Three suns soared in the sky, light was everywhere, and darkness had nowhere to hide.
When the last torch went out, people groped around in the cabin for a long time before finally returning to the deck. They had suddenly entered a world of extreme light from extreme darkness, a change that was hard to adapt to.
There are no shadows on the mountains, no shadows on the boats, and no shadows under people's feet. Without shadows, people lose the feeling of being grounded, as if floating in the void, without any support or foundation.
Qingmu stood on the deck, squinted, and looked up at the sky.
The sky above was clear and transparent, like a flawless pale blue gemstone, without a single impurity.
There is a Sun in the due south, northwest, and northeast directions of the sky. The three Sun are arranged in a triangular shape, and their dazzling light is so bright that people can't open their eyes.
Just as the eyes finally adjusted and were able to see the vast, golden world in the distance, the center of the triangular area formed by the three Sun darkened, as if a black hole had formed above people's heads, and the three Sun were revolving around it.
" Guagua and book, welcome to the Three-Body world! Shouldn't we dehydrate?" the Crow cawed excitedly, "All of us—dehydrate!..."
Whether they were stunned by the spectacular sight before them or worried about the unusual occurrence of the three suns in the sky, no one paid any attention to it.
"Quack quack..." The Boss Coal rolled his eyes in dissatisfaction and said to the lazy Hanran lying on the deck, "Hey, you have so much fat, if you don't dehydrate, you'll be roasted until you ooze oil."
It let out a Hanran meow, a response to the Crow. However, without the stimulation of the dried fish, it clearly had no motivation to stand up and could only lie on the deck and doze off, just like all its kind who wanted to sleep as soon as they saw the sun.
The Crow Guagua loudly, "Is it cooked yet? If it's cooked, take a bite from your own leg. It's good for weight loss and satisfies your cravings at the same time, Guagua!"
Boris was the first to recover, shouting, "Hey, you all-knowing intellectuals, who claim to have seen the universe, how come you're so scared by three Sun! If we don't find some shade on the shore soon, we'll really get sunburned and dehydrated like that bird said!"
" Ivan, have you gone stupid like them?" When no one responded, he urged his old partner, "Let's hurry up, I don't want to end up like those people in the cabin."
Ivan, maintaining his usual composure, asked, " Boris, are you hot?"
"Of course..." Boris suddenly felt something was off. He touched the exposed skin on his arm, then looked at the lazy, fat cat lying on the deck, and said somewhat uncertainly, "It doesn't seem... that hot!"
He looked up at the three large Sun in the sky. The sunlight did indeed feel scorching, but it was just a feeling.
"Damn it!" Boris cursed, "What the hell is going on?"
"Multiple star systems are not uncommon in galaxies. Ramla has been moving through the Milky Way, and we are probably passing through a three-star system right now."
After speaking, Su Huilan looked at Situ with some concern, "I just don't know how far away we are from Earth now."
Everyone understood what she was asking. If Ramla pulled them even further away, the terrible relativistic effects would not only distance them from Earth in space, but also from the past in time.
"I don't know how far away we are from Earth. Without star navigation, we can't determine our spatial location," Situ said.
"Then let's wait until tonight," Boris said.
Su Huilan shook her head and said, "That will take a long time. Usually, such a stable three-star system needs to go through hundreds of sunrises and sunsets before a single night can arrive. And that night may be so short that you won't even have time to see the entire starry sky before one of the Sun rises from an unpredictable direction."
"No wonder those savages worship the stars so much; they see them so rarely!" Boris muttered.
Mrs. Larry said, "Mr. Situ, your consciousness atomic clock shouldn't be affected, right?"
Situ nodded. "If we start counting from when we entered Ramla, 832 days should have passed on Earth by now."
"Caw, that's..." The Crow raised its claws and started calculating, "832 divided by 365, um... never mind; 832 divided by 30 then divided by 12, um... never mind, let's just multiply 832 by 24... um... that equals..."
It counted on its toes for a long time, then decided to try a different method. "It should be calculated like this: 832 days in total, half a braised pork knuckle each day, so we just need to divide by 2. 832 divided by 2 equals... four hundred... more... yes, more than four hundred braised pork knuckles! Wow, that's a really long time! Ruhua has already made so many braised pork knuckles!"
Thinking that he had already missed out on more than four hundred braised pork hocks, the Boss Coal couldn't help but feel melancholy. Suddenly, the three Sun in the sky transformed into three large braised pork hocks, gleaming with golden light, drool dripping from their pointed beaks, wiping Qingmu's forehead and falling onto the deck with a plop.
"I think Ruhua flower!" the Crow said mournfully in Qingmu's ear, lowering its head.
The people on deck also became depressed. They thought about how they had been away from Earth for more than two years, how many things had happened on Earth, and how they could only accept the cruel tricks of fate in this nonexistent place. Going home had become an unattainable dream.
The Boss Coal suddenly had a wild idea. "Didn't you say that Ramla's movement is unpredictable? Could it be that this time it's moving backwards? Last time it moved a thousand light-years away from Earth, so a year passed. Could it be that this time it's moved back a thousand light-years, so time has gone backwards too? Oh my god, then my braised pork knuckle will be back too!"
Qingmu chuckled to himself. No matter which direction you move, time won't go backwards! But unwilling to destroy the Crow's hopes and dreams, he casually said, "Don't worry, when we get back, I'll make you braised pork knuckle every day."
The three Sun moved slowly across the sky: the Sun in the south moved west, the one in the northeast moved south, and the one in the northwest moved east. They maintained a triangular shape, as if moving around a central point.
"The legendary Three-Body world isn't so scary after all!" Anderson said. "Maybe you can even go fishing there."
Situ cautioned, "This is probably not a normal Trisolaran world."
"Why?" Everyone looked at him.
"The motion of a typical triple star system wouldn't be so regular and stable," Situ explained. "Generally speaking, one of the three stars must be the primary star, which is much more massive than the other two. The other two wouldn't be the same size either; usually, one is larger than the other, acting as companion stars and orbiting each other. If we consider stars 2 and 3 as a single entity, they, along with star 1, form a companion system. This kind of triple star system is relatively stable. If there were a planet in this system, we would see three Sun on the planet's surface. The primary star 1 would appear the same size as the Sun we see from Earth most of the time. At this time, stars 2 and 3 would be farther away from the planet, so although they would be visible on the planet's surface, they would appear very small. When their orbits get closer, the difference in brightness between the three Sun would decrease, the planet's surface temperature would rise, and the stars' gravity would cause unpredictable changes in the planet's orbit. What we see now are three almost identical Sun, and they are moving in a regular pattern, which doesn't conform to the usual principles of three-body motion."
Su Huilan seemed to be deep in thought, "You mean...?" Under the blazing sun, she felt a chill.
Situ suddenly said something completely unrelated, "I have no evidence."
Su Huilan then looked at Qingmu. Qingmu also said, "I have no evidence either."
"What are you talking about?" Alice was puzzled and a little angry at their cryptic remarks.
Situ said, "Thinking about these things now is useless. The most important thing is whether Ronald Cohen's last words are credible; that will determine our next decision."