If the stars only appeared for one night every ten million years, how would civilization revere and worship them, preserving memories of this vast universe from generation to generation?
If the sun only rose for one day every ten million years, how would civilization celebrate and weep, perpetuating its impression of this source of life through the ages?
No one knew.
Over such a long span of time, history might even have been distorted into myth.
And now, "reality" had finally appeared on this planet once again.
Though the Gale Layer was roiling and healing at tremendous speed, it would still take some time to close completely.
Yet in that brief span, the hillfolk who witnessed the current state of the universe were nearly driven mad.
Wang Qi, having returned to "heaven and earth," was slightly stunned. Fortunately, he had not taken these bumpkins to see the sun, or every last one of them would have gone mad.
The Child of Mist had no such concerns. He was of the Heavenly Jealousy Race and had never possessed any "fixed patterns of thought"; by nature, he was not troubled by the "barrier of knowledge and perception." If something was real and logically sound, he would accept it—even if it negated everything he had once held fast to.
Thus, hoodwinking... educating this fellow was quite easy for Wang Qi.
[So that was the "sun"...] the Child of Mist murmured, his voice echoing through space.
[Yes, that's right. That is what we call the "sun/star/solar body."] Wang Qi nodded. [And a "day" refers to one full rotation of what you call the world—the period from when a point on its surface sees the star disappear to when it appears again.]
The language of the Heavenly Jealousy Race had its own rules. Once "day"