Chapter 152: Atoms and Three Vertical Bars

Stepping through the threshold, Zhang Mingyang cautiously checked each and every room, ensuring there were no signs of anyone having been there before letting Bai Muqing inside.

"Lock the door quickly."

Once the door was shut, he immediately turned on the room's surveillance system to review the footage from the past few days.

Fast-forwarding through three days of recordings took him half an hour, but he found no evidence of any intruders.

"No one's been here." Relieved to find the place undisturbed, he relaxed.

"I'm going to take a shower first." Bai Muqing walked toward her room to clean up, feeling grimy after spending two days in a cave.

"Wait a second." Zhang Mingyang hurried into his room to fetch his laptop. "Go ahead."

*Thud!*

Hearing Bai Muqing close her door, he swiftly pulled out the photograph and fed it into the scanner. The contents of the image instantly appeared on the computer screen.

"Initiate text scanning." With a click on the interface, all the text from the image materialized: "Atom, Pollux, Milky Way." Exactly eight characters, forming three terms.

"Atom?" What was this supposed to mean?

He clicked on the location display function, and the word "Atom" appeared right beside Pollux. "Could this be... the triangular object on Pollux?"

Zhang Mingyang had not expected "Atom" to be written next to Pollux, which implied this might refer to that mysterious object.

"Atom? What does this represent?" Zhang Mingyang was familiar with atoms in the context of chemical reactions: "An atom is the basic particle of a chemical reaction that cannot be further subdivided; atoms are indivisible in chemical reactions, though they can be divided in physical states. An atom consists of a nucleus and electrons orbiting it. Atoms form the smallest unit of ordinary matter, known as an element. There are 118 known elements."

Yet, he had no idea whether the "atom" in the photograph carried this meaning.

"Let's see if there's anything else." He scanned all the handwritten markings on the image once more.

*Ding!*

The system popped up a scanning result: three vertical bars had been drawn onto the picture.

"Display locations." He changed the color of the bars, and three red vertical bars emerged on the image, positioned in the expanse between the Milky Way and Pollux.

"What is the meaning of this?" Zhang Mingyang stared at the three vertical bars, baffled for a moment. "An atom and three vertical bars? Is there a connection between them?"

"Let's check for anything else." The scanner swept across the image again, but this time it picked up nothing more. It seemed the star map contained only these three terms and the three vertical bars.

Zhang Mingyang rose from the sofa and paced back and forth across the living room, trying to figure out what it all meant. Jin Yaowen would not have left him this star map without a reason.

*Thud!* Bai Muqing finished her shower and pushed open her bedroom door.

"What's wrong with you?" Seeing him pacing anxiously, she could tell he was deep in thought.

Glad she was done, Zhang Mingyang waved her over to help him brainstorm. "Qingqing, come take a look at this and tell me what you make of it."

Bai Muqing sat down beside him, looking at the analyzed star map on the screen. "Pollux, Milky Way, Atom? And three vertical bars? What are all these?" She was equally clueless about their significance.

"What on earth does it mean?" Frustrated that Bai Muqing didn't understand either, Zhang Mingyang sighed. "Couldn't Jin Yaowen give me a practical clue? Why does he always have to be so enigmatic?"

"Alright, you go take a shower and I'll take another look for you." Bai Muqing nudged him toward the bathroom. "Just smell yourself, you're practically starting to sour."

"Really?" Zhang Mingyang lifted his arm and sniffed. Indeed, there was a faint sour odor.

"Fine! I'm going to shower." He dashed into his room, closed the door, detached his mechanical arm to put it on the charger, and grabbed his toiletries before heading into the bathroom.

He turned on the showerhead, and the hot water washed away the lingering rain, a wave of soothing warmth instantly spreading across his body.

With the hot water cascading from overhead onto his head, Zhang Mingyang temporarily forgot all trivial matters and worries, wanting only to immerse himself in the comforting heat.

Ten minutes later, he stepped out of the bathroom, drying himself with a towel. "Ah, that's the stuff!" he exclaimed, feeling immensely refreshed by the hot shower.

He pulled a clean set of clothes from the wardrobe, dressed, and returned to the living room.

Spotting him, Bai Muqing hurriedly called him over. "Mingyang, come look at this quickly."

"What is it?" Zhang Mingyang hurried to her side.

Pointing at the star map on the computer, Bai Muqing shared her breakthrough. "I just used handwriting analysis software to check the dates when these three vertical bars and three terms were written. I found that the three terms were all written twenty years ago. As for the three vertical bars, the order in which they were drawn started from the one closest to Pollux. Their chronological sequence is twenty years ago, seven years ago, and three months ago."

"Does that mean this picture has existed for at least twenty years?" This discovery reminded Zhang Mingyang of when Jin Yaowen had left the base. The first vertical bar, closest to Pollux, was drawn twenty years ago—around the time Jin Yaowen should still have been at the base—while the subsequent two were drawn after his departure.

"Any other findings?"

Bai Muqing replied, "Mingyang, haven't you noticed that these three vertical bars have crept progressively closer to the Milky Way over time?"

"You're right!" Examining the timestamps, Zhang Mingyang saw that the marks were indeed getting closer and closer to the Milky Way.

"Why is that? Do you know?"

Bai Muqing shook her head. "I have no idea. But since Jin Yaowen marked Pollux and the Milky Way, these three vertical bars must definitely be connected to those two places."

"Exactly!" Zhang Mingyang agreed that her reasoning made sense. Jin Yaowen wouldn't mark those two locations without purpose; he just couldn't comprehend what these three bars advancing toward the galaxy signified.

"Let's put that aside for a moment." Cutting through his train of thought, Bai Muqing looked at him with wide, pleading eyes and said, "I want to eat meat!"

Hearing this, Zhang Mingyang burst into laughter. "Since you cracked the handwriting mystery, fine! I'll take you out for meat."

"Hooray!" Bai Muqing threw her hands up and stood. "Let's go right now."

Checking the time and seeing it was a little past five in the afternoon—just right for dinner—Zhang Mingyang replied, "Alright! We'll head out immediately."

He returned to his room, retrieved an older spare phone from the drawer, and set off with Bai Muqing.

Down in the residential courtyard, Bai Muqing pulled out her water-damaged phone and asked Zhang Mingyang if there was a repair shop nearby.

"No rush. We can go together after we've had dinner."

Leaving the complex, Zhang Mingyang suddenly realized they hadn't decided where to eat yet. He turned to Bai Muqing and asked what she fancied.

"Hmm, let me think." Bai Muqing pondered for a moment. "I know! Let's go have hot pot. It'll make us sweat out the chill from yesterday's rain."

"No problem." It didn't matter much to Zhang Mingyang what they ate, so he quickly pulled out his phone and booked a table for two at a nearby hot pot restaurant.