In the autumn of 2008, a laboratory accident sparks a fateful collision between Haoyu Hang, an aerospace prodigy, and Wu Moxuan, a young restorer of ancient books. When a watermark in the Ming dynasty text The Hidden Secrets of the Jade Globe reveals the orbit of a future satellite, and a rocket fuel formula emerges from mold stains on an ancient book, the two rivals discover that the titanium alloy badge on Haoyu Hang's chest and the bronze compass pendant beneath Wu Moxuan's collarbone can fit together to form a key to a civilization spanning time and space.
At their high school's observatory, they decipher Apollo 13's erased emergency plan from a piece of parchment. In a university laboratory, quantum dust from fragments of an ancient book reassembles into a blueprint for a lunar base. Yet every leap in technology comes with a warning that history is being altered: the data on the Challenger disaster is concealed in wormholes dating back to the Wanli era, while a solar storm alert arrives at the Forbidden City as a star chart traced in raindrops.
Across twenty-eight years of entanglement, from millennia-old feelings read through a brain-computer interface to one last shared breath before a cryogenic pod, they are forced to face the ultimate paradox: saving civilization requires them to burn their own era with their own hands. When Wu Moxuan's restoration knife ignites an antimatter engine, and Haoyu Hang's spaceflight logs become sparks written in oracle bone script, humanity finally understands: the greatest legacy is teaching the star paths to remember the warmth of dust.
