One day, Starhaven was playing his new violin piece, attracting many stars nearby to listen. Heartstead Star was adjusting his glasses, trying to see if any unusual phenomena were happening in the universe. Dawnstar was combing his green hair while deeply pondering difficult questions about dark matter. Nightstar, meanwhile, was studying the changing forms of his shield on his pink belly.

  Suddenly, Little Starfish bounced in, excitedly grabbing Starhaven’s arm and interrupting the performance. Starhaven smiled helplessly, put away his violin, and the stars dispersed.

  Starhaven asked, “Ah, Little Starfish, what new idea do you have today?”

  Little Starfish said mysteriously, “Brothers, I want to go play on Earth!”

  Hearing this, the brothers all jumped. Heartstead Star put on his glasses and said, “Logically, Earth is inhabited by humans. Humans are social creatures. They discriminate against their own kind and reject outsiders. They are both clever and foolish. We cannot contact them recklessly!”

  Nightstar patted his pink belly and said, “If humans see me like this, they might get scared, right?”

  Dawnstar said, “Oh! Oh! Nightstar, if you go to Earth in that form, humans will probably tear your belly apart and reassemble it into a toy! Besides Starhaven and Heartstead Star, the rest of us need to change our appearance a bit. Little Starfish, you also need to change!”

  Starhaven said, “What the third brother says is correct. Actually, the one closest to human form here is the second brother. My heterochromatic eyes also don’t match humans, but I can adjust them to a similar blue. Third and fourth brothers, you should also modify yourselves. Little Starfish, you just need to look like a cute little girl. Make all the flowing and changing parts into fixed forms.”

  So Heartstead Star used his glasses to show the appearance of humans on Earth for Dawnstar and Nightstar to reference. Dawnstar kept his green hair because he saw some young humans with green hair, calling it ‘punk.’ Nightstar changed his pink to brown, closer to human skin color. Little Starfish turned her skirt, which shimmered with moonlight and stars, into an ordinary skirt. Except for Starhaven, everyone’s eyes were adjusted to the clear black-and-white appearance of humans.

  Everyone got ready, and Dawnstar asked, “So which country on Earth are we actually going to?”

  Little Starfish had Heartstead Star pull out a map of Earth. She closed her eyes, pointed randomly, and said, “Here!”

  Everyone leaned in to look. On the map appeared a glowing point, projecting a building, some university in Boston. Since Little Starfish had chosen it casually, no one objected. For the star brothers, any spot on Earth was essentially the same.

  Little Starfish called Dimi over and took a single step, entering the university.

  The campus was completely empty, it seemed the students had already finished classes or were on vacation. This was perfect for Little Starfish and the brothers to explore and play.

  They looked around, and suddenly noticed a room with lights on. One wall was completely covered with numbers and formulas.

  Little Starfish pushed the door open and saw an elderly man with white hair writing on the wall. The man turned around, shouting in fright, “Who are you?! How did you get in?!”

  Little Starfish and the brothers were startled too—they hadn’t expected anyone to be there. Little Starfish mimicked the old man and asked, “Who are you? How did you get in?”

  The old man scowled. “I live here. This is my dorm. I don’t need to ‘get in.’ But you… you should have knocked first!”

  Little Starfish tilted her head. “What is knocking? And what is a dorm?”

  At that moment, Heartstead Star was leaning close to the wall, adjusting his glasses, examining the numbers and formulas. He nodded and said, “Ah! This is the algorithm for Mercury’s perihelion. Logically, these formulas are correct, but there seems to be a problem here.”

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  Hearing this, the white-haired man forgot about Little Starfish and hurried over to see where Heartstead Star was pointing. Soon, the two of them were head-to-head, discussing the formulas, gradually turning into a heated debate.

  Little Starfish, getting impatient, shouted, “Heartstead Star, stop calculating! We’re here to play, not to do exercises!”

  The elderly man suddenly realized something and said, “Wait! Don’t leave yet. I am a professor here. Since just now this… this… uh, this student pointed out an error in my algorithm, I must figure it out!”

  Then the old professor bent over again, resuming his discussion with Heartstead Star.

  Little Starfish leaned closer to listen, but she couldn’t understand a thing. After a while, she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She jumped onto the table and shouted, “What exactly are you talking about? This is so boring!”

  The old professor straightened up and said sternly, “Boring? This is the mystery of the universe! Of course a little girl like you wouldn’t understand. You should go and properly study addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division instead!”

  The brothers looked tense, knowing things were about to get tricky. Starhaven stepped forward, standing between Little Starfish and the professor, pretending to point at the numbers on the wall to draw the professor’s attention back. Dawnstar quickly pulled Little Starfish to his side, gently pressing the tiny devil horns that had appeared on her head. He whispered, “You must not change, remember where we are. Do you still want to keep playing?”

  A flicker of purple light shone in Little Starfish’s eyes. She calmed herself, a mischievous smile spreading across her face. She walked behind the professor and said, “You’re right! I really don’t understand these, so many numbers, so many formulas, it makes my head spin!”

  She pretended to admire the professor’s thick books and looked up at the densely covered wall. “But I listened carefully to your discussion just now. It sounds like you’re talking about Mercury, it moves sideways, tilted, turning around the Sun, sometimes close, sometimes far. And you’re calculating, trying to find out why Mercury’s orbit is so messy, right?”

  The old professor was taken aback. He stepped back two paces, scrutinizing Little Starfish. Before he could speak, she tilted her head and, in an innocent tone, asked, “As you said, if the Sun’s mass stays constant, spacetime remains curved. Then if the curvature doesn’t change, Mercury’s orbit shouldn’t change either. But if Mercury’s orbit keeps changing, then either the Sun’s mass is changing, affecting the curvature of spacetime, or Mercury itself is changing due to its inertia, or there are other nearby masses changing things, or there are hidden dimensions, or the universe is quietly changing, or nothing has actually changed, or maybe… there’s just a stubborn old professor messing things up…”

  Hearing Little Starfish ramble more and more ridiculously, the professor was both shocked and angry. He clutched the edge of the table, his white hair disheveled, wanting to speak but unable to get a word out.

  Little Starfish wasn’t done. She leaned closer with a mischievous grin, staring into the professor’s eyes. “What if all your theories don’t hold? What if after all your calculations everything goes to zero at the singularity… no, there isn’t even zero? What if you realize you don’t even know who you are?”

  The professor, sweating profusely and about to topple over, was at a complete loss. Starhaven quickly pulled Little Starfish away and secretly released a handful of soft, gentle musical notes. The sound instantly calmed the old professor, letting him regain his composure.

  The old professor slowly walked over to the table and sat down. He took two deep breaths and said slowly, “I knew it… you’re not human! Who exactly are you? Are you aliens?”

  The brothers exchanged a glance. Heartstead Star nodded and said, “That’s right, we are not human. We thought we had disguised ourselves very well, but you still saw through us! Logically speaking, we aren’t the kind of aliens you imagine either. As for who we truly are… it’s better that you don’t know, and we can’t tell you, sorry.”

  The old professor smiled, looking at everyone. “You think dressing up as humans would be enough, but you’ve got so many gaps! For example, this one wearing glasses, you immediately pointed out errors in something I’ve studied my whole life. No human of that age could do that. And you, with the blond hair and blue eyes, where did that music just now come from? Most unbelievable of all is this little girl. She understands nothing, yet asked such terrifying questions! That’s not human… that’s a little demon!”

  The brothers were stunned, then burst out laughing. Dawnstar chuckled and said, “Oh! Oh! No wonder the old professor immediately saw through Little Demon!”

  The professor, caught up in the cheerful atmosphere, relaxed his usual sternness. He pointed at Little Starfish and said, “The biggest giveaway is this little girl’s dress. Look outside the window!”

  Everyone looked out and saw that Boston was covered in a thick blanket of snow.

  They all laughed even harder. The professor wiped tears from his eyes and said, “No matter what you are, you must be from another star or another universe. Meeting you has been the last miracle of my life. I really wish I could go with you to visit other planets! By the way, I never saw you arrive in any spaceship, so… how did you come to Earth?”

  Starhaven said, “We aren’t from another universe either. We belong to this universe. As for how we came, you can ask our Little Starfish!”

  Little Starfish grinned and summoned the invisible Dimi from the air. “This is Dimi, my little pet. It actually comes from a multi-dimensional universe. It can open any dimensional space, and it’s faster than light!”

  The professor was speechless with astonishment. He leaned in to examine Dimi again and again, then shook his head. “Unbelievable! No… I’m just too lucky. In this life, I have no regrets!”

  Starhaven said, “Now we’re going to go play somewhere else. We hope you’ll keep today a secret. Maybe we’ll meet again someday.”

  The professor sighed. “I really don’t want you to leave, but don’t worry, even if I tell anyone about today, no one would believe me!”

  Dimi drew a curved portal, and amid the professor’s awe and amazement, everyone waved goodbye to Earth.

  Afterward, Little Starfish sat on a cloud, swinging her little feet, and said thoughtfully, “Hmm, Earth isn’t that scary, humans aren’t that annoying, and the old professor isn’t that rigid. Next time, let’s come back and play!”

  Nightstar turned his shield into a thick pink cloak and draped it over Little Starfish. “Next time, make sure to check the season and weather!”

  Everyone laughed together.