Moon Surface · Moon Palace One Landing Site
Zhang Lei stood at the hatch, took a deep breath. Though there was only recycled air inside his spacesuit, the motion calmed him slightly.
He stepped forward.
The instant his boot touched the lunar surface, a strange sensation spread through his body—he felt incredibly light, as if floating in water.
A faint, almost imperceptible buoyancy supported his body. He gave a small hop, then slowly descended as though in slow motion.
This was the moon.
One-sixth gravity.
He raised his head—
Then he saw it.
In the distance, a massive blue planet hung silently in the pitch-black void of space.
That was Blue Star—home, everything thirty-eight hundred thousand kilometers away.
Clouds drifted slowly across its surface. The azure oceans and ochre continents were clearly visible; he could even make out the outline of that familiar land.
And beside Blue Star lay bottomless blackness.
Pure, absolute blackness that devoured everything.
There were no stars, no light, only endless emptiness.
Zhang Lei's breathing suddenly quickened.
That darkness was not the darkness of night, nor the darkness after turning off the lights. It was—an abyss.
It felt as though if he stared at it for one more second, he would be sucked in, falling forever, sinking forever.
"Beep—beep—beep—"
Inside his spacesuit, the heart rate alarm sounded urgently.
A tense voice came from Upper Capital Command Center:
"Zhang Lei! Zhang Lei! This is the Upper Capital medical team! Your heart rate is skyrocketing! 165, 170, still rising!
Calm down immediately! Any higher will affect the next phase of the mission!"
Zhang Lei could hear the voice, but he could not pull his gaze away from that darkness.
It was an instinctive terror, the most primal awe and trembling humans felt before the vast universe.
Just then,