Chapter One: Every Satellite Forgot It

At 9:17 p.m., Zhou Ye had 423 viewers in his livestream. It was his best number all month. “The brightest object is the Tianhe core module,” he said, adjusting the tracking error on his homemade equatorial mount. “The slow point to the lower right is not a UFO. It’s a retired weather satellite.” Wind swept across the roof. Bedsheets on a clothesline flapped like surrender flags. When Zhou rented the top floor of the aging apartment building, the landlord had thrown in the leaking rooftop as if it were a punishment. Zhou had turned it into half an observatory with discarded air-conditioner frames and repaired lenses. By day he fixed drones. By night he explained the stars. His grand ambition was to keep his repair shop alive for another month.