Reverse Entropy

False vacuum decay, a physical catastrophe devouring Earth. The oceans turn into crystal lattices, the air into glass, and living things into specimens. Each year, it advances another 1.2 kilometers. Dao Wuyai, an adept of the Taixu Observatory, builds Guanghan Station on the far side of the moon, seeking to drag the universe's “childhood memories,” the original code from the first second of the Big Bang, into reality. Once he succeeds, Earth will be reformatted. Lu Heng, Dao Wuyai's nephew, receives a single character: “Return.” Nie Rong, a bone diviner, is going to the far side of the moon to find the older brother who vanished nine years ago during the false vacuum decay. Yu Qing, an entanglement master, still has traces of her younger brother's entanglement channel on the Suzhou Creek, like a sleeping snake. Zhao Tiege, a Resonant, has forgotten his late wife's face. He remembers only that her voice was a little softer than a stick striking ice. Su Zhiyin, a chime-bell master, has a senior sister who carved a semitone into the inner wall of an ancient bell. Every time it rings, it asks her: “Are you sure you made the right choice?” Old Zhong Laoyao, a Level Zero mortal, is the only member of the six-person team with no ability to lose. Their mission: before the spring equinox tide reaches its peak, rewrite Dao Wuyai's entropy-coffin code. Change “childhood memories” into a “self-circulating mirror image” and make the false vacuum decay reverse itself. The price: all six must release their informational redundancy and fall back to Level Zero mortals. But “Return” does not mean going back to the starting point. It means walking back and bringing something new with you. This is a story about “going back.”