The jungle was a world of alien shadows and restless wind, thick with resin and the hush of unseen predators. Through tangled undergrowth, a lone figure pressed forward—a stranger on this planet, as out of place as a fallen star. Yan Qing’s black hair whipped behind him, sweat slicking his pale face, every breath ragged with exhaustion and hope.

  Branches clawed at his arms and legs. The ground beneath his feet was a patchwork of sharp scree and fractured stone, each step grinding grit into wounds already raw and bleeding. Blood seeped down his calf, warm and sticky, soaking into the torn fabric of his pants. Still, he ran—driven by something deeper than pain, deeper than fear.

  Ahead, something tore through the trees at impossible speed, a blur of gold and shadow. The sound of it—rustle, crash, the snap of splintering wood—echoed through the green gloom. Yan Qing’s heart hammered. “Chen! Chen!” he called, voice cracking with desperation, but the figure ahead was always just out of reach, vanishing between the trunks like a ghost.

  He stumbled, lungs burning, vision swimming. His body threatened to give out, but he forced himself onward, sheer will closing the distance. Suddenly, a violent cough doubled him over. He dropped to one knee, one hand clamped over his mouth. Hot, metallic blood welled between his fingers, bright against his skin. His shoulders shook. The taste of iron filled his mouth, thick and bitter.

  “I… what’s happening to me?” he gasped, voice barely more than a whisper.

  Ambient ionizing radiation exceeds Earth’s by several thousand-fold.

  The AI’s voice echoed in his mind, clinical and cold.

  Yan Qing wiped the blood from his lips, black eyes fixed on the depths of the jungle. “This planet… is this the universe Chen came from?” he asked, voice trembling.

  Yes.

  He didn’t care about the pain, or the blood, or the way his body trembled on the edge of collapse. He only wanted to see him—just once. “Him… is he here?” he whispered.

  Yes.

  A breeze lifted Yan Qing’s hair, hiding the wet shimmer in his eyes. “I know this is selfish,” he murmured, voice breaking. “I just want to see him once. Really. Just… one look.”

  Somewhere above, hidden in the dense lattice of branches, a pair of golden eyes watched him —unblinking, predatory, impossible to mistake. The owner of those eyes moved closer, silent as a shadow, gaze fixed on the wounded human below. The newcomer’s features were delicate, his skin was so pale it seemed translucent, as if he might dissolve into the starlight at

  any moment. His body was marked by fresh wounds—scrapes, bruises, a puncture still oozing blood where some beast had tried and failed to kill him.

  Starlight slipped through the canopy, painting the watcher’s face in fleeting silver. Golden hair framed sharp cheekbones, too familiar to be anyone else. It was Chen’s face—but stripped of every trace of warmth, every memory of kindness. The expression was blank, animal, unreadable. Only the flicker in those gold eyes betrayed a turbulence beneath the surface.

  Suddenly, a glint of movement—a flash of gold—and the figure vanished.

  A roar shattered the hush. Yan Qing spun, heart in his throat, just in time to see a field of gold fill his vision. At the feet of the tall figure lay the corpse of a monstrous thing, its body twisted and broken, red blood dripping from the figure’s hand to stain the moss.

  “Chen…” Yan Qing’s voice was a whisper, trembling with awe and grief.

  The figure turned, slow and deliberate, and for a moment Yan Qing saw him—truly saw him. The one he’d lost, the one he’d mourned, standing alive before him. Joy surged through him, so fierce it hurt. He stepped forward, hand outstretched, desperate to touch, to prove this was real.

  But the Teleopean kept his distance, eyes sharp and wary, holding a gulf between them. Yan Qing froze, pain blooming in his chest.

  “Chen?” he pleaded, voice small.

  The figure didn’t move.

  Yan Qing took another step.

  Stay where you are. Don’t move.

  The thought slammed into his mind, cold and foreign. Yan Qing stopped, trembling. “Sorry. You… you probably don’t know me…yet,” he managed, sweeping hair from his face, forcing a smile that felt like it might shatter.

  The Chen before him didn’t speak aloud. His answer came as a pulse of thought, sharp and furious:

  I know who you are. But I’m not the person you think I am.

  “You are Chen. I know you are. You—”

  Shut up. Say it again and I’ll kill you.

  It happened in a blur. The blonde man crossed the distance in an instant, one hand clamping around Yan Qing’s throat, lifting him off the ground. At the same time, it felt as if an invisible

  fist had closed around his heart, squeezing until the world narrowed to a single, suffocating point.

  Yan Qing stared into the Teleopean’s face—expressionless, cold, terrifying. He couldn’t even struggle, couldn’t breathe. The blonde man tilted his head, studying him with a predator’s detachment. Then, abruptly, the gold eyes flickered—uncertainty, something almost human— and he let go.

  Yan Qing dropped to his knees, gasping, the world spinning. The killing intent he’d seen in the Teleopean’s eyes left him cold to the bone. His body shook, battered by pain and sickness and heartbreak. He looked up, tears blurring his vision. “Chen…”

  Hearing his name, the Teleopean hesitated, gold eyes conflicted. Yan Qing’s face crumpled, and then he collapsed, the last of his strength gone.

  The Teleopean moved toward him, footsteps urgent in the hush of the alien night. He stood over the unconscious human, face unreadable, and reached out. For a moment he hesitated— then his fingers brushed through Yan Qing’s tangled hair, as if needing to confirm the reality of him.

  The sensation made the Teleopean’s eyes widen. He leaned closer, searching for proof in the lines of Yan Qing’s face, the shallow rise and fall of his breath. For a moment, he considered leaving. But his gaze slid to the wound on Yan Qing’s leg, blood soaking the fabric, and he knew: if he left him here, the jungle would finish what fate had started.

  Gold eyes flickered, torn between instinct and something softer. Finally, the Teleopean bent, gathered Yan Qing’s limp body into his arms, and carried him away—into the darkness, away from the teeth of the world.

  Deep within a secluded valley, a small black spacecraft rested, wedged tightly between two enormous rocks. The ship’s hull was severely damaged, with exposed wiring trailing from the torn metal. Scars and impact marks marred the surrounding stone, clear evidence of a violent and forced landing.

  The Teleopean carried Yan Qing through the side hatch of the wrecked vessel. Despite the passage of years since the crash, the internal matter reactor continued to supply a minimal amount of power. The Teleopean made his way to the sleeping compartment situated behind the cockpit, where he gently laid Yan Qing down on the bed.

  For a long moment, the Teleopean’s golden eyes lingered on Yan Qing, watching him closely. He turned to leave the compartment, but something made him pause, stopping him in his tracks.

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  He turned back again, studying Yan Qing’s sleeping face with unsettling attention, as if unwilling to miss a single detail. That complicated light still flickered in his gaze.

  Yan Qing looked terrible: bruised, scraped, and the wounds on his back and leg showed no sign of healing. The Teleopean, born on this dead world and accustomed to solitude, had never encountered another intelligent species—let alone a human. He tilted his head, puzzled by Yan Qing’s condition.

  After a moment, as if recalling something, the blonde reached under the bed and pulled out a box. Inside, he found a strange device: a triangular dish with several blue nodes along its edge. He tapped it a few times, and the device lifted on its own, floating above Yan Qing. It began spinning rapidly, spilling blue light that dropped like a canopy and enveloped Yan Qing’s body. Mud and dust washed away under the beam, revealing that the instrument was designed to clean wounds. Yet even after being cleaned, the injuries remained unhealed.

  With no better option, the Teleopean took gauze from the box and wrapped the wounds himself. His efforts were clumsy and improvised, but for a first encounter with a human, he managed the basics. When he finished, the blonde sat down on the edge of the bed in silence and stared at Yan Qing. A long time passed before the blonde finally broke eye contact, stood, and left the sleeping compartment.

  This planet’s day-night cycle was slow; one full rotation took several Earth days. The heavy night pressed down, oppressive and unyielding. Yet daylight here brought a different kind of terror: it was lethal. A blue supergiant, much larger than the Sun, served as the world’s light source, its ultraviolet and cosmic radiation powerful enough to reduce anything exposed to ash in seconds. Only the local plants had managed to adapt to these conditions; other animals coped by hibernating through the deadly daylight hours.

