Situ's words shattered the illusion that Stasis Spacetime didn't exist. His consciousness's atomic clock had only ticked for one second, meaning that only one second had passed on Earth, while half a day had passed for them. This meant that time here was 40,000 times different from time outside; a day outside would be equivalent to about a hundred years here.
If it takes ten days for the Ramla Space node where Huracan is located to pass through this tunnel, meaning that from Earth's perspective, it will take ten days for them to leave this Stasis Space, then for them, a thousand years will have passed.
"Caw! Will I turn into a dried-up bird? Hmm, in a thousand years, will all my feathers fall out? Or will I turn into a fossil?" the Crow wondered, tilting its head.
Alice buried her head in Mrs. Larry's arms and cried, "We're all going to die here!"
Mrs. Larry comforted her, "There's nothing to be afraid of. At least in terms of feeling, we're not living any different lives. Just think of this place as an isolated island on Earth, and think of Robinson."
Alice said, "But Robinson only stayed on the island for twenty-eight years before being rescued, while we..."
"That's right, so we should hold out for at least twenty-eight years, shouldn't we?" Mrs. Larry said.
The lady's words seemed to give everyone a glimmer of hope. Indeed, it's not the final moment yet; who says there's no hope for the future?
"Caw, Madam is right, caw, we're not much different now, we even have... dried fish!" The Crow flew up from the Qingmu, Guagua as it flew to the food that had been prepared but not yet eaten.
It meowed Hanran, indicating its agreement.
Everyone's stomachs had been rumbling for a while, but the recent unpleasant events—the destruction of the Itza People, the deaths of Anderson and Boris, and the perplexing nature of Stasis Spacetime —had dampened their appetites. Now, the Crow's reminder had awakened their hunger, and their bellies were growling.
Under a sky with four Sun, they didn't know whether it was lunch or dinner. Time was the least important thing here. No matter how hard they tried to make the most of every second, time outside the dimly lit glass house barely moved relative to their time here.
With Anderson gone, the fishing work fell to Ivan and Petru. Situ and Qingmu went ashore to cut wood and make tools for firewood. The three women were responsible for gathering wild fruits and drying and preserving food. The Boss Coal and Hanran worked together and sometimes managed to catch things like rats, snakes, and other small animals they couldn't name from the nearby woods.
They finally lived a Robinson -like life, except that the savages here were long gone and wouldn't suddenly light a campfire on the beach, leaving behind cannibalistic embers. The only unsettling thing was the hundreds of mummies on the ship. The air was damp, and if the bodies weren't dealt with promptly, they would mold and even decompose again, making the entire ship stink.
"Go and carry them out," Situ said.
"Oh, this job isn't very comfortable," Petru complained.
Situ said, "If you don't do it now, you'll feel even more uncomfortable in a few days."
"Can we throw it in the water?" Petru asked.
Mrs. Larry said, "No, they'll float in the water. You don't want to see hundreds of corpses floating on the surface in a few days. It's better to dig a hole on the shore and bury them."
"Several hundred people!" Petru said.
Qingmu also felt that digging a large pit for hundreds of people was unrealistic, especially since there were still thousands of people unburied in the Huracan Tribe.
Alice said, "Cremate them!"
Everyone agreed that this was for the best, just like on Earth, where people are cremated after death. After discussing for a while, they assigned tasks: Ivan and Petru would go down to find some tools to transport the bodies, such as carts, and once they found them, they would move the bodies onto the deck. The lady and Alice would stay on the deck, and Su Huilan and Duwa would be responsible for rowing the raft over. Several hundred people couldn't be transported by two small boats, and they didn't want to use their own boat to transport the bodies. Qingmu and Situ would go ashore to find a suitable place for cremation and prepare firewood for burning.
Qingmu and Situ both chose the site where the Sangqi Tribe had once camped. It was closest to the beach, so the firewood wouldn't be too heavy to move, and the savages had already piled up many stacks of firewood when they built their camp. They moved the dry firewood to a place suitable for burning without causing a forest fire, first using large branches to create a raised base, and then covering it with thin dry branches and fallen leaves to ensure complete combustion.
This was no easy task. The two men worked for most of the day, and by the time they finished, the first batch of bodies on the bamboo rafts had already been brought over. The woman watched over the rafts while the men carried the bodies ashore and piled them on the prepared stacks of dry firewood. After several trips back and forth like this, all the bodies on the large boat had been brought over.
Before, on the ship, apart from feeling eerie when going down to the cabin, there wasn't much else to it, since the corpses were scattered in different cabins. Now, with more than three hundred mummified corpses piled together, it looks horrifying.
People stood before the pile of corpses, praying and waiting for the fire to be lit.
Situ suddenly asked, " Ivan, are you sure everyone's here? I don't think I see Ronald Cohen!"
Ivan looked at Petru and said, " Petru carried out Halsey and Ronald's bodies."
Petru shook his head. "Oh no, no, no, I only moved the lieutenant colonel's body. I didn't see Ronald Cohen; I thought you moved it."
Ivan said, "I didn't move."
"But there's definitely no one inside," Petru said with absolute certainty.
The atmosphere suddenly became eerie.
"Let's go back and look again."
Petru and Ivan returned on the raft. People waited a long time, but they didn't come back. Qingmu sensed something was wrong and said, "Let's go back and check too."
Four women stayed behind to guard the pile of corpses, while he and Situ returned to the large ship. They went up to the bridge and then down to the lower deck. After clearing out the bodies, the air in the cabin seemed much better, but they found nothing; even Ivan and Petru were nowhere to be found.
They checked most of the cabins and corners, and called out in every cabin, but there was no response. When they returned to the deck, they found that Su Huilan and Duwa had also come over.
"What happened? Why haven't you come out for so long?" Su Huilan asked.
Qingmu said, " Petru and Ivan are missing."
"Gone?" Su Huilan asked, puzzled. "Did you find them all?"
Situ said, "It's impossible for the two of us to find the whole ship, but if they're on board, with all the commotion we've made, they should at least give us some kind of response."
"Could they have already come out?" She didn't know anything about Ivan, but she knew Petru quite well; it wouldn't be easy to make that guy disappear without a trace.
"That's possible, but where could they go?"
Qingmu suddenly remembered that once Su Huilan and Duwa arrived, only Mrs. Larry and Alice remained on the shore. Feeling something was amiss, he asked, "Why did you two come over?"
Su Huilan said, "You left us women there guarding a huge pile of dead bodies, and you still have the nerve to ask questions?"
Situ glanced worriedly at the shore. "With you and Duwa here, we wouldn't have much to worry about, but now only Madam and Alice are left..."
Before he could finish speaking, he saw a fire suddenly appear on the shore.