The wind and snow beat against the windows, and the white mist filled the window, even if the heating was turned on, this cold night still seemed a little cold.

Al curled up between his seats, leaning back on Yanagihara's body.

The old man named Aztod shook the coffee in his hand, and half-loudly, he should have narrowed his eyes, remembering the past.

"In the beginning, we thought it was going to be a great project."

The old man took a soft breath, and in his vicissitudes of tone, the wind outside seemed to be a little louder.

"Even though it was once buried in the archives of a greenhouse and left untouched, it is undeniable that it still represents the courage of humanity to explore fearlessly. You may not be able to imagine the excitement I felt when I was looking through this file, when I was a young man, in my thirties, full of energy, and daring to fight. I was unshakable in my belief that there must be other human beings living in the universe, and I believed that this plan would be a direction, and I believed that if I could discover this planetary belt, then humanity would unite again and move towards a new goal and raise its head to live again. And not ······ as it is now"

The old man spoke, rubbing the cup in his hand and falling into a moment of silence.

Then he smiled again and continued.

"So, that year I submitted an application to the greenhouse, an application for the Star Observation Institute. I'm not afraid of your jokes when I say it, I was in the greenhouse at the time, and I still had some connections. Therefore, although there were several twists and turns along the way, the application was finally approved. And this research institute was built in this way. ”

"It has the largest and most advanced astronomical telescope on the central ice sheet, with 42 electron couplers of 2200x1024 pixels, which can detect the luminosity of objects of magnitude 9 to 16. At the same time, the institute is also equipped with an independent power supply system, a small ecosystem, and a complete set of electronic equipment systems. ”

"It's no exaggeration to say that this was once the most likely astronomical observatory on the central ice sheet to work miracles."

"Unfortunately, even though I was prepared, I still underestimated the difficulty of creating miracles."

Speaking of this, the old man's eyes were a little bitter, he took another sip of the coffee in his hand, sighed slowly, and said helplessly.

"Because the observation method we use is the transit method, although we have tried to do the best in the location of the observatory, due to the influence of the earth's surface occlusion, the rotation and revolution of the planet, diffuse light, the ecliptic plane and other factors, we are still unable to continuously track and observe a specific galaxy, and even permanently lose the possibility of observing some planets."

"The magnitude of this situation is beyond my imagination, and it makes research, which is already full of uncertainties, almost ethereal."

"So far, we haven't had any research results for the next ten years. The higher-ups of the greenhouse are losing confidence in us, and on the other side, research on starships has stalled. Eventually, the greenhouse announced the end of the program and transferred all the researchers out of the institute. ”

"Originally, the observatory was going to be demolished, but I did my best to keep it and asked to stay here alone to continue my research. This is irrational, after all, to support a research institute, even with a minimum quota, requires far more resources than I personally need. But I never wanted to give up that little hope, and my friend finally agreed to my request. ”

"I redesigned the mini-ecosystem and built a new power system to minimize the resource consumption of the institute and increase the possibility of recycling. The greenhouse would send me a supply every three months, and I spent twenty years here. ”

"Whew-whew-"

There was a soft sound at the end of the hallway, presumably some wind penetrating the window.

Yanagihara looked at the old man in front of him, perhaps because he had talked too much about the relationship for a while, and at this time, the old gentleman's face had already revealed a little tiredness.

There was a half-silence in the hall until the wanderer asked.

"So what have you discovered in the last twenty years?"

The old man raised his eyes and glanced at Yanagihara, then shrugged his shoulders with a wry smile.

"Almost nothing."

"That's it." Realizing that he seemed to have asked an inappropriate question, Yanagihara raised his glass and took a sip of warm water to ease his embarrassment, before looking around and continuing.

"It looks so clean, are you cleaning it?"

"Hmm." The old man seemed to have been successfully distracted, and looked up into the hallway.

"Astronomical observations are not busy, and most of the data is stored on the computer for processing, so I have a lot of free time to do other things."

He said this, smiling softly.

"For example, taking care of the plants, tidying up the room, listening to recordings, or communicating with friends in the greenhouse, etc. In fact, I have a fairly rich spare time, after all, if I don't do much activity, my old bones may rust one day. ”

Uh-huh, Yanagihara raised her brow undeniably, it was good news for her.

Because in any case, man is indeed a creature that cannot survive on its own.

If you are completely cut off from the outside world, it will not be long before an individual loses his or her rationality and personality, and thus enters a state of near-madness.

Well, Liz is a little bit similar to that.

She was still a little worried about the old man's psychological condition, but now it seems that the other party's mood should be relatively stable.

Especially as a more mature individual, the elderly obviously have a stronger ability to self-regulate.

"Alright."

Perhaps thinking of something, the old man turned his head to the side, looked at Yanagihara and Al again, and said.

"Now that I've told my story, shouldn't you tell me something about you?"

Although he didn't really care where Yanagihara and Al came from, just like he didn't care about Yanagihara pointing a gun at him before, his already old body made him look down on many things.

However, this snowy night is still a long time, isn't it?

So why not find something to do.

Even if it's just a few small talks, it's better than spending the night in silence.