Xyrin Empire-Chapter 1400: Dark Moon

(No doubt, it’s time to ask for monthly tickets. I cleverly added a line of filler! Oh, and subscriptions too...)

This is everyone’s first night in this distant world, far from home, in an unfamiliar environment. The fact that "beyond the world is the fire line" brought pressure to everyone, and... I won’t muse on these trivialities because Qianqian is sleeping like a little pig next to me, and Lin Xue is the same. I estimate the Pandora Sisters and that female hooligan in the next room are in the same state. We’ve all long been used to sleeping in all kinds of environments, theoretically reaching a level where we can fall asleep and wake up regardless of if we’re amid swords and flames—of course, it can also be explained as being dim-witted, both meanings are the same. After all the crossing, even the most bed-particular person should adapt.

The Foolish Big Guy’s house is indeed quite large, which might be related to his contribution to the village, but also his large build. In any case, it’s a very big house, and he certainly can’t live in such a large place alone—with the black cat included, most places here are empty. Where we’re resting tonight is on the second floor of the main building: it’s supposed to be the residence of the house owner. Still, the Foolish Big Guy stubbornly left the best room here for "noble guests from the Imperial City," while he himself went to spend the night in the wing room opposite the yard. It’s quite touching because I can tell the Foolish Big Guy isn’t wealthy (or rather, no one in this small village has any excess material wealth); the wing room has no furniture, just a bed board covered with dry grass, yet the Foolish Big Guy happily blocked all of us in the main building and then ran into the empty wing room with his bedding. His logic is simple: guests from the Imperial City are noble; scholars and their families are even the noblest of guests; "noble guests" couldn’t sleep on countryside straw beds, and he’s rough-skinned...

That’s the logic of the Big Guy, simple yet stubborn, not even a hooligan like Bingdisi could make him budge without using force, so in the end, we could only stay awkwardly in the only room in the house with furniture. The Big Guy himself was quite cheerful; he even thanked us before sleeping for the snacks and baked goods we brought, feeling like he’d gotten a great deal—after all, besides the priest, he’s now the only one in the village who’s eaten "city folks’ snacks".

I woke up halfway through the night, not because I couldn’t sleep well in an unfamiliar environment, but because Qianqian kicked me awake: I woke up in mid-air, gliding for 0.3 seconds in the "gliding swan" posture. It wasn’t until I saw Qianqian’s foot sticking out beyond the bed that I realized why I flew from the bedside. In the next moment, I was quite pleased with my emergency response ability: because just before landing, I managed to retrieve a sponge mat from my Personal Space and place it under myself, thus not waking Qianqian and Lin Xue—you tell me, isn’t someone like us the model husband?

But with such a fuss, I was completely awake, so I could only get up, straighten my pajamas, look at the two girls occupying nearly three-quarters of the big bed in a crisscross pattern, and shake my head with a wry smile. Of course, this is the Big Guy’s room, although the most "luxurious" place in the house, there are only a few pieces of old rough wooden furniture, and to match the owner’s build, every piece of furniture here is extraordinarily large. Qianqian and Lin Xue share the room with me, they put the bedding they brought together to barely cover the giant wooden plank bed in the room...

After all, they’re girls, and they are still used to their own stuff when out.

"Even the biggest bed can’t withstand Qianqian’s sleeping posture, and Lin Xue wasn’t much better today either..." I muttered to myself, turned and walked out of the room, since I couldn’t sleep, I might as well go out for some fresh air and see what this world’s night scene looks like.

The two-story wooden houses in this village all have similar layouts; the first floor is much larger than the second. The first floor has the living room, kitchen, and small warehouse, while the second floor is for living. Because the second floor "recedes" in a circle, it leaves an open-air corridor outside, with wooden railings on the edges preventing people from falling off. If there are multiple rooms on the second floor, they are connected by this corridor. I walked out of the room onto this open-air corridor, glancing back at the room door beside: that’s Bingdisi and the Pandora Sisters’ room, the other of the only two rooms in the house with furniture. Possibly someone already guessed, yes, it’s the black cat’s room...

We won’t discuss why a black cat has a room as big as its owner or why the black cat’s room has furniture, anyway, if cats can talk, what else is impossible? I’ve even heard that every day the little female cat makes her own bed, and she (after pondering, it’s better to call a talking, high-intelligence, cooking and cleaning female cat "her") habitually helps the owner tidy up the room after making her bed in the morning: you say, when a cat is like this, what’s strange about having its own room? I’m even tempted to bring the silly fox from home to compare with this Spiritual God Cat, even though Little Black doesn’t seem to have transformed, nor does she have a pile of tails or thousands of years of cultivation, I always feel she’s more reliable than the fox: with Dingdang above, the fox at home is now lazy enough not to use the quilt anymore, every day she just curls herself into a ball with her tail to sleep. You say, cultivating for thousands of years just to not make her bed, is there any need for treatment?!

