Waves in the Opposite Direction

The truth of the universe is more terrifying than the darkness. In the future, humanity has conquered the stars, yet stands at the edge of a mental abyss. Archaeologist Gu Nianzhou discovers the remains of precursor civilizations tens of thousands of light-years away: the Gaze-Bearers, the Correctors, the Memorandum-Keepers. Every one of them stopped evolving the moment it reached “perfect order.” Perfection is the end. The symbiotic network on Earth is pushing humanity down the same path. Counselor Lu Ming protects the last group of holdouts who refuse to be optimized, people from the old world who miss the smell of soil and the roughness of reality. Deep in the ruins, Gu Nianzhou picks up a consciousness signal that has been running alone for seven hundred years, bearing a question that brings all civilization to a halt: “When humans no longer need to miss one another, are they still alive?” From floating cities to ruined remains, from the cradle of carbon-based life to the darkening reaches of the cosmos: if perfection is destined to bring everything to a stop, can humanity carry its flaws across the boundary of perfection and transcend the universe itself? That ripple moving in the opposite direction is still deep within the cosmos, circling again and again, never stopping.