How Big Is the Sun?

When people accomplished things only gods could do, the mystique surrounding gods naturally faded.

Take flying through the sky and burrowing through the earth, for example. Of course, the thing people probably envied most about gods was their ability to live forever without aging.

No matter the age, humans could never resist their fear of death or their longing for eternal life.

Then again, becoming a god on Douluo Continent might be one of the easiest ways to gain eternal life.

The drone light show continued. The tree disappeared into the night, and the drones rearranged their formation.

Bibi Dong eagerly awaited the next pattern the lights would form.

"Tang Fan, look! Are they making a sphere?"

"Looks like it. I don't know what exactly. Maybe it's a watermelon."

Tang Fan was joking, but he had forgotten that Bibi Dong didn't know what a watermelon was.

"What's a watermelon?"

"A round, green fruit. There should still be half of one in the fridge at home. You can try it when we get back. It's a summer must-have for beating the heat."

As Tang Fan finished speaking, the new pattern formed by the drone lights appeared.

"This is..."

Bibi Dong was even more surprised. She had glimpsed this image in the educational videos Tang Fan had given her.

"Blue Star! I didn't expect it to be Blue Star. The designer behind this had some creative ideas.

"But if I were designing it, I'd make Blue Star smaller, then have a much bigger person holding it in their palm. That would look even more impressive."

"Hmm... isn't that idea a little too bold? Besides, how could a person like that possibly exist? Even a god couldn't hold up a planet, could they?"

Bibi Dong now understood how big a planet was, so she couldn't imagine what a person capable of holding one up would look like.

"You should let your imagination run wild. The universe is much bigger than you think. In the universe, a planet like Blue Star is incredibly tiny. Do you know how big the sun is?"

"The sun?"

Bibi Dong instinctively looked up, but it was nighttime, and there was no sun, only the moon. Since they were in the city, the stars weren't very visible either.

Unable to find the sun, Bibi Dong looked a little embarrassed and quickly asked another question.

"Is the sun very big?"

"Let's use Blue Star as a reference. It would take 1.3 million Blue Stars combined to equal the sun's volume."

"How... how many?!"

"You heard me right. 1.3 million."

The people on Douluo Continent were shocked once again.

"The sun... the sun is really that big?"

Although Qian Xunji had already accepted that humans were as small as dust compared to a planet, the sheer size of the sun still frightened him.

Compared to the enormous celestial bodies in the universe, gods didn't seem all that impressive.

The moment the thought popped into Qian Xunji's head, he hastily shook it, flinging the blasphemous thought out of his mind.

Bibi Dong recovered from her shock, then pointed at the moon and asked, "What about the moon? Is it very big too?"

"No, the moon isn't very big. It's only one forty-ninth the size of Blue Star, and it's one of Blue Star's satellites."

"A satellite?"

"That means the moon revolves around Blue Star. Likewise, Blue Star revolves around the moon too."

"But how do you know all this?"

"Through astronomical observations and scientific calculations, of course. I'll see if we get a chance in the next few days. If we do, I'll take you to visit a planetarium.

"Actually, every star corresponding to the starlight that fills the sky at night is a star like the sun, or one much bigger than the sun."

Bibi Dong was dumbfounded again. It was one thing for the sun to be huge, but how were the stars all enormous stars too?

"Are you wondering why they look so small? The reason is simple: things look bigger up close and smaller from far away. They look so small because they're far enough away from us.

"Take the distance from Blue Star to the sun: 150 million kilometers, or 300 million li.

"From Blue Star to the moon, it's 384,000 kilometers, or 768,000 li.

"Ask the gods on your Douluo Continent how long it would take them to cover those two distances."

The people on Douluo Continent were nearly knocked senseless by the staggering numbers.

Qian Daoliu had already tried it before. Flying 20,000 meters upward had been a struggle for him. Flying to the moon, a distance of nearly 770,000 li, was already a fantasy to him.

Bo Saixi was even worse off than Qian Daoliu. After all, Qian Daoliu had the Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul, and the sky was his home ground.

Tang Fan waved his hand in front of Bibi Dong's eyes again.

"Come back to your senses. Look, the show's started again."

The drone lights now formed a scene of ten thousand horses galloping. Unlike the static patterns before, this one moved.

It really looked as though a herd of horses were galloping through the air. On top of that, there were sound effects of pounding hooves, making it seem even more real.

Having come back to her senses, Bibi Dong watched the pattern of ten thousand horses galloping past, listening to the sound effects and the cheers of the audience, and felt a strange sense of unreality.

"Tang Fan, am I really not dreaming? Will I wake up and find everything gone? Could everything here be a dream, even you?"

Tang Fan looked at Bibi Dong's silly expression and immediately laughed. He raised a hand and pinched her cheek.

"Ow..."

"If it hurts, that means you're not dreaming. Don't overthink it. The more you learn about the truth of the world, the more you understand how small you are, but even small people have their own ways of living.

"We're all just small people here, but we live well too, don't we?"

"Mm... I understand, but that pinch really hurt!"

Bibi Dong rubbed her cheek and gave Tang Fan an aggrieved look.

"Sorry, sorry. You looked so cute just now. I apologize."

His words made Bibi Dong's face turn bright red instead.

Back on Douluo Continent, Qian Xunji wasn't very happy. He felt as though a pig had come rooting around his little cabbage.

Still, he agreed with what Tang Fan had said. The more one learned about the truth of the world, the smaller one felt.

He looked up at the starry sky. Compared to the vast universe, Spirit Hall, Douluo Continent, and even Douluo Star were like grains of dust.

Back with Tang Fan, the light show continued to change after the ten thousand galloping horses.

The flush on Bibi Dong's face also faded a little.

"Tang Fan, now that I know all this, can I really change the course of history when I return to Douluo Continent?"

Tang Fan's expression grew a little more serious. "I can't guarantee that. We have two ideas here: one is called the butterfly effect, and the other is called plot inertia."

"What do they mean?"

"The butterfly effect says that a butterfly flapping its wings could eventually bring about a catastrophic hurricane. It means that a small change at the beginning can cause a huge change in the final outcome.

"Plot inertia is the opposite. Because of it, small changes along the way are ignored, and the story is forced toward its predetermined ending.

"Let me give you an example: Tang San and Qian Renxue.

"Whether or not you're her mother, Qian Xunji's daughter will be Qian Renxue, the Angel God and heir.

"The same goes for Tang San. Whether or not Ah Yin is his mother, Tang Hao's son will be the same Tang San who stole his sect's secret technique in his previous life and was driven to suicide."