At those words, Lin En froze and instinctively looked up at the sky, but there was nothing above except thick black mist.
He hesitated, about to speak.
Beside him, however, Hana Ye looked puzzled. (O_O)? She asked:
"What are stars?"
Lin En glanced at her and said:
"Literally speaking, they're the stars in the sky, of course..."
But before he could finish, Hana Ye threw out another question that left him stunned.
"Uh, stars?"
Hana Ye stared wide-eyed and scratched the back of her head, a look of pure, innocent stupidity in her eyes.
Lin En faltered.
"You don't know what stars are?"
Hana Ye swallowed in bewilderment and said:
"I know the word, of course. The dictionary says... they're something sparkly you can see at night! But I think that's a lie, because aside from occasionally seeing the moon at night, there's only that huge rift. There's nothing sparkly at all."
"Have you seen them, Lin En?"
At those words, Lin En immediately realized something was wrong.
He immediately recalled the sight when he had first arrived. The Red Moon had hung high in the sky, but everything beyond it had indeed been pitch-black. And the next day, when his aura had broken through the mist, he had only seen that huge rift in the sky. As for the stars, he had simply assumed their absence was due to the weather.
After all, even on Earth, nightfall didn't necessarily mean you could see a sky full of stars.
But hearing Hana Ye say that...
Lin En asked hesitantly:
"Does your world not have stars?"
Hana Ye looked utterly bewildered. "Uh... I've never seen them, but we have the word."
They had the word, but not the thing itself?
Lin En's gaze grew uncertain, and he turned back to the