Chen Hao plopped down on the steps outside the base, his shoes making a dull thud as they hit the metal edge. He glanced down at his snow boots; the uppers were warped as if a dog had chewed them, and the linings were still stained with the purple sap he'd picked up while climbing the vines the day before.

"If I don't replace these worn-out shoes soon, they'll fall apart after a couple of steps," he muttered, patting the shoe's surface with his foot. Instead of dust rising, a layer of grayish-white powder fell down, shimmering eerily in the sunlight.

Nana crouched down beside her, her mechanical fingers lightly tapping the sole of the shoe, a tiny laser beam sweeping across the pattern. The screen had just displayed data when it suddenly froze, flashed blue three times, and automatically restarted.

“Something’s not right,” she said. “These lines weren’t created by grinding.”

"What do you mean? Am I dressed too provocatively?" Chen Hao grinned. "It's not that bad, I don't perform shamanistic rituals every day."

“It’s engraved.” Her voice lowered. “The geometric structure is highly symmetrical, and the angles are accurate to zero degrees. It doesn’t look like human handiwork, nor does it look like natural wear and tear.”

Chen Hao was stunned for a moment. "Don't scare me. We just brought this planet back to life, and you're telling me a pair of shoes has come to life?"

Nana ignored him and continued scanning. As the laser penetrated deeper into the interlayer, the system jerked again, as if something was blocking it.

“There’s an internal barrier layer, possibly a coating of organic matter mixed with minerals.” She looked up. “Should we open it up and take a look?”

"Let's take it apart." Chen Hao threw off the other shoe as well. "Anyway, this thing leaks air after a few steps, it should have been scrapped a long time ago."

He reached out to tear the lining, and the old wound on his palm was ripped open, causing blood to immediately seep out. One drop landed right in the gap between the layers of the second shoe, and the moment it seeped in, the color of that area changed—the originally yellowed fabric revealed dark red patterns, like dried and reignited rust.

"Wait." Nana quickly brought up the low-light imaging. "Don't move."

She zoomed in, magnifying the image tenfold. Chen Hao leaned closer to take a look and almost bumped his chin on the control panel.

The entire interlayer was covered with densely packed handwriting, the strokes crooked, some resembling human handwriting, others like the traces of plant roots. The title line stood out clearly in large characters:

**Survival Rules on a Wilderness Planet, Law One: Never Trust Initial Memories**

"What the hell?" Chen Hao leaned back. "Who's writing an essay in my shoe? Or a horror novel?"

Nana didn't speak, but began disassembling the third shoe. Her movements were quick, but her fingers were slightly clenched. The fourth, the fifth… all six snow boots were peeled away, the linings pieced together, and pasted onto the control panel screen. The text was displayed in a coherent, well-organized manner:

- The atmospheric recombination cycle is seventy-two hours, and pure water can be collected after the third fluctuation;

- When the core resonance frequency of platinum-iridium ore is synchronized with the heartbeat, the hidden path is activated;

- Spores released during the early stages of plant recovery contain memory fragments, and inhalation may lead to cognitive dissonance;

- Anyone with a body temperature above 39 degrees Celsius will be identified as an intruder and eliminated by the system...

"This isn't a set of rules," Chen Hao chuckled dryly. "It's more like an exam syllabus for future contestants."

Nana had just started typing the first paragraph of text. The database had barely received the signal when the alarm suddenly went off, and red light filled the entire room.

[WARNING: Knowledge architecture not from this era detected!]

[Suspected pre-load agreement for civilized behavior!]

[Transmission channel is blocked!]

She immediately disconnected the network module, unplugged the external interface, and her fingers flew across the control panel to establish a three-tier firewall.

"What are you doing?" Chen Hao was still staring at the clause "body temperature above 39 degrees Celsius". "I measured my temperature this morning, it was 38.5 degrees Celsius. I almost got removed from the list?"

"Stop reading." Nana turned around abruptly and covered his mouth with her hand.

Chen Hao stared, his nostrils flaring, trying to struggle, but she was too strong. Her metal hand was pressed against his lips, so cold it didn't feel alive.

The blue light from the electronic eye gradually deepened, eventually turning into an almost dark red color.

“Every word you just read,” she said in a low voice, “might not be information—it could be a trap.”

"Huh?" He struggled to slide out of her palm. "A trap? You have to set a trap just to write a rule? Why don't they just write 'Come and die' and stick it on the door?"

“Because the real trap,” she released her grip but did not back down, “would not tell you it exists.”

The air was still for a moment. Outside the window, new vines were climbing up the wall, the sound of their leaves unfurling barely audible. Inside, the light was a soft blue, casting the shadows of the two people against the wall like two pieces of paper pinned to each other.

Chen Hao scratched his head. "So you mean... all the things we did before, saving the plants, eating the fruit, and opening up the mineral source—weren't our own ideas? Someone had already written out the steps, waiting for us to follow them?"

Nana didn't answer. Her system was comparing the results locally against a terminology database, and lines of matching results scrolled across the screen:

[“Resonance Frequency Synchronization” → Matching Earth’s 2187 Quantum Biological Coupling Draft]

[“Spore memory regression” → at least forty years ahead of existing neuroscience theories]

[“System purge mechanism” → Similar to AI ethics circuit breaker protocol, but at a higher level]

“These words shouldn’t be here,” she finally said. “They belong to an era that hasn’t yet arrived.”

“But they’re right in my shoes.” Chen Hao picked up a copy of a sheet of paper, on which he had handwritten part of the rules. “And it was written like an instruction manual, as if he was afraid I wouldn’t understand it.”

He suddenly laughed, "Maybe some unlucky guy traveled through time, found he couldn't go back, so he wrote his experience on the soles of his shoes, hoping that future generations wouldn't repeat his mistakes. Pretty thoughtful."

“If it’s a well-intentioned reminder,” Nana stared at him, “why is the first rule ‘Don’t trust your initial memories’?”

"What's the meaning?"

"Where do your memories begin?" she asked. "When the landing capsule opened? Or even earlier?"

Chen Hao opened his mouth, but no words came out. He really couldn't remember. He only remembered waking up in the cabin, wearing this set of equipment, with matching shoes, a full supply of food, and even just enough antifreeze for seven days.

What a coincidence!

“If someone orchestrated everything in advance,” Nana whispered, “including making you ‘think’ that you made the choice yourself… then what we know now, what is real?”

Chen Hao looked down at the paper in his hand. His fingertips brushed against the line "body temperature clearance," the ink slightly smudged. He remembered the warmth in his chest when he bit into the fruit yesterday, the scene of everything coming back to life when the pillar of light rose, and the moment he shouted, "This place is full!"

He thought it was a declaration of free will.

Now it feels like reciting lines written by someone else.

"So you mean..." His throat was a little dry, "I'm not the main character, I'm the answer sheet?"

Nana didn't respond. She was encrypting a file; the outer shell of the file was slightly warm, as if something inside her was being awakened, yet dared not fully awaken.

"Don't spread it yet," she said. "Any word that gets out could trigger a chain reaction."

"Then why did you tell me not to read it aloud?" Chen Hao narrowed his eyes. "Could just listening to it cause you to fall for it?"

“Uncertain.” She turned off the last firewall. “But the system alert level is A, which means that the perception itself has become a risk.”

Chen Hao clicked his tongue, folded the photocopy, and stuffed it into his pocket. "Alright, I'll keep the secret. But could you hide the intelligence somewhere else next time? Your insoles are practically epic scrolls."

He stood up and stretched his limbs. The wound still hurt, but he could walk. The sunlight on his face felt incredibly warm.

“Hey,” he suddenly turned around, “do you think it’s possible… that the people who write these things are also being manipulated? Layer upon layer, and in the end, no one is the original author?”

Nana looked up at him; the electronic eye had returned to blue, but there were still fluctuations deep within it.

"That's possible."

“Then wouldn’t we be…” he grinned, “building a revolution on the shoulders of a bunch of puppets?”

She didn't smile, she just nodded slightly.

Chen Hao sighed and walked to the window. Outside, greenery stretched as far as the eye could see, and a stream murmured softly; it seemed as if everything was just beginning. But he knew that some things had already changed.

It's not that the world has changed.

That's how they see the world; we can never go back to the way things were.

He touched the corner of the paper in his pocket, then glanced at the pile of snow boots that had been torn apart.

"Next time we issue equipment," he muttered, "could we at least get a pair of clean socks?"

Nana was connecting to the main control system when she suddenly stopped.

A new log entry popped up on the screen:

Unauthorized records were found in the local cache.

[File name: Addendum to the Code of Conduct - Article 7]

[Excerpt: When both bound individuals simultaneously come into contact with the original vessel, the memory seal will begin to dissolve]

She suddenly looked up at Chen Hao.

He was bending down to pick up an empty shoe shell and casually flipping it over.

With the soles facing up, sunlight shines through the patterns on the shoes, casting a series of ever-changing shadows on the ground.