Yang Wanqing had grilled more than twenty skewers. She handed five to Chen Siyao and gnawed on her sixth skewer of chicken wings, cumin crumbs clinging to the corner of her mouth.
"Yaoyao."
"Mm?"
"Those things we saw today... the traces of fighting."
"Mm."
"A lot of people died, didn't they?"
Chen Siyao bit into a lamb skewer, chewed twice, and swallowed.
"Yes."
Yang Wanqing stared at the sparks dancing above the grill.
"It feels strange," she said. "I didn't feel much when we saw it during the day. It just seemed like ruins. But now that it's quiet at night... I suddenly started thinking about how this street was packed with people ten thousand years ago, and then they all died."
Chen Siyao did not answer.
A few seconds passed in silence.
Yang Wanqing turned over the last beef skewer on the grill.
"Forget it. I won't think about it." She ended the subject herself. "No heavy thoughts while we're eating. Here, Yaoyao, you can have the last beef skewer."
Chen Siyao took it.
Jupiter turned overhead.
The city lay silent beneath their feet.
On a battlefield ten thousand years old, two girls ate barbecue and drank cola.
Absurd, but there was nothing wrong with it.
The next day.
Yang Wanqing woke to Chen Siyao patting her.
"What time is it..."
"There's no such thing as 'what time' here. Ganymede's day-night cycle is different from Blue Star's. But by Blue Star time, you've slept for seven hours. Get up."
Yang Wanqing buried her face in the blanket and whined for five seconds, then sprang upright.
"Where are we going today?"
"The city center."
Half an hour later, the three of them stood before the circular platform Chen Siyao had noticed the day before.
Up close, it was far more