On 'SakuraNet', countless viewers were waiting for the 9 p.m. premiere.
["I'm actually pretty excited!"]
["I really wonder what kind of style Su Yan's new drama is going to have."]
["'An Ancient Love Song' and 'Rurouni Kenshin: Trust & Betrayal' were both historical dramas. Will a modern one bring something new?"]
["I've already assumed it's going to be depressing. No matter how tragic it gets, it won't break me."]
["You already know it's depressing, and you're still watching? That's just asking for pain."]
["Can't help it—Su Yan's dramas are truly brutal, but they're also genuinely moving. Other shows just don't hit me the same way they do."]
["My whole family is sitting in front of the TV right now. I'm watching for Su Yan and Gu Qingyuan's CP, while my parents are here for Qiu Junlin and Takezawa Kayano, their idols from back in the day. Everyone's happy."]
On 'SakuraNet', a huge crowd held extremely high expectations for the drama 'To the Moon'.
But as the 9 p.m. broadcast time drew closer, the online discussions gradually quieted down.
Meanwhile, Sakura TV's ratings kept climbing, already surpassing 3.3% before the show even officially aired.
Lu Zheng'an ate his late-night snack while watching the commercials on Sakura TV. The moment it hit nine o'clock, the screen froze briefly—
A bright moon over the sea, a lighthouse, a gravestone beside it, a wooden cabin beneath the lighthouse, and a cliff by the shore appeared on screen.
A gentle BGM tinged with melancholy began to play.
Text listing the director, actors, producer, screenwriter, and other main staff faded into view.
The theme music had no lyrics—only pure instrumental melody.
Lu Zheng'an's mood slowly calmed.
Curiosity began to rise in his heart.
What kind of drama will this be?
The camera angle shifted, looking down from high above.
Late at night, a car drove along the road toward the seaside cliff, heading for the lighthouse and the wooden cabin.
Suddenly, the car flipped and slammed into a tree by the roadside.
A man and a woman in white medical lab coats stepped out of the vehicle, staring at a squirrel that had been crushed flat on the road.
"Where were you even looking while driving, Neil?"
Eva, played by Gu Qingyuan, asked with some irritation.
"Sorry. I was just trying to avoid that poor little mouse."
Neil, played by Su Yan, raised his hand awkwardly as he apologized.
Seeing the two of them dressed in modern outfits, Lu Zheng'an felt a bit unaccustomed.
But—
Good-looking people really did look good in anything.
Life is so unfair.
Pressed for time, Neil and Eva hurriedly grabbed their equipment from the car and took a shortcut up the hillside along the road, heading toward the mountaintop.
There, at the summit, stood a large wooden house.
A maid and her two children had already been waiting there for quite some time.
Inside the room, the two children were playing a piece on the piano.
The sheet music lay open on the stand.
The title of the piece was "To River."
As the story progressed, Lu Zheng'an gradually understood that Eva and Neil were PhD-level researchers working for a high-tech company.
The reason they had come here was to help a terminally ill elderly man named Johnny fulfill his dying wish—to go to the moon.
Even the maid didn't know why the old man had developed such a wish.
She only knew that after his wife River passed away, Johnny became increasingly lonely, eventually giving rise to this impossible dream.
Not to mention an ordinary middle-class elderly man—even the current Xia Nation had no technology capable of sending humans to the moon.
His wish was fundamentally impossible to realize.
Thus, Neil and Eva's solution was to use specialized equipment to help Johnny construct a dream—a brand-new, virtual life—so that he could fulfill his dream of going to the moon within that dream before he died.
When this premise was revealed, Lu Zheng'an's interest was immediately piqued.
A sci‑fi drama?
But in a fabricated dream—
Did that really count as achieving one's dream?
Still, considering it was a dying man's final wish, it was understandable. As long as he believed it was real before death, whether it was a dream or not, no longer mattered.
Although 'To the Moon' had a relatively slow early pace and spent much of its time laying groundwork, the high-quality production and the actors' superb performances made Lu Zheng'an watch with growing interest.
To help Johnny build a new life within the dream, Neil and Eva needed to understand his past and the root of his desire to go to the moon. Only by doing so could they input the key information and parameters into the device and restart their dream life.
Thus, the two of them searched through many of Johnny's belongings in the wooden house.
In the storage room, they found a pile of paper rabbits—especially one blue-and-yellow paper rabbit that the old man had clearly treasured.
They also found many paper rabbits inside the lighthouse by the cliff outside the cabin.
Along with several platypus plush toys.
"Paper rabbits?" Lu Zheng'an frowned in confusion.
What connection could paper rabbits possibly have with a dream of going to the moon?
Since there were no answers in the real world, the only place left to search was within the old man's memories.
Using the equipment, the two doctors entered the terminally ill old man's memory world—
Arriving at a point in time before Johnny fell gravely ill.
Here, the memory-based persona of Johnny constructed by the device was clearly shocked by their appearance.
"I was just about to call your company to submit a request. How did you arrive already?"
Qiu Junlin's portrayal of Johnny was strikingly realistic. The sorrow on his face, the confusion in his eyes, and the sense of solitude as he stood by the grave of his wife River seemed to seep straight out of the screen.
The BGM became more lyrical. Waves crashed against the cliff, the full moon hung high in the sky, the lighthouse stood abandoned, and Johnny faced Neil and Eva within his memory world.
"In fact, you already made that call and submitted the request," Neil said to Johnny.
"We are currently inside the memory world of your dying body. You are only a memory construct—a personality simulated by the device."
Lu Zheng'an blinked.
What a novel setup.
Johnny seemed to understand something in his daze.
He showed no fear upon learning that he was already on the brink of death.
Nor did he care that he was merely a virtual personality simulated by a machine, while the real Johnny lay unconscious, hooked up to oxygen, awaiting the arrival of death.
The wrinkles at the corner of his eyes eased slightly, and a glimmer of hope flashed within them.
"You're… here to take me to the moon, aren't you?"
Johnny's voice trembled with longing.
"Yes, Johnny," Eva replied calmly.
"Then… can you really do it?" Johnny asked eagerly.
"Take me to the moon."
"If you want to go to the moon, then you must answer one question," Neil said.
"Why do you want to go to the moon?"
"I…"
Pain and memories flickered through Johnny's eyes, but in the end, they turned into confusion.
Lu Zheng'an didn't fully grasp every detail of the plot, but Qiu Junlin's acting was absolutely explosive.
The combination of visuals and music made his heart tremble slightly.
The old man's inner struggle was fully laid bare.
There was something he had to do—something more important than life itself.
Yet he no longer knew why he had to do it.
But even after completely forgetting the reason,
Some things remained deep within his soul, compelling him to complete this task even at the brink of death.
To the moon.
That was the answer Qiu Junlin's performance conveyed to Lu Zheng'an.
"You have to tell us the reason," Eva pressed.
"Do you want fame? Or wealth? You must have some motive."
"I'm sorry, but I really don't know. I just—"
"I have to go."
Johnny lifted his head, looking at the screen with the most serious and resolute expression, as if speaking directly to Lu Zheng'an.
He had forgotten the reason he wanted to go to the moon.
But he still had no choice but to go.
The ending theme of 'To the Moon' began to play.
Lu Zheng'an felt deeply stirred.