Back in the Earth Era, Yue Yuan had gazed up at the stars, when he was still a child.
Yue Yuan still remembered those nights, when the stars had shone especially brightly. On many evenings with little moonlight, he had simply lain on the cool grass, gazing at the pinpricks of starlight above the clouds.
Back then, he had thought, If only those twinkling stars in the sky would fall so I could pick them up. They sparkle and look so beautiful. When they fall, they must be what the grown-ups call shooting stars!
When he grew a little older, he realized how naive his earlier thoughts had been. He also learned that the stars above were celestial bodies, each like the sun. That knowledge had left Yue Yuan deeply awestruck. He could not imagine why there were so many sunlike bodies in the sky.
Only after he started school did the knowledge in his books teach him some basic facts about the universe. He learned about gravity, gravitational lensing, and universal gravitation. Thanks to that knowledge, the hazy concept of the universe became much clearer, its veil of mystery lifting considerably.
Yet after gaining that knowledge, he no longer had those innocent fantasies whenever he gazed at the stars. All that remained was a sense of how insignificant he and the world he lived in were. Whenever the bright stars of the night filled his eyes, he wondered whether people like them lived near those "suns," whether they too gazed at the stars as he did, and whether behind each star lay stories worthy of song and tears.
Later, as he grew older still, Yue Yuan began learning about contemporary science and technology. When he discovered that even reaching the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, would require a journey of