  Deep within the valley, a solitary figure hauled the corpse of a beast many times his own size, dragging it back towards an object that seemed utterly out of place in this wild landscape. His golden hair caught the cold starlight, echoing the remoteness of his presence—distant, unapproachable. With a heavy motion, he slammed the beast down and turned his attention to the ship.

  At the hatch stood the human who had been unconscious earlier, now wrapped in a blanket. Yan Qing looked fragile: his face pale and bloodless, black eyes glinting faintly in the darkness. He had awoken in the derelict craft, surrounded by old wiring and shattered components, all clear evidence of long abandonment. Venturing outside, he had found the blonde returning from the hunt.

  “Thank you for bandaging me,” Yan Qing said, offering a weak smile. He did not understand why, but a chill lingered throughout his body. The Teleopean regarded the human as strange. Earlier, Yan Qing had seemed reckless and impulsive—yet now, he showed no sign of fear at all.

  The Teleopean ignored Yan Qing’s words, focusing instead on the beast he had hunted. He crouched down and began to process the kill, not requiring a knife—his silver nails were sharp enough to slice through the thick hide effortlessly, producing clean, precise cuts.

  Sensing the Teleopean’s indifference, Yan Qing lowered his voice and said softly, “I… I won’t bother you.” He began to prepare himself to leave, even though a part of him wanted to

  linger just a bit longer. Despite his desire, he accepted that he had seen what he came for, and that nothing had really changed as a result.

  In this time and place, Chen had not yet met him. Yan Qing understood that if anyone were to chase after a stranger in the forest, calling out a name, it would seem utterly irrational— perhaps even mad. Chen’s reaction, under these circumstances, made sense.

  With a heavy heart, Yan Qing limped past the Teleopean without turning his head. He knew that if he looked back, the weight of his emotions would overwhelm him, making it impossible to continue walking away. He longed to run, but the pain in his injured leg made even his slow pace agonising.

  Unbeknownst to Yan Qing, the Teleopean’s gaze followed his awkward, limping retreat. While the Teleopean’s face remained expressionless, his hands had stilled, no longer working on the beast. His golden eyes remained fixed on the departing human, and in the silence, his fingers curled into tight fists, the veins on the back of his hands standing out with the strain.

  “Hey… are you still there?”

  Yan Qing called out softly as he reached the edge of the trees, his gaze sweeping the strange and twisted vegetation that surrounded him. To an outside observer, it would appear as though he was speaking to himself, but in truth, he was attempting to contact the computer within his mind—an artificial intelligence that had responded to him earlier.

  Yet now, there was only silence. No response echoed back from the digital companion that had been his lifeline. Yan Qing tried repeatedly to reach out, but each attempt was met with nothing but the distant calls of unseen animals and the quiet hush of the alien forest. Disappointment settled heavily over him as the realisation dawned: he was truly alone now.

  The thought crossed his mind that perhaps he would die here, isolated and forgotten. He wondered, with a detached curiosity, if Chen would one day stumble across his body. His thoughts grew sluggish, drifting into a dull fog, and a faint, oddly peaceful smile appeared on his lips. People die anyway, he reflected. The method changes, but the end remains the same.

  Weary beyond words, Yan Qing lowered himself to the base of a tree, letting his body sink against the rough bark. He gazed up through the gaps in the canopy, marveling at the unpolluted sky—so many stars, scattered brilliant across the blackness. A fleeting thought crossed his mind: if someone ever built an observatory here, the astronomical data would be extraordinary. Even on the cusp of death, his thoughts returned to his work; scientific curiosity refused to let go.

  His nose began to itch. When he wiped at it, his fingers came away stained with blood. He understood immediately: his body was failing under the planet’s radiation. On a cellular level, he was breaking down, mutating—dying from the inside out. Despite the grim certainty, he did not panic. Instead, he felt a strange sense of relief.

  He wondered if there truly was a heaven, as some religions claimed. He had never been a

  believer, but now, he found himself wishing it were true. A passing regret surfaced—he had forgotten to ask Chen whether Teleopeans believed in such things.

  His mind drifted, thoughts scattering. His breathing slowed, each inhale and exhale amplified in the still, solemn air. Gradually, his black eyes disappeared beneath lowering eyelids, surrendering at last to exhaustion.