“There are some places, but they’re very hard to find.”
The Dark Domain is so vast—who would bother remembering the locations of one or two stars?
Lin Xiaohe and the giant sound whale looked at each other.
The whale’s eyes were so clear and sincere that Lin Xiaohe could only admit defeat and suggest that the ships first stop at the Ruins while she went off to look for a suitable planet.
The giant sound whale wanted to go with Lin Xiaohe, but it also didn’t want to leave these lovely new toys behind. It was quite torn.
In the Dark Domain, the baby giant sound whales were letting their psychic energy run wild—clearly, they were having the time of their lives.
“Ha ha! That was close—the Hummingbird almost crashed into a giant ice ball!”
“Good thing I got there in time, or the Hummingbird would’ve been done for.”
The lead giant sound whale let out a roar: “Pay attention! Don’t go overboard. These are fragile humans. Hungry, thirsty, too fast—anything can kill them!”
Worried about the Hummingbird, Lin Xiaohe quickly chased after it.
The spot where the Hummingbird had been flung was not far from the Ruins. By the time Lin Xiaohe arrived, it had been captured by the gravity of an ice ball and was orbiting around it.
Brother Pili’s heart was pounding nonstop. He hurriedly sent out a signal: “Xiaohe, we’re all okay.”
But Lin Xiaohe’s gaze wasn’t on the signal. All her attention was drawn to the ice ball before her.
A pale, white planet hung in the ink-black velvet of space.
A thick crust of ice stretched from both the north and south poles all the way to the equator.
There was no moan of wind, no whisper of the sea—only the suffocating, absolute silence wrapped in vacuum.
But it wasn’t alone. A satellite only a quarter of its size orbited faithfully around it.
This equally dead moon was pale and barren, its surface pitted and scarred with craters from meteor impacts.
At first glance, it looked like a very ordinary planet and moon. But to Lin Xiaohe, it was like seeing an old friend.
She reached out her hand, wanting to touch that cold, icy planet.
Even across that vast distance, her fingertips tingled, as if kissed by static electricity. That current traveled up her spine all the way to her heart.
Lin Xiaohe stood in the void, gazing at this planet. Joy and sorrow intertwined, freezing her in place like a statue.
The Lin family members keenly sensed something was wrong with her and tentatively asked over the communication channel, “Xiao He, are you planning to build a base here?”
Old Black calmly tapped away at his control panel and reported the data: “Planet diameter: 12,742 kilometers. Satellite diameter: 3,476 kilometers. Distance between them: 380,000 kilometers. The planet’s volume is less than a third of Tigre Star’s, but we don’t have that many people, so we don’t need that much space.”
Old Black only mentioned the advantages. He left out the disadvantages.
This planet spun alone in the Dark Domain. Without a star’s heat, the ice on its surface would never melt.
Turning it into a habitable world would require an enormous amount of resources.
He lowered his gaze, hiding the coldness in his eyes. So what if it wastes resources? If Lin Xiaohe wanted it, he would break his back to make it happen for her!
Lin Xiaohe felt like her throat was stuffed with cotton. She just couldn’t bring herself to say no.
Logic told her this planet wasn’t the optimal choice.
But emotionally, she was already set on it—because it looked so much like Earth and the Moon.
Her homesickness, which had nowhere to go, erupted like a volcano the moment she saw them. It was unstoppable.
Lin’s father: “I think this planet is pretty great. Why don’t we settle here?”
Everyone chimed in: “Exactly! Finding a planet with high water content in the Dark Domain is fate. Destiny is guiding us here. Let’s not let it down.”
Lin Xiaohe’s eyes sparkled. She turned to the giant sound whale beside her and asked, “Do you have any way to move this planet?”
Huh?!
The giant sound whale was dumbfounded. This was something it had never even thought of, let alone tried!
“Uh… this… where do you want to move it to?” The whale’s voice grew weak, tinged with an unexplainable guilt.
If I can’t do it, will Lin Xiaohe be disappointed in the giant sound whale race?
But Lin Xiaohe had great confidence in them: “You’re good at using gravity. You should be able to use gravity to move the planet near a star.”
How could you have Earth and the Moon without having a sun?
Every inch of the giant sound whale’s skin tingled. This idea sounded incredibly interesting!
After Lin Xiaohe convinced the giant sound whale, she began searching the Ruins for a suitable star.
She needed a young, active star—not too big, not too small.
Luckily, fate seemed to favor her. She found a sun-like star, slightly larger than our own Sun, surrounded by a thin ring of gas and dust clouds.
Due to the lack of material, these dust particles hadn’t gradually coalesced through collision and gravity to form celestial bodies.
Lin Xiaohe stood far away from it, feeling the hot sunlight on her body, her heart overflowing with excitement.
She could already imagine it: when this Earth-like planet moved into this position, the glaciers would melt, and the land would turn lush and green with trees!
Wesley didn’t understand why Lin Xiaohe was so fixated on this ordinary ice ball. But Lin Xiaohe was the party leader, his idol.
Wherever she pointed her banner, the army would march!
“Party leader, have you thought of names for these three celestial bodies?”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Lin Xiaohe blurted out: “Jiuzhou! This planet will be called Jiuzhou.”
Wesley: “And the moon?”
“Taiyin!”
Wesley didn’t understand the meaning behind these names, but he thought they sounded beautiful. “And the star?”
“Fuguang.”
A hint of nostalgia flickered in Lin Xiaohe’s eyes.
There were many names for the sun in ancient Chinese culture—Xihe, Dongjun, Riyu, Chilun, and so on—but Lin Xiaohe loved Fuguang the most.
With the names decided, it was time to start planning the transformation of Planet Jiuzhou.
Step one, and the most critical, was to move Jiuzhou and Taiyin intact to a designated location near Fuguang.
The giant sound whales would be responsible for carrying out the plan, while Wesley and the others would calculate the gravitational forces, determine the optimal route, and decide on the final location.
Step two…
There was no step two, because they got stuck at step one.
Wesley and the others pooled the computing power of all the ships, and with Xinbao’s help, quickly worked out a perfect route.
After all, the Dark Domain was incredibly empty, with very little interference from other planets. