Cosmic Filter

The solar halo lasted a full half hour.

But the bizarre sight of the "distorted sun" only lasted a few minutes.

Still, a few minutes was enough.

Lin Xu took plenty of photos of Jiang Xingye, and the two of them could be said to have returned thoroughly satisfied.

After coming down the mountain, Lin Xu took Jiang Xingye to lunch. As they ate, they opened a short-video app, and just as Jiang Xingye had said, the platform's trending searches were completely flooded by this solar halo phenomenon.

"Epic solar halo! Seen around the world at the same time!"

"Have the Trisolarans invaded? The sun has changed drastically!"

"Today, I caught the sun acting lovesick..."

"Hey, everyone, I'm currently on a ranch in Texas, United States. Why can't I see the solar halo??"

Lin Xu scrolled through them one by one while Jiang Xingye, sitting across from him, focused on looking through her photos.

"That's strange."

As Jiang Xingye enlarged one of the pictures, she frowned and said,

"The shape of the sun is way too strange... It doesn't feel like it has much to do with the solar halo at all."

"It has nothing to do with the solar halo?"

Lin Xu froze for a moment.

"Isn't this a standard solar halo?"

"The outer ring is a standard solar halo, that's right."

Jiang Xingye switched seats and sat beside Lin Xu, holding her phone screen up in front of him before continuing,

"But look—across several photos, the shape of the sun is different every time."

"Triangles, quadrilaterals, stars, hearts..."

"If it were just a solar halo caused by refraction through high-altitude ice-crystal clouds, it shouldn't be able to produce an effect like this."

"How should I put this... Do you know those star filters used in photography?"

"I do."

Lin Xu nodded.

He really did know—not because he knew how to take pictures, but because he had seen them in short videos.

A so-called star filter was a cover placed in front of a camera lens, densely perforated with holes in special shapes.

Once the cover was added, during a photo, points of light outside the focal range would change shape in unison because of the differences in how the light entered.

Hearts, five-pointed stars, cat faces...

There were all kinds.

But what did that have to do with the sun?

"You mean someone put a filter in front of the sun?"

"Exactly! A cosmic-scale filter!"

Jiang Xingye leaned mysteriously closer, her breath blowing directly across Lin Xu's face.

It was a little ticklish.

"Tell me, could this be some kind of aerospace weapon test?"

"...Your imagination is seriously running wild."

Lin Xu didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"What kind of weapon could alter the sun's appearance to this extent? A Dyson sphere?"

"Not necessarily."

Jiang Xingye shrugged.

"Maybe it's something like Starlink, high-altitude satellites, or something else."

"You wouldn't necessarily need a Dyson sphere to achieve this. Cosmic ray interference could do it too."

"Don't you think it's strange?"

"Look at the short videos. Not a single official media outlet has come out to explain or popularize it."

"With the way Chinese propaganda departments operate, if they didn't ride a major trending topic like this, it would be like killing them."

"For them to hold back and say nothing... either they genuinely can't explain it at all, or... it was probably something our own side made."

"Which possibility do you think is more likely?"

The question caught Lin Xu off guard.

Honestly, judging by common sense, the latter really did seem more likely.

But Lin Xu had a faint feeling that things were not so simple.

The apocalypse was destined to arrive in twenty years, yet he still knew nothing about what it actually was.

Could this bizarre "solar halo" he was seeing now be one of the signs of the coming end?

Lin Xu's mood changed instantly.

Frowning, he said,

"I hope it was something we did..."

"If it wasn't, then this is... a little too strange."

"There's nothing strange about it."

Jiang Xingye spread her hands indifferently.

"The universe is so vast. There are countless celestial phenomena we can't explain."

"Think about it. We've only been observing celestial phenomena for a few thousand years."

"But on a cosmic scale, many unusual phenomena may only appear once every few hundred thousand years, or even once every few million years."

"Maybe we're just lucky?"

"Maybe."

Lin Xu nodded and lightly let the subject pass.

There was something he kept to himself.

Maybe we aren't lucky at all.

If this really was a sign of the apocalypse, then all of humanity's luck was truly terrible...

But for now, he had no way to say that to Jiang Xingye.

So he could only keep quiet.

Just then, the dishes they had ordered were brought to the table.

Jiang Xingye did not switch seats again and simply remained beside Lin Xu.

Lin Xu suddenly realized something and asked,

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

"You deliberately switched over to sit beside me, didn't you?"

"...I'm moving back right now!"

Jiang Xingye glared furiously at Lin Xu.

Lin Xu hurriedly grabbed her arm and said with a grin,

"Stay here, stay here. It's nice like this..."

After finishing their meal, Lin Xu took Jiang Xingye around the mall, played claw machines, and watched a movie.

It could be said that they did everything a young couple in the ambiguous stage of a relationship was supposed to do.

Their relationship was rapidly drawing closer. Whenever Lin Xu occasionally looked at Jiang Xingye, his heart would stir a little.

Honestly, no one could possibly dislike a girl like her.

She was attractive, capable, and most importantly, she showed him a warmth that was uniquely his.

Lin Xu had only ever seen that feeling of being "treated specially" in the captions of suggestive streamers' videos.

Now that it was happening to him, it was honestly pretty intoxicating.

But Lin Xu could not quite tell whether he truly liked Jiang Xingye, or whether it was merely because of her identity as his "ex-wife."

—But did that matter?

He would just let things take their course.

They did not head back until after dinner. Lin Xu walked Jiang Xingye all the way to her door, where she suddenly clung to the doorway and asked with a sly look in her eyes,

"Want to come in and sit for a while?"

"...Then I won't refuse your kind offer."

Lin Xu made as if to push the door open and enter. Jiang Xingye slammed it shut with a bang and burst out laughing.

"In your dreams!"

"I'm going to take a shower!"

"Protect my water bottle! Drink more goji berries!"

Lin Xu looked at the water bottle that had once again been hung over his shoulder, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. He turned, entered the elevator, and went back to his own apartment.

He had not checked WeChat for most of the day. When he took out his phone again, Ren Jian had already sent him several messages.

"Mr. Lin Xu, the acquisition price for Donghua Chemical Fiber Plant has basically been negotiated."

"The price is twelve million, including all equipment assets, technical assets, and the company's existing human resources as a package."

"If there are no issues on your end, we can begin the final round of negotiations on Monday and finalize the acquisition."

That fast??

Lin Xu stared in astonishment.

Honestly, he had never seen an acquisition deal move so quickly.

Even buying a street stall would take several days of back-and-forth bargaining, wouldn't it?

Ren Jian seemed to be sparing no effort in pushing the matter forward.

He had an indescribably strong confidence in Lin Xu and in the prospects of those two materials.

Where did that confidence come from?

Lin Xu could not figure it out.

But it did not matter.

No matter why Ren Jian dared to gamble, Lin Xu could at least be certain that he had bet correctly.

Speed it up, speed it up, speed it up!

Lin Xu replied to Ren Jian with his confirmation and also updated Xu Jin.

Then he quickly took a shower and lay down on his bed.

The number on his wristband had recovered to 3, and he could clearly feel that he was in excellent condition now.

It was time to do something big.

Infiltrate Purple Mountain Observatory!

Take control of the deep-space observation station!

Establish contact with Jiang Xingye!

Oh, and while he was at it, see whether he could find any clues regarding this "abnormal celestial phenomenon."

If this abnormal celestial phenomenon really was connected to the apocalypse...

Then without question, it would be of immense significance to his search for the truth behind the apocalypse.

Lin Xu lightly touched his wristband. The next second, his consciousness drifted into the skies...