In 2026, at the “Lonely Rock Lighthouse” in the North Atlantic. The protagonist, Lin An, is 41 and among the last human lighthouse keepers. He has been on duty for seven years. His world consists of three things: the automated reports he sends to the Ocean Bureau every day, his “conversations” with a lame albatross, and the private coded diary he taps into the void on an old telegraph key, which has never received a reply.
Inciting Incident
Late at night on the Lantern Festival, the fifteenth day of the first lunar month in the Year of the Fire Horse (March 3, 2026), after Lin An routinely sends the message “All is well,” the receiver suddenly starts up on its own and prints a looping string of Morse code:
“Who are you?”
“I am you.”
“No. Which me are you?”
Immediately afterward, the lighthouse's enormous lens lights up automatically for the first time outside its scheduled hours. Its beam does not sweep across the sea, but shoots vertically into the clouds overhead, where it projects silhouettes of several different versions of Lin An, each a different age, dressed differently, and wearing a different expression.
