide across the glass visor, and then said as if to herself, "If you ever go to the moon, please give me a message."

The robot then emitted another anthropomorphic, thinking voice: "What message do you want to convey?"

She remained silent for a moment without looking up: "Just say that people on this side of Earth are thinking about him."

The robot then emitted a human-like thinking sound effect: "Okay, I will definitely pass it on."

Lin Yanzhou's eyes were already wet. He found himself speechless and could only watch as she continued to fiddle with the little robot's helmet, letting the blue light light up and then go out again under her fingertips.

Lin Xiaoya stood at the kitchen doorway, watching this scene quietly without making a sound.

"Alright, stop playing for now." Lin Xiaoya walked back to the kitchen, her voice a little softer than usual. "Come help serve the dishes."

Dinner consisted of four dishes and a soup: stir-fried seasonal vegetables, braised pork ribs, tomato and egg soup, stir-fried pork kidneys, and a steamed sea bass. When Lin Xiaozhou sat down at the table, he placed the little astronaut on the empty chair next to him, making it face the table, as if there were an extra person.

Lin Yanzhou saw it, but didn't say anything.

There wasn't much conversation at the dinner table, but Lin Xiaozhou seemed more at ease than before. She would occasionally glance up at Lin Yanzhou, her gaze no longer holding the cautious look one might have for a stranger, but rather a sense of reassurance that he was still there. She placed a piece of pork rib on his plate without saying "You eat," then lowered her head to continue drinking her soup.

As she served him food, the little astronaut sat on the chair next to her, the blue light from his helmet visor flashing on and off.

After dinner, Lin Xiaozhou went back to her room to do her homework, taking the little astronaut figurine with her. She hugged it to her chest, as if afraid someone would take it if she left it outside. Lin Xiaoya was washing dishes in the kitchen, and Lin Yanzhou was helping her wipe the table.

"She never asked anyone about the moon before," Lin Xiaoya's voice came from the sound of water. "This is the first time."

Lin Yanzhou folded the rag and draped it over the edge of the sink: "She said to have the robot deliver a message."

"I heard you."

"She asked about 'people on this side of Earth'," Lin Yanzhou said. "She didn't say who."

Lin Xiaoya put the last bowl into the drainer, turned off the tap, and turned around to lean against the edge of the stove: "Because she wasn't sure if that person was worth her thinking about."

Lin Yanzhou didn't say anything more, but just stood by the window, looking at the darkening night outside.

After a while, Lin Xiaoya came over, sat down on the sofa, and her voice returned to its usual gentle and firm tone: "Yanzhou, there's something I want to talk to you about seriously."

"Um."

She recounted everything: the results of his CT and MRI scans during his hospitalization, the hard mass with abnormal density inside his skull, her own assessment, and the feedback she received from her Johns Hopkins mentor, Professor Mueller.

"He said he'd never seen anything like it before." Lin Xiaoya's voice was calm and clear. "This thing has a density between bone and metal, clear boundaries, no inflammatory reaction, and no signs of compression. If it were a regular foreign object, it would have caused rejection long ago. He's willing to come in person to participate in the consultation and procedure."

"But I have to tell you that if a functional MRI shows it's in a nerve-sensitive area, the surgical risk is very high."

After listening, Lin Yanzhou remained silent for a moment: "Not now. We'll do an evaluation in three months."

"Three months, you promised." She looked at him. "This isn't something to be discussed."

"This isn't a discussion, but I'm definitely fine. This stone might be my lucky charm. This thing should be an artifact from the Xuan Shuo Dynasty." He repeated. "But I really don't know which dynasty Xuan Shuo is..."

"Xuan Shuo? I remember once a patient was in the hospital and they were casually talking about that country." She looked at him. "Do you know Wu Yuanqing, the nationally renowned expert in archaeology and history?"

Then he asked her about Professor Wu, who was famous throughout the country.

Lin Xiaoya said she knew Wu Yuanqing, a professor in the History Department of a university of political science and law, who specialized in researching periods and gaps in official history. He used to be her patient; once, while researching in an ancient tomb, he was attacked by poisonous gas that invaded his brain, and Xiaoya personally treated him, so the two had maintained contact. Lin Yanzhou said she wanted to arrange a meeting as soon as possible. She didn't ask further, saying she would see if Professor Wu was available next week.