You are listening to the second, the last story for January 2025, issue 220.

A second story is titled Beyond Everything and is by Wang Yang Chong, and is translated by

Stella Jia Yu Chu. Wang Yongchong majored in literature and college, received a master's degree in

theory of literature and art,

and has been writing science fiction since 2010.

He currently lives in Nanshing, Jiangshu Province, China.

His short story collections include the second suicide note,

altered, and stratosphere cafeteria.

He has won the Chinese Galaxy Award and won the Morning Store Science Fiction Literature Award for Beyond Everything.

Stella is a translator, editor, and academic. She is interested in all questions concerning the

nature of intentions and reality. When not writing, she is a tutor at St. John's College,

Annapolis.

She has a PhD in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame.

So, my dear listener, I hope you can sit back, relax, and let me tell you a story.

The order to depart was issued, but trusted to a reluctant envoy. He was keenly aware that many before him had received similar orders. Some were dispatched by militaries, some by states,

and still more in the name of international organizations. Such orders were often born of

noble intentions fueled by a fierce idealism.

Yet, in the frenzy of war, idealism inevitably gave way to disillusionment,

and these missions had ultimately amounted to nothing.

On his way to the sanitarium, still struggling to accept it,

his mind circled back to his attempts to protest the decision.

Why was I chosen to be the envoy to extraterrestrial lives? For what reason? How am I in improvement of my predecessors?

...