Next was the Circular Mound Altar. The outer wall was square, with circular terraces inside, again reflecting the “heavens are round, the earth is square” idea. The Circular Mound Altar, built in the ninth year of the Jiajing Emperor (1530), was a venue for the grand ceremonies to worship heaven. The pillars were made of white marble, the platforms of bluestone, with diameters of the three layers being nine, fifteen, and twenty-one zhang, summing up to forty-five zhang, symbolizing the “emperor’s supreme status.” Heaven is associated with yang, earth with yin, odd numbers with yang, even numbers with yin, subtly aligning with the concept of “harmony between heaven and man.” As I ascended the steps, a strange feeling grew within me. Upon reaching the top layer and seeing the “Heavenly Center Stone,” this feeling intensified. An invisible hand seemed to pluck a string in my heart, yet I couldn’t grasp it. This “Heavenly Center Stone,” where tourists eagerly took photos, must have been stepped on by K as well. He wouldn’t have mingled with tourists like I did; he would have stood on the stone under the starry night sky, looking up. K had his epiphany here on the Circular Mound Altar. My intuition sent strong signals. I walked back and forth on the altar, from the square outer wall to the concentric layers of platforms, to the “Heavenly Center Stone” where one had to queue to step on momentarily. The chaos in my mind refused to unravel. The feeling of being on the brink of understanding, yet unable to grasp it, was terrible. The divine code, alas, the divine code, was not something I could decipher.
On June 17th, I was in a traditional Shikumen house in the North Bund of Shanghai. There were nine of us present: me, Liang Yingwu, Ye Tong, Lu Yun, Wei Hou, Ye Tianjin, Shui Sheng, Su Ying, and Ming Hui. The day before, I had received a message from over ten thousand light-years away, delivered through an ordinary email. This was a miraculous event in itself—how did Zhang Ming manage to remotely access Earth’s internet?
