The Coffin Cipher: A Close Encounter of the Third Kind

The archaeological hammer has struck the gravestone of a civilization.

Deep in the mountains of southern Guizhou, an upside-down bronze city appears, covered in symbols that are not of this world. Chen Guanfu, an archaeologist, is the only one who can “hear” its whispers, but he has also become a vessel that it is slowly “rewriting.” Shen Zhiwei of the Seventh Contact Bureau is ordered to investigate. She discovers that this is merely one node in a network on a cosmic scale, and that behind it lies a warning left by the long-vanished Guizang civilization, about a cold mechanism that periodically wipes out the light of the stars: Purification.

We are not the only ones in the universe. But most other civilizations have become gravestones.

When an indescribable “Ferryman” appears between Earth and the moon, humanity receives no declaration of war, only three screens of light spanning the starry sky and one final question. Time to answer: seven days. The standard for an answer: unknown. There seem to be only two choices: to be “archived,” or to enter the promise of “migration”…