Millennial Ups and Downs

"Alright, turn it off then. Just help me open the exterior skylight." Yue Yuan paused upon hearing this, then turned and walked towards the slightly curved wall beside him.

It wasn't that he had Deep Space Claustrophobia, but he felt that seeing it with his own eyes was more real than seeing it on a screen, so he changed his mind on a whim.

Deep Space Claustrophobia had been discovered in some duty personnel in recent years. It was a psychological condition that arose after humans entered space and experienced the vastness of the starry sky and their own insignificance, resulting in a sense of boundless loneliness.

It was considered a psychological illness, and the incidence rate was not high, but Tianhe Light still offered a friendly reminder.

"Okay, sir, but I still have to remind you..."

"I know, no need to say more."

Yue Yuan interrupted the friendly reminder from the AI Tianhe Light. He knew what was coming next, which was nothing more than that seeing it with his own eyes had a higher incidence rate than seeing it on a screen.

The skylight wall was made of a special optical material. After the opening command was transmitted, the original white wall seemed to melt away, changing from opaque to one-way transparent.

One-way transparent meant that you could see outside from the inside, but you couldn't see inside from the outside. The starlight that was allowed to pass through instantly passed through the skylight wall and into Yue Yuan's eyes.

After the Interstellar Dust gradually thinned out, many high-brightness stars returned to people's vision. In addition, the Hope was already in a space environment, and was not affected by the atmosphere like Earth, so the starry sky returned to people's vision.

However, because the observation position had changed, Yue Yuan couldn't recognize which bright spot corresponded to which star even after watching for a while.

He was trying to find the most easily recognizable Big Dipper, but still couldn't find any similar stars.

"Maybe the direction is wrong..." Yue Yuan said to himself.

So he watched for a while, but by the time the Hope spaceship had rotated once on its own, the starry sky had returned to its original state, and he still hadn't found the Big Dipper.

He simply stopped looking and just quietly watched the recurring starry sky.

The Hope was constantly rotating, but in Yue Yuan's line of sight, he only saw the starry sky emerging from the edge of the skylight above his head and falling from the edge of the skylight under his feet, without feeling like he was rotating.

After no longer focusing on finding the Big Dipper, the aura of deep space rushed towards him.

At this moment, Yue Yuan seemed to feel the aura from the universe.

The starry sky, deep and silent; the universe, dark and cold.

The universe was too big. Just the Milky Way Galaxy's diameter was 100,000 light-years, and that was just its star-dense galactic disk. If you include the outer star-sparse regions, its diameter would reach 160,000 light-years, and the number of stars would reach 300 billion.

What a vast concept. Humans had already exhausted all their efforts to cross a distance of less than ten light-years.

And there were more than 200 billion galaxies like the Milky Way Galaxy in the universe, according to current human measurements.

The Hope of humanity, even the sun, was too small for the entire universe. The analogy of a grain of sand in the boundless Han Hai was an exaggeration; even a water molecule in the sea was not appropriate enough.

The universe was also too ancient. People had calculated through microwave background radiation and a series of other observations that our universe was already 26.7 billion years old (not really confirmed, but used here), and its diameter was obviously much larger than this value, because it had been accelerating its expansion since the moment the universe was born.

And it had only been a mere few million years since the earliest humans were born, only 14 million years even if you count from the ancient ape humans, and only 3.5 billion years even if you count from the moment the first single-celled organism was born. If we were to talk about the history of what could be called 'civilization', it was only six thousand years.

In a trance, a strange emotion suddenly arose in Yue Yuan's heart: loneliness, insignificance, ruthlessness, coldness. The emotion came very suddenly and swept towards his heart all at once.

In that instant, Yue Yuan felt as if he was in a void, surrounded by brilliant stars, beautiful and mysterious, but the sky behind the stars was infinitely deep and dark. Suddenly, he felt the darkness sweeping in, and his whole person seemed to be falling into the boundless deep space.

Loneliness and solitude were like a giant beast in deep space, frantically devouring his heart.

Just then, Yue Yuan closed his eyes for a long time. When he opened his eyes again, the confusion in his eyes was gone.

"So this is Deep Space Claustrophobia!" He murmured again, staring directly at the starry sky, his eyes full of determination.

It wasn't that Yue Yuan wasn't affected, but he just knew the source of loneliness and solitude.

It was that humans were too small and too young.

Yue Yuan remembered the feeling he had when he first looked up at the starry sky. At first, it was longing, then he became more and more fascinated as he looked, and then he felt the gap between vastness and insignificance, and then a sense of emptiness and loneliness surged into his heart.

The feeling of being in the dark starry sky now was like that feeling being magnified countless times.

"Tianhe Light, close the skylight!" Yue Yuan instructed the intelligent AI, then turned and left the control center.

The first batch of hibernating personnel had been awake for two months and should have adapted pretty well. It was time for Yue Yuan to hibernate as well.

Before entering hibernation, Yue Yuan called Zhu Pete, who had woken up two months ago and was on duty, to talk for a while.

Yue Yuan wasn't worried that the New Government would have problems after he went into hibernation. Although his power had grown to the point of dictatorship, he hadn't reached the point of being completely isolated.

The main reason for talking to Zhu Pete was to explain some precautions for being on duty and safety matters.

After that, Yue Yuan went to his exclusive Hibernation Room.

This is a private Hibernation Room, containing only one Hibernation Pod. As the highest leader of civilization, Yue Yuan was entitled to this privilege.

Moreover, for safety, entry into this room required the highest-ranking leader on duty with sufficient justification. Otherwise, the intelligent AI Tianhe Light wouldn't even open the door. The opening of the door signified that the intelligent AI Tianhe Light had already awakened Yue Yuan.

With his unique T0 permission, Yue Yuan followed the guidance of the artificial intelligence AI Tianhe Light, changed into the specially made hibernation suit, swallowed the hibernation pill in one gulp, and then lay in the Hibernation Pod, quietly falling asleep.

The hibernation pill had the effect of protecting the human brain and other organs, while also having a sleep-inducing effect.

After he fell asleep, the Hibernation Pod's system officially started, taking him from normal sleep into deep cold hibernation.

As Yue Yuan entered hibernation, humanity's thousand-year journey also entered its second phase—inertial navigation.

This was the longest phase of humanity's voyage, lasting about nine hundred years from the moment the three giant thrusters shut down until they were restarted.

During this long period, the Hope would carry the sleeping humans across the boundless Interstellar Dust, to the other shore of hope.