In 2026, the "Lone Rock Lighthouse" in the North Atlantic Ocean. The protagonist Lin An, 41 years old, is the last batch of human lighthouse observers and has been on duty for seven years. His world consists of three parts: the daily automated reports sent to the Oceanographic Bureau, the "conversation" with a lame albatross, and the private code diary that beats into the void with an old transmitter and never receives a response.
Trigger event
Late at night on the Lantern Festival of the Year of the Horse in Bingwu (March 3, 2026), after Lin An routinely sent "everything is normal", the ticker suddenly started on its own and spit out a string of cyclic Morse code:
"Who are you?"
"I am you."
"No. Which me are you?"
Immediately afterwards, the giant lens of the lighthouse automatically lit up at an unspecified time for the first time. The beam of light did not sweep towards the sea, but shot vertically into the dark clouds at the zenith, reflecting the silhouettes of several forest bank figures of different ages, costumes, and expressions on the clouds.