While thinking this, the nearby room door suddenly opened, and a tall silhouette stretched lazily and emerged, greeting me with slight surprise: "Hey, Chen, you noticed too?"

I looked at this person in front of me: long hair dragging on the ground, an explosive figure, wearing pajamas, forever carrying a cynical smile: if it’s not Bingdisi, then who? Why is this hooligan awake in the middle of the night?

"Notice what?" I didn’t react for a moment and asked offhandedly.

Visca was looking up at the sky, surprised at the words she heard: "You don’t know? Then why did you get up in the middle of the night?"

"I was kicked down with a flying kick by Qianqian—that girl doesn’t sleep well. What did you just say you noticed?"

Visca froze for a moment, silently laughing and shaking her head before raising her hand to point at the sky: "Look at the moon."

I followed the direction of her finger and saw a slightly incomplete bright moon hanging in the sky. I hadn’t expected this planet to have a moon as well, but the moon here was different from Earth’s: it appeared larger, and its surface wasn’t golden yellow but rather a hazy dark blue. I scrutinized it and suddenly felt the dark blue patches were unusual: Their distribution increasingly resembled land and ocean, and upon closer examination, those dark areas seemed to conceal more details, though these couldn’t be seen with the naked eye.

"That moon..." I couldn’t help but mutter, "Why does it look like a terrestrial planet?"

"That’s exactly a terrestrial planet, and its size should not be too different from the planet we’re standing on," Visca crossed her arms and stood beside me, seemingly already aware of the general situation of that planet, "I just woke up earlier and saw it, then used spiritual power to ’observe’ it a bit, but I didn’t dare to use too much power, so it was just a rough scan. Now I can only confirm that it is a terrestrial planet with signs of life on it. After that, I went back inside to prepare for a while, and when I came out, I noticed you were outside too – I thought you came out because you noticed it as well, but I didn’t expect you were just kicked awake by your wife."

"A terrestrial planet? About the same size?" I looked at the sky at the "moon" much larger than Earth’s, which was slightly incomplete, appearing to be nearing full moon. Its surface with large dark blue patches now completely resembled land and ocean, "Is it and the planet we’re standing on..."

"A binary star system," Visca nodded, "The planet you and I are on has no satellites but a companion star that’s almost identical. These two planets form a binary star system while orbiting around a sun. What did you think of?"

I unleashed my imagination and combined the information heard today, then glanced at the blue-black interspersed "moon" in the sky, finally blurting out: "Do you suspect that’s the Dark Moon?"

Visca nodded: "The only moon Foolish Big Guy and the locals know is this companion star above them. To them, stuff like the binary star system doesn’t have much significance; knowing it’s a moon suffices. I initially thought ’Dark Moon’ referred to a place on this planet, coincidentally named after the moon, but now seeing that thing in the sky... I think what the locals call Dark Moon is actually their moon."

"The surface of that planet does indeed seem to have a layer of dark veil," I looked up at the sky, "Normal planetary surface reflection should be brighter than it is. You see, apart from the ocean parts, the land areas are basically a mass of black; it seems the geological conditions could be quite fascinating."

"Dark Moon..." Visca chuckled softly, "It seems after figuring out the situation here, we’ll need to check out that planet. If what Foolish Big Guy mentioned about Dark Moon is indeed their moon... then what’s up with the demons and monsters coming from the Dark Moon? Do they have spaceship or teleportation gate technology? If it’s a war between Dark Moon and Surface People, then it’s suddenly become an interstellar battle."

With Visca’s reminder, I thought of these things too, but such associations were bizarre: Look at this primitive little village before our eyes, where people are still using oil lamps for lighting, and neither basic mechanical tools nor advanced magic creations are visible in the village. It’s difficult to connect such a group of people living this way with things like "Earth-Moon Shuttle" or "Space Portal." Of course, what we are seeing now is just this small village; perhaps those advanced items are concentrated in the hands of the upper society. Isn’t this typical for many feudal-state magical-route civilizations?

At this moment, I suddenly remembered that Bingdisi said she went back inside to "prepare a bit" after she saw the weird moon in the sky. I was too focused on researching the moon earlier, so I didn’t pay attention to her words. Now recalling it, I quickly asked, "What did you prepare after you went back inside just now?"

"Some gadgets," Bingdisi said as she summoned a few small golden light balls out of thin air. "Relying on just us to gather information, how long would it take to understand the local history and culture? So, we need a more efficient method."

I looked at those light balls. They seemed tangible and had blurred facial features, looking quite familiar: "This is..."

"Louse Spirit from the fox," Bingdisi casually tossed one of the small light balls towards me. "I asked her for a few to keep for fun; after all, that little girl usually uses these spirits as marbles."

