Yes, unlike the others, Yue Yuan would not enter hibernation. He would remain awake to lead the New Government and guide humanity through these difficult years, until humanity embarked on its second long journey.
And since he would have relatively more free time in the years ahead, Yue Yuan also planned to better himself.
Over the past few years, he had already felt that his knowledge was becoming inadequate, especially when handling proposals and opinions submitted by various fields. Some of the specialized knowledge involved was something he had never even heard of.
Although the Think Tank existed, Yue Yuan felt that would not do. It was still best to understand things himself.
Fortunately, he now had a long lifespan and plenty of time. He would use this opportunity to study hard once more—not to become a scientist, but to become broadly knowledgeable.
At Callisto Base, where entertainment was scarce, studying was undoubtedly the best way to pass the time.
"Giving me a hard time? Probably not. Doctor Yi Kai is an open and forthright man. At most, he'll lecture me a little." Zhu Pete smiled, seemingly recalling his meetings with Yi Kai.
Forthright, my ass. Calling him a man of temperament would be more like it, Yue Yuan grumbled inwardly. He was about to ask about the Security Department when Zhu Pete's phone suddenly rang.
"Hello! Oh, all right. All right, security must not be relaxed under any circumstances. All right. All right, I understand. Wait for me there. I'll be right over."
Seeing Zhu Pete hang up, Yue Yuan spoke before he could say anything. "If something's come up, go take care of it first."
"Yes, Commander Yue." Zhu Pete turned crisply and hurried away.
After watching Zhu Pete's departing back, Yue Yuan turned his gaze out the window again, toward the lights scattered like countless stars.
Now, no stars could be seen in Callisto's sky with the naked eye. They could only look at humanity's own lights to comfort their hearts.
Yet for some reason, as he watched, and thought of how he and humanity would have to remain on this dark, sunless Callisto for several more decades, a feeling of loneliness and desolation welled up within him.
"A bleak land of Ba and Chu, abandoned for twenty-three years."
In this moment, Yue Yuan once again took on the role of a poet, but his feelings were utterly different from those he had felt back in the Vast Sea.
As he sensed the verse that had suddenly surfaced in his mind, Yue Yuan felt that he understood a little of how Liu Yuxi had felt when he wrote it.
Time flows on like this, never ceasing day or night.
Whether spent in happiness, sorrow, or loneliness, time continued to pass day by day as it always had.
In the blink of an eye, twenty-three years passed.
During that time, aside from work and study, Yue Yuan's busiest period had undoubtedly been five years earlier.
That was when the Great Cylinder Spaceship had been completed.
Yet there was no ribbon-cutting ceremony, nor was there any grand celebration. There were only a series of hibernation arrangements.
After the spaceship was completed, the workers and engineers who had built it were also arranged to enter hibernation, while more machinery and equipment were put into standby.
All of this was to conserve energy while awaiting the arrival of the shockwave from the Centaurus Trinary Star System.
For this purpose, many scientists were awakened. Based on observation data and various calculations, they made all kinds of preparations for the coming impact.
During this round of observations and calculations, the scientists made a pleasant discovery. Due to various earlier influences, Callisto's rotational axis now happened to point toward the shockwave, while the human base happened to be on the other hemisphere.
In other words, during this impact from the Centaurus Trinary Star System's Mass Ejection, Callisto would once again become a shield and block everything for humanity.
Since the base was perfectly safe, the scientists naturally turned their attention to the Great Cylinder Spaceship.
When the Mass Ejection impact arrived, the Great Cylinder Spaceship could not continue operating in synchronous orbit, so its orbit had to be changed.
Under the scientists' plan, the Great Cylinder Spaceship needed to shift from a synchronous orbit around Callisto to a high polar orbit. They also had to ensure that, when the Mass Ejection impact arrived, the spaceship would happen to be behind Callisto.
That required the spaceship's linear velocity to be as low as possible.
The lower the spaceship's linear velocity relative to Callisto, the longer it would remain behind Callisto, and the less it would naturally be affected by the Mass Ejection impact.
For the scientists, calculating the spaceship's orbital change was simple. They only needed to estimate the intensity and duration of the Mass Ejection.
Humanity had once relied on Jupiter to escape a Supernova Explosion, so they already possessed extensive data on the intensity, damage, and duration of Mass Ejections. The scientists could use that data, combined with observations of the Centaurus Trinary Star System's Mass Ejection cloud, to construct a model.
With these things in hand, the scientists could determine how high the spaceship's orbit needed to be and how its path should be set.
A flattened elliptical orbit.
In the end, the scientists settled on the plan.
The spaceship would first be pushed into a higher orbit and circle there. Once the shockwave was about to arrive, precise adjustments would be made, allowing the spaceship to move around Callisto like a comet.
Under precise calculations, as the Mass Ejection impact arrived, the Great Cylinder Spaceship would travel from an orbit near Callisto toward its farthest point, then evade the impact through its long passage along the distant orbit.
After the initial calculations and orbital predictions were completed, the awakened scientists, aside from the Research Personnel on routine shifts, entered hibernation once more.
Time slowly passed amid the rotating hibernation shifts.
When the Mass Ejection drew near, that group of scientists awoke from hibernation again and remotely controlled the spaceship from within Callisto Base.
After traveling across 4.22 light-years for nearly forty-five years, the Mass Ejection cloud finally reached Callisto's location.
Because the Sun's explosion had also ejected matter into space, after colliding with it, the Triple Star System's Mass Ejection had slowed considerably from its initial speed of ten percent of light speed. Coupled with the great distance, its destructive power had weakened considerably.
From that perspective, the already dead Sun had helped humanity out this time.
However, even weakened, it still possessed immense destructive power. After all, it had come from the explosion of Three Stars. Its might was truly difficult to imagine. The riddled state of the Space Dock after the Mass Ejection swept past was the best proof.
Under such circumstances, humanity formulated another series of scientific countermeasures and ultimately withstood the impact of the Mass Ejection cloud without incident.
After that, the next thing humanity had to do was the Great Relocation.
The Great Relocation from the base to the spaceship.
People awoke from hibernation one after another, then traveled in batches to the Orbital Mass Accelerator, boarded flights bound for space, and stepped onto the long-awaited spaceship.
Before that, the spaceship had already been adjusted back into synchronous orbit.
With past experience to draw on, this Great Relocation encountered no mishaps. Orderly and methodical was the best description of the transfer to the spaceship.
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