Chapter 249: Chapter 249: The Night
Lin Shen carried the medicinal soup into the room, drank a bowl himself, and felt no reaction before he delivered a bowl each to Lin Miao and Ximen Swordsman.
Lin Miao and Ximen Swordsman were both still feverish and somewhat delirious; Lin Shen had no choice but to pinch their jaws open to pour the soup down their throats.
This medicinal soup was indeed effective; after drinking it, within a while, their fevers evidently began to subside.
Taking out the information provided by Hai Daxiu, Lin Shen carefully studied the data on Giant Ring Star.
The method of timekeeping in the universe was very special. Most habitable planets had their own way of keeping time, but regardless of the method, a day was 24 hours long, though the actual length of those 24 hours differed from planet to planet.
Therefore, there was a universal system of timekeeping that was consistent across the universe, regardless of the time on any given planet.
Universe time was calculated based on the time of the teleporter, where one hour on the countdown of a watch equaled a standard cosmic hour, and all teleporter timings were synchronized, without exception.
Strangely, this universal time closely matched the time on the Human Mother Planet; even the calculation of the entire universe time was astonishingly close to the timekeeping methods of the Human Mother Planet.
A Cosmic Year was roughly equivalent to a year on the Human Mother Planet, usually differing by just a few days, at most a fortnight or half a month.
Since its discovery, Giant Ring Star had only been through seventeen Cosmic Years and was a planet with a relatively low level of development.
Currently, the only known teleporter capable of sending people to Giant Ring Star was in the possession of the Celestial Race.
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No teleporter infrastructure had been found on Giant Ring Star; visitors who teleported there would all find a black watch appearing on their wrist, also displaying a three-day countdown.
However, at the end of the three-day countdown, one wouldn't be automatically transported away. There was a choice to either stay or return. As long as one didn't choose to go back, they could remain on Giant Ring Star indefinitely.
"This is almost identical to the pattern of teleportation from Gourd Mountain to Realm King Planet; could it be that Gourd Mountain itself is a teleporter?" Lin Shen speculated inwardly.
Continuing to read the information on Giant Ring Star, it was roughly consistent with what Yu had said; Giant Ring Star was enormous, home to many Base Variant Creatures, with the creatures being prevalent inside the planet, and Ascended Creatures inhabiting certain areas.
Above the Star Belt, there was an abundance of Ascended Creatures, which often came down to hunt for prey.
Since the planet was recently discovered and developed, there wasn't much data available. The document then emphasized some of the taboos of Giant Ring Star.
Most of these were about what should not be touched and which areas should be avoided, but one particularly conspicuous warning was to stay inside enclosed spaces after dark and not to venture out at random, or it could be life-threatening.
The specific reason was not stated in the document, only mentioning that Giant Ring Star was located on the edge of its star system, with very low stellar influence, and it even risked detaching from the star system to become a rogue planet at any moment.
The illumination of Giant Ring Star mainly came from the Star Belt, which wasn't the floating ring islands themselves that emitted light but the Star Belt itself.
The luminescence of the Star Belt ensued a dark period after every eighty or so cosmic hours, lasting nearly forty hours. This period was the night of Giant Ring Star.
Lin Shen couldn't comprehend what it meant for the Star Belt itself to emit light; wasn't the Star Belt formed by those floating ring islands? If the floating islands didn't emit light and the Star Belt itself did, it seemed contradictory.
Unfortunately, the document offered no answers, and Lin Shen asked Yu for clarification, but even Yu couldn't explain it.
He handed Lin Shen a timetable showing the dark periods of Giant Ring Star and once again reminded him that when night came, it was imperative to return indoors and lock the door.
If he failed to make it back in time, he should find a cave outside, block the entrance with something, and wait for night to pass.
Of course, for these pieces of information and the timetable, Lin Shen had again incurred a debt of two Heavenly Currency.
The stone cottages were naturally not free of charge, each requiring one Heavenly Currency per day for rent.
Having looked over the timetable, Lin Shen realized that there were less than three hours left before the next Black Night would descend. He naturally did not wish to take any risks by venturing out and decided to wait out this Black Night before making further plans.
After consuming the medicinal soup, Lin Miao and Ximen Swordsman both felt somewhat better. Lin Shen meticulously relayed to them the information he had gathered, to prevent them from ignorantly running out during the Black Night, which could have disastrous consequences.
Originally, each of the three had their own stone cottage, but Lin Shen asked Yu to cancel one rental, thinking it would be sufficient for him and Lin Miao to share one.
Yu agreed to the cancellation, but insisted that today's rent could not be reduced.
Lin Shen wasn't trying to save money per se; Giant Ring Star was just too eerie. He feared that something might happen and felt more at ease being with Lin Miao.
Lin Shen also asked Yu to prepare a few more bowls of medicinal soup, which he poured into water bags to drink when the Black Night came.
Yu quite fancied people like Lin Shen who ran up debts so readily and was not at all worried about Lin Shen defaulting on his debts.
Leaving a water bag full of medicinal soup for Ximen Swordsman, he cautioned him that the Black Night was approaching and to absolutely not go outside.
In fact, Ximen Swordsman was in a very weakened state, covered with black spots, and had difficulty even getting out of bed. It was unlikely that he would go out.
Ximen Swordsman didn't say much, but his gaze towards Lin Shen was somewhat peculiar.
"How come Lin Shen, like me, on his first visit to Giant Ring Star, seems untroubled? Where exactly did I fall short?" Ximen Swordsman felt extremely dejected.
"It's almost time. After I leave, lock the door from the inside," Lin Shen seeing that his spirit had improved significantly, at least to the point of being lucid, then left, closing the door behind him.
Having returned to the elder sister's stone cottage, Lin Shen closed the door, locked it from the inside, and gave another bowl of medicinal soup to her.
The elder sister was not as uncomfortable now and was finally able to get some sleep.
There wasn't much in the stone cottage aside from a stone bed. There wasn't even a stool, just several larger stones that seemed to serve as seats.
Lin Shen chose a stone that felt relatively comfortable to sit on and sat waiting for the coming of the Black Night.
"What exactly will this Black Night bring?" Lin Shen wondered to himself.
Finally, when the time for the Black Night arrived, although there were no windows in the stone cottage, the light seeping in through the cracks in the door suddenly disappeared.
It wasn't the kind of darkness that comes with the slow setting of the sun; it was more like the sudden extinguishing of a light in an already dark room.
Dark, pitch dark without a glimmer of light, the kind where one cannot see their own hand in front of their face.
Lin Shen tried to peer through the crack of the door to see what was happening outside but couldn't see anything at all. There was not a trace of light outside, rendering his eyes completely useless.
Lin Shen had thought that, after a while, his eyes would adapt and he might see a little light, but after waiting a good while, his eyes never adjusted. It was as if he had gone blind, seeing nothing.
Suddenly, Lin Shen heard a sound, faint and elusive, as if someone were singing in the next room.