I hurriedly caught the light ball tossed by Sister Bing. It felt warm to touch, and though its body was made of light, it had a real tactile sensation. Its "appearance" faintly resembled the Silly Fox, presumably directly imitating its master. Frankly, unless associating them with previous forms, these light balls really looked quite cute. The light ball, slightly smaller than a ping pong ball, gently bounced on my hand, emitting a series of pleasant sounds like bird chirps mixed with wind chimes, then floated in mid-air, curiously locking eyes with me.

"What are you planning to have them do?" I bounced the small light ball back to Bingdisi’s side and curiously asked.

"Collect intelligence," the Female Hooligan revealed a cunning smile, "I have awakened their minds. Now these gadgets are not incredibly smart, but they’re already more intelligent than your probes and can act as spies. Let them first infiltrate populous places like the Imperial City, and meanwhile, look for libraries or archives. Get some history books and religious scriptures back; it’s faster than us randomly asking around."

As she spoke, Bingdisi waved her hand, and seven or eight small light balls instantly transformed into several bright lines disappearing into the night sky. I was quite impressed with this Female Hooligan’s creativity: "Really amazing that you can come up with such an idea."

"Actually, I think it’s okay to loosen up just a bit," Bingdisi carelessly waved her hand and started muttering, "Using spaceship-level things might be too obvious, but how much energy reaction do probes and temporary satellites have? Fallen Apostles are still outside the World Barrier; they can’t scan these."

I knew Bingdisi couldn’t stand such constrained missions anymore, and what she said made some sense, so I nodded: "Yes, we just try not to use those gadgets out of safety concerns, but if there’s truly no other way, we should use those devices."

"That’s settled then," Bingdisi yawned and swayed towards the room, "I’m heading back to sleep. If you want to keep hanging out here, then just hang out."

Left alone again on the open-air corridor, I grinned and looked up at the "moon" hanging in the night sky.

Based on its surface color distribution, this planet has large areas of black land and small, deep blue oceans: at least the side facing me is like this. The local people calling the black-blue moon "Dark Moon" is certainly understandable. I remembered Bingdisi’s words: There’s life on that planet, and the enemies referred to as Demons and Monsters by the Surface People came from there.

A civilization in the Feudal Era engaging in interstellar war with the enemies on its companion planet? Such a scenario leaves one speechless. The Imperial Army and Fallen Apostles outside the world are already full of tension, yet the natives in this three-no-care universe are naively conducting their primitive interstellar battles... Who is this a satire on?

After thinking for a while, I found the issue uninteresting. Wearing pajamas in the middle of the night under the moonlight of an Otherworld, pondering world peace is indeed too pretentious for my personality—so I hugged myself and returned inside.

The latter half of the night passed without a word, and we welcomed our first morning in this world.

Dressed and tidied, everyone stepped out of the house, exchanging greetings. Pandora and Visca seemed to have a small conflict again; the two sisters greeted me with a tangled-up fusion state. In the yard, we saw the Foolish Big Guy who probably got up even earlier, swinging his arms back and forth in the yard to stretch. Seeing the guests coming down, he immediately smiled warmly and approached: "Did you sleep well last night? The countryside houses are just like that..."

"Pretty good, pretty good," I quickly nodded, "Actually, you don’t need to treat us as too noble, we wander around outside all the time. Even desolate hills and wildlands are manageable; we’re all rugged types."

The Foolish Big Guy had the Spiritual God Cat lounging on his shoulder, Little Black bared its teeth at us in a threatening gesture, then waved its paw at Bingdisi: "You took my room last night! Didn’t mess up my bed, did you? You women look rough and clumsy..."

Bingdisi smiled gently at the cat, pulling out a dried fish from somewhere and waved it in front of the cat: "If you don’t cooperate, I’ll pile fish into a Circular Mountain and tie you up in the center."

The black cat had a huge temper, sneered disdainfully, and hopped onto the wall to bask in the sun, leaving the Female Hooligan puzzled: "Hey, why doesn’t this trick work on a cat when it works on a fox?" 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

I chuckled: "Huskies and Meow Star People are not the same, are they?"

Breakfast was still handled at Foolish Big Guy’s house, this kind-hearted big chap was more than happy to share his stuff with people. As usual as yesterday, we brought out some fine food from home to share with him, and the black cat, full of grievance because its room was taken, finally soothed a bit by the snacks. Through interacting with Black Cat, I discovered an amazing truth: Bingdisi failed to lure the cat with fish not because the latter was resolute, but because the cat was allergic to fish...

Since it’s unknown if all cats in this world are this peculiar, I didn’t pursue it more. Anyway, Bingdisi was in chaos throughout; seeing this Female Hooligan thwarted was a rare sight.

Meanwhile, the village became lively. The robust country fellows’ greetings at the street corners sounded like shouting matches, noisy yet exuding an earthy warmth. Soon, I heard a peculiar uproar coming from a certain direction, and Foolish Big Guy was tidying up the yard, upon hearing this noise, he cheerfully stood apart: "The Village Chief has returned! Let me take you to see the Village Chief!" (To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendations and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please read at m.qidian.com.)