October 2029, Rocket City, Sazhou, Bright Nation

October 2029, Rocket City, Sazhou, Bright Nation

Daphne and Michael had returned from Jinsheng Province to Rocket City, Sazhou. They spent the weekend together, and Michael made fried eggs and a vegetable salad for breakfast. Daphne took a sip of her unsweetened coffee. Its rich aroma was tinged with bitterness, but her heart felt sweet.

What an exceptional man. Daphne had praised Michael to herself more than once. Though she considered herself an intelligent, sunny, and beautiful woman, the chance to know and love Michael had far exceeded her expectations of romance. She felt blessed by fate and secretly vowed to cherish their relationship.

The weather was lovely. The two of them sat cuddled together on an outdoor bench beneath the porch. As if suddenly remembering something, Daphne asked Michael:

"Martha told me she'd learned a secret from one of her sources: Nikola Tesla's sealed theories could be used to create a super energy source. Have you heard about it?"

Michael stiffened and turned slightly to look straight into Daphne's eyes. After a moment's thought, he said:

"My dear Daphne, I have no secrets from you, whether it's my personal life or my business plans. But there are some things I'm bound by confidentiality to keep secret, so I can't answer your question."

Daphne had only asked offhandedly. Michael's answer surprised her, and she sat up straight too. Could what Martha said be true?

"As far as I know, your company launched a probe aimed at Enceladus. Are you planning to look for life beyond Earth?" Daphne asked.

Michael Max knew Daphne was only asking out of curiosity. The Enceladus probe had been launched by a private company, and there would be no need for secrecy if its purpose was to look for evidence of extraterrestrial life.

But Michael knew he was bound to keep both his plans to build the first Superlight Wave Power Station on Enceladus and Professor Braun's experiment to verify Nikola Tesla's theory of gravity secret. He couldn't tell Daphne about either one.

Rather than answer Daphne's question directly, Michael discussed extraterrestrial life with her. Carbon-based organisms were made of organic compounds—but where had those compounds come from?

Recent research suggested that the substances that had given rise to life on Earth, including amino acids and proteins, had likely come from comets that struck the planet. In other words, organic compounds weren't produced by Earth alone or unique to it.

Other celestial bodies that might contain organic compounds included comets and asteroids in the asteroid belt, as well as Europa and Enceladus. Scientists had detected phosphorus in the spectrum of material ejected from Enceladus's surface, leading them to strongly suspect that life might exist beneath its icy crust.

If Earth wasn't unique, and organic compounds—even living organisms—were widespread throughout the Solar System, then the next question was whether the Solar System itself was unique. The Milky Way contained hundreds of billions of stars. Were the substances that gave rise to life widespread, too?

Faced with the vastness of the universe, humanity's technology and observational capabilities were extremely limited. Forget life beyond our Solar System—even among the planets outside it, we had discovered only a little over five thousand.

Scientists estimated that the Milky Way alone could contain hundreds of billions of planets.

To search for Earth-like exoplanets in the habitable zones around their stars, Bright Nation had launched the K Space Telescope. It was trained on a specific patch of sky 1,500 light-years from Earth.

Over a thousand exoplanets had been discovered in that region. Surprisingly, the vast majority were far larger than Earth—some even bigger than Jupiter.

Astronomers had no choice but to change the unit they used to measure exoplanet radii, comparing them to Jupiter rather than Earth. In other words, exoplanet sizes were measured in units of Jupiter.

Why were all the planets they found so large? Scientists had an explanation: it might be a selection effect. With the same observational capabilities, larger planets were easier to detect.

But another anomaly was even more troubling: exoplanets were all extremely close to their host stars, their "Jupiters" nearly touching their "Suns."

Jupiter was 5.2 astronomical units from the Sun, or over 700 million kilometers away. But most exoplanets were closer to their host stars than Mercury was to the Sun.

Some planets had semimajor axes of only a few million kilometers, making their surface temperatures extraordinarily high—over 2,000 degrees in some cases. Astronomers called these enormous, scorching planets "hot Jupiters."

This observation seemed to point to the same question once again: Was the Solar System unique?

If the general pattern was for planets to be larger than Jupiter and close to their host stars, burning hot, then why was our Jupiter so far from the Sun? Inside its orbit lay the asteroid belt, Mars, Earth, Venus, and Mercury. Was the Solar System's unusual planetary arrangement just a coincidence, or had it formed through some special physical mechanism?

What kind of physical mechanism had kept our Jupiter from moving closer to the Sun? Had humanity simply been lucky?

Hawking once said that it was clearly arrogant for humanity to think the Sun or Earth was the center of the universe.

Daphne thought the Solar System certainly wasn't unique!

Our Jupiter just happened to be farther from the Sun, leaving a broad habitable zone in between. There had to be some reasonable physical mechanism behind it; humanity simply hadn't realized what it was yet.

The more they talked, the more excited they became. Daphne added, "As a cradle of life, the Solar System does seem pretty special so far. Earth lies in the habitable zone, and Jupiter is far away, with the asteroid belt and Mars in between. If Jupiter orbited inside Mercury's orbit, then forget intelligent life like humans—Earth would probably have been pushed into the Sun and burned up long ago."

"Faced with the vastness of the universe, humanity really is tiny. As someone driven by curiosity to take action, I struggle to figure out one problem, only to end up with a whole string of new ones." As he spoke, Michael helped Daphne up and led her back inside.

The television on the wall was showing the morning news. One report caught their attention. Michael turned up the volume. It was being broadcast on Tiangao News.

Martha, Tiangao News' chief investigative reporter, nearly filled the screen. The ticker at the bottom showed the headline—

A Deal for the Rich: Can Money Really Buy Everything?

Martha reported that many of the world's wealthiest people were receiving stem-cell injections in an effort to maintain their health and extend their lives.

Her investigation had found that some wealthy people receiving stem-cell injections developed rejection reactions. The latest treatment for counteracting those reactions was to give patients infusions of young people's "Primal Blood."

Primal Blood referred to the blood of healthy people who had never been "contaminated" by modern drugs. The recipients were wealthy people who regularly received expensive stem-cell injections, while the donors were often young people raised in primitive tribes in economically underdeveloped regions.

Martha made a passionate argument, raising a pointed moral question:

Could money buy everything? Could "Primal Blood" be priced and traded?

Martha roared from the screen, looking as if she might leap right out of it at any moment. She alluded to a wealthy man in Sand Oil Nation who was allegedly preparing to make such a deal.

Michael Max tightened his grip on Daphne's hand without realizing it. I heard in Sand Oil Nation that Prince Harufa was having health problems. Could it be because he'd developed a rejection reaction to the stem-cell injections?

Martha's exposé didn't seem baseless. Was Prince Harufa really going to use money to buy "Primal Blood"? It was hard to accept that anyone would do such a thing.

Michael said to Daphne, "Though I've only met the prince once, I strongly feel that his moral character is as outstanding as his wealth. I'd rather believe he wouldn't do anything like that."

Daphne didn't know Prince Harufa. She fully agreed with Martha's moral stance, but she didn't have any particular feelings about the person at the center of the story.

Daphne watched Martha's report from a different perspective than Michael. Martha really is a reporter who leaves no stone unturned.

Perhaps they were on the same wavelength. Michael suddenly realized just how relentless Martha was and how capable she was at her job. He asked Daphne:

"When you met Martha the other day, besides talking about Nikola Tesla's theory and the Enceladus probe I launched, what else did she ask you?"

Daphne tried hard to remember, then replied, "She also asked whether there were any limits to my love for you, and whether I'd support you in anything you did—for example, if one of your experiments might destroy the Saturn Ring."

Collected lines of verse:

"I love how Lord Junping excels at teaching others." — Ouyang Xiu, Song dynasty

"If I wanted to discuss my innermost thoughts, who could I confide in?" — Xu Jizhi, Song dynasty

"How great it is that Heaven and Earth bring forth all living things." — Jia Sidao, Yuan dynasty

"None can compare with the profoundness of the kindness I have received." — Ding Henian, Ming dynasty