Chapter 888: Chapter 888: Dim Dawn
Now the ti is half past eight in the morning in the Ruins World—of course, this ti was converted. People on this planet are not accustod to the twenty-four-hour system. However, Big Sister and the others unanimously agreed that a thirty-hour day was simply too much, so we converted the ti here to Earth’s standard ti system.
Under normal circumstances, dayti in the Ruins World starts at six o’clock in the morning. Every morning, the central ti station of the “Great City” broadcasts the standard ti to the entire Ruins World. Then, the maintenance workers of the Sun Furnace will restart all the Fusion Reactors above the planet. Those reactors, which have been operating at low power throughout the night, take thirty minutes to fully restore power. By half-past six, bright “sunlight” illuminates the land, marking the start of a new day in the Ruins World.
But this is only under normal conditions.
Today, the Ruins World did not et the dawn—in other words, elsewhere the sun started normally, although with a few minutes delay. Strictly speaking, only the Northern Hemisphere of this Ruins Planet beneath our feet has yet to greet the dawn. Of course, the concept of a Northern Hemisphere here is an artificial addition for convenience. None of the celestial bodies in this space have an orbit or stable magnetic field, which makes it difficult to delineate north, south, east, and west. To facilitate the unified reporting of information collected by Reconnaissance Soldiers from these Ruins Planets, we had to adopt Qianqian’s “Simple Orientation thod,” which involved tossing shoes. After losing three pairs of shoes, Qianqian decided we must be in the Northern Hemisphere…
Everything remains shrouded in heavy darkness, the sky hanging with a faint red halo, as previously ntioned, like a tungsten filant lamp low on power. Gazing into the distance, the sa scene stretches to the horizon in all directions. All the Fusion Reactors in the Northern Hemisphere have yet to start, leaving everything here enveloped in darkness and cold.
I glanced around and discovered that while I had just woken up, Qianqian was still snoring, and the big fox was still dazed, others were already awake. Sandora was standing several dozen ters away on a tal pillar protruding from the ground, staring into the distance, lost in thought. Big Sister was still in a state of low blood pressure after waking up, squinting and fumbling for a comb.
“Sleeping with so many girls in one big bed, truly a day of indulgence…”
Miss Lin pinched my neck, blowing in my ear with a sarcastic tone. My eye twitched as I knocked on her head with my reverse hand, “Can’t you have a different thought pattern than Qianqian?”
Miss snorted and continued to look up at the sky.
Small bright spots appeared around the dim red halo above, moving slowly along its edge. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that so fine lines of light connected them to the halo. After watching for a while, I nudged Lin Xue’s arm, “What are those, girl?”
Lin Xue did not look up. She did not need to use conventional “eyes” to observe things beyond her line of sight like but rather squinted, a flash of white light passing through her eyes.
“They’re ships repairing the Fusion Reactors, attempting to reactivate the Artificial Sun. They have tried no less than ten tis since six, but apparently none have succeeded yet.”
Lin Xue’s tone was emotionless, rely stating facts. I had a vague feeling that sothing terrible was happening, but I did not know how severe the situation had beco. The information network could easily find out the current state of the Ruins World because PL-15 had released countless Probes yesterday. These Probes monitored every corner of the three Ruins Planets and the entire Ruins Ring. According to the intelligence feedback from the Probes, all the Fusion Reactors that were supposed to take on the role of an Artificial Sun had only started operating a few minutes after the “Great City” issued the command today. anwhile, the Fusion Reactors in the Northern Hemisphere of the First Ruin Star—the planet beneath us—had not been activated yet.
“Could they all have malfunctioned simultaneously?”
“That’s one of the reasons,” Lin Xue said as she tidied her hair, disheveled by the cold wind, “those Fusion Reactors have fallen into disrepair. I can see they’ve accumulated tens of thousands of years of decay. They should have been hastily manufactured after the Doomsday and used until today… However, the simultaneous failure of so many Fusion Reactors today should have other causes. Yet, I’m no expert on nuclear engineering… The only thing certain is that this is not a good on.”
“Not a good on…”
I muttered softly, then suddenly rembered sothing, “I just had a dream.”
Lin Xue’s eyes imdiately lit up, “Co, let this Prophet examine your dream. Stretch out your hand, let read your fortune…”
It was only after extending my hand that I realized, truly, this girl caught off guard with her antics, not giving a chance to react!
I slapped away Lin Xue’s hand, speaking seriously, “I’m not joking, I think that dream was unusual…”
Right then, I recounted in detail the jumble of dreams from earlier, describing the scene of dark Fusion Reactors with a low rumbling beneath the ground, the planet disintegrating instantly, and vaguely falling into the Earth’s Core. I had initially dismissed these bizarre experiences as a chaotic dream, but now, I felt it wasn’t that simple.
As Lin Xue listened to my account, her eyes widened gradually until she finally couldn’t help but interrupt, “Wait! Wood, did you dream that the planet cracked open, and then you fell to the Earth’s Core?”
“Not completely to the bottom,” I thought for a mont, “I woke up just as I started falling.”
“Don’t worry about the details,” Lin Xue waved her hand, her gaze unsettlingly fixed on , “Wood, I had the exact sa dream, even the shape and location of that small basin were identical—look for yourself behind you.”
Lin Xue pointed to the opposite side, and following her direction, an identical small basin to the one in my dream appeared before my eyes.
“You shouldn’t have seen this place before; the platform we’re standing on is new. This is the only spot where you can see this basin,” Lin Xue whispered.
“We had the sa dream?”
“It’s not ‘the sa dream,’ but rather you had the sa dream as . There’s a difference: this is my dream, and you unintentionally beca an observer,” Lin Xue slightly squinted, the milky white halo beginning to swirl in her eyes, “That wasn’t just a regular illusion. You likely realized you can clearly recall every detail you saw back then. Even after waking up, revisiting the scenes in your mory, nothing seems amiss. Regular dreams don’t work that way. After waking, ordinary dreams beco fragnted, and even trained psychological experts have difficulty recalling their dream scenes with one hundred percent accuracy. Revisiting dream scenes in a conscious state, people can easily perceive their absurdity. Now, tell , does anything seem bizarre when recalling that dream?”
I delved into my mories and, after half a minute, realized that what Lin Xue said was indeed true. The dream was exceptionally clear and logical from beginning to end. Recalling the scenes now felt more like reminiscing a mory rather than an illusion. But if there had to be sothing bizarre—
“There’s one abnormal, incredibly miraculous part,” I nodded seriously, surprising Lin Xue, “In the dream, Qianqian didn’t kick off the blanket!”
“Oh, that is quite remarkable,” Lin Xue agreed with deep wonder, then swiftly kicked towards , “Can’t you be more serious! Miss Lin ant that the dream was actually a manifestation of my Ability, a passive prediction. You just inadvertently barged into Miss Lin’s Spirit World, you idiot!”
I quickly jumped aside, “You could’ve said that earlier. You know I have poor comprehension!”
Lin Xue was speechless at the ti: when faced with my openness in certain aspects, she was always at a loss for words.
“Alright, so you’re saying that this world might really… be dood?”
Seeing Miss Lin not speaking for a long ti, I had to actively bring the topic back.
“One possibility, but I don’t know what caused this Ruins to suddenly disintegrate,” Lin Xue, sowhat troubled, covered her forehead, “In other words, if there’s no way to prevent it, then it’s very likely to happen. We still don’t know what’s maintaining this space, nor how its special structure is ford, but my intuition tells that if this world collapses in the future, it must be because so kind of ‘core’ maintaining its current state has gone wrong. Of course, this shouldn’t happen very soon, I’m certain of that. Now I’m more curious about one thing, how did you see my dream?”
As Lin Xue finished her last sentence, she suddenly looked up and stared this way. In the night, her all-seeing eyes with a white glow looked like a searchlight — I instantly thought of a dog’s eyes lighting up.
“Turn off the skill first,” I quickly waved my hand in front of Lin Xue, “it’s glaring… ahem, maybe the two of us are just so connected that our spirits communicated while sleeping.”
Lin Xue’s face instantly turned slightly red: “So connected? Could it really be to that extent between us? Qianqian sleeps closer to you, yet you can’t see what she’s thinking?”
I thought for a mont and suddenly felt it might be because Qianqian really had nothing in her head when she slept, or perhaps what was there was too bizarre, and after sharing, it just turned into gibberish.
“That’s reasonable…” Hearing my explanation, Lin Xue’s face showed a subtle acknowledgnt, “I really can’t figure out how her brain usually operates. As for Sandora, the Xyrin Apostle dreaming while sleeping is sothing you might not understand either; if she happens to be pondering the universe’s origin, you’d definitely find it even more confusing than gibberish. As for Big Sister, maybe it’s because she’s a bit away from you, and there’s that bare-sleeping big fox, the canine and primate brain waves are probably incompatible…”
Excluding everything like this, it seems like the only person here who could ntally sync with under the previous conditions is Lin Xue, but knowing this doesn’t seem to matter much. What we are really curious about now is why I actually experienced Lin Xue’s dream firsthand?
We discussed this topic for a few minutes, but in the end, no one could figure out the reason. Just then, Big Sister suddenly called us from a distance, so the topic was temporarily put to rest.
“Look over there, that’s the direction of the town, it seems like chaos is happening.”
Big Sister pointed distantly towards the direction of “Condenser” town and said with a frown.
The small town a kiloter away was now brightly lit, with spotlights-like beams sweeping back and forth at the town’s edge. With enhanced eyes, I could clearly see a lot of people scurrying about under those lights, clearly indicating that ordinary people had noticed the “Sun” had yet to ignite in the sky, likely causing panic now.
Lin Xue and Big Sister imdiately began packing the campsite, preparing to head back to the town. Qianqian was still in a daze; she had slept on all night like a white crane spreading its wings and ended up with a stiff neck, looking like a lancholic girl gazing up at a forty-five-degree angle when making eye contact. Not far away, there was also a sudden sharp cry from Lan, sounding like a canine animal having its tail stepped on; it turned out her tail fur got caught in the sleeping bag’s zipper, pulling it off in a strip — this wretched fox was nearly brought to tears by it. By the ti she sluggishly finished getting dressed and ca up to , all nine of her tails were basically curled up, with one wrapped in a bandage; it looked really funny. If I weren’t worried about Lan actually crying, I’d be tempted to take a photo and send it to Zi as a colorful ssage…
It took a few minutes to tidy up Lan’s tail. By the ti we reached “Condenser” town, the townspeople had all gathered in the square, the white light from the surrounding lamp posts casting a sorrowful hue on their faces. Five or six adults gathered at the street corner on the square’s periter were discussing sothing; yesterday evening, Bernard enthusiastically introduced us to the entire town, so these people rembered the “guests from the Great City” quite well. Seeing us walking into town from outside, they all showed quite surprised expressions.
I noticed the worry on their faces, and although I knew what was going on, I still asked, “What’s happening?”
“You guys don’t know either?” a dark-skinned uncle shook his head, “We thought people from the Great City might know sothing… it seems the fusion reactor hasn’t started up, and the sky is still dark. I heard if this goes on, the cold wind will start blowing, and it’s best to stay indoors if you can. It shouldn’t be long before you get called back to the Great City.”
We ambiguously replied and walked towards the center of the square.
Things seed slightly better than expected; although the residents were at a loss, they hadn’t fallen into chaos yet. Perhaps in this world, giant machines breaking down had beco a common occurrence, so much so that the artificial sun failing to shine could be downplayed — of course, this might be wishful thinking. In any case, those fusion reactors aren’t to be trifled with — they basically uphold the vital lifeline of this world’s ecology. If they broke down, I wonder how long the calm of these ordinary citizens would last.
Elder Bernard was quietly discussing matters with several other elders in the town, with the residents forming a circle around them about five ters away, striving not to make any noise, yet the air was gradually brewing with worry and confusion.
Like the previous adults, Elder Bernard imdiately showed a fervent expression upon seeing us approach, trying to glean intelligence from “people from the Great City” regarding the fusion reactor. Of course, besides potential issues with the reactors, we had nothing more to inform them.
“I’ve never encountered anything so unnerving in my life,” Elder Bernard kept wiping the sweat from his forehead, “It’s not that I haven’t seen fusion reactors fail; when I was very young, a reactor once failed to light up on ti. However, that was just a single fusion reactor failing to ignite, delaying daylight by less than an hour… This ti, it seems much more serious, the distant sky is dark as well, more than one reactor has failed, and it’s already close to noon…”
“Don’t worry, it’ll get fixed, things breaking together is just a coincidence. We have definite news that the Great City has already dispatched a spaceship to reactivate those reactors.” Big Sister assured Elder Bernard with a steady voice, loud enough for those nearby to hear, imdiately soothing the atmosphere a lot, it seems that words from “big figures from the Great City” carried a lot of weight.
At this mont, a small disturbance arose within the crowd, with Glick’s tiny figure weaving in and out from beneath the adults’ feet, he exclaid in surprise upon seeing us, “Wow! You’re still here! I thought you’d left.”
“Glick, quiet,” Elder Bernard quickly admonished, then softened his expression, “stay ho with Shui Zhu; today, the sun will be slightly delayed in lighting up, and the town’s lights aren’t enough — it’s dangerous for children to be running around.”
Glick was quite obedient to Elder Bernard’s words. Hearing this arrangent, he only made a face at us, then turned to leave. But just then, a greater commotion erupted within the crowd, causing him to pause.
“Look! The reactor has lit up!”
Soone exclaid with delight looking at the sky.
I raised my head to the sound, seeing the dark red ring hanging slightly west of the center of the dark sky indeed slowly becoming brighter, the dark red hue shifting to bright red, then becoming a vivid yellow, those small bright spots around the halo scattering suddenly like startled fish, as a bright white small dot at the halo’s center rapidly expanded, instantly overshadowing the surrounding dim yellow halo. The crowd fell silent for a mont, followed by chaotic cheers, yet just a step ahead was Lin Xue’s loud shout: “Close your eyes!!”
With just two or three seconds to react, the white dot in the sky swelled to over three tis the size of a normal artificial sun’s white light ball, and then the dazzling white light covered the entire sky.
The fusion reactor exploded. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, please visit Qidian (qidian) to cast recomndation and monthly votes. Your support is my greatest motivation.)
Reviews
All reviews (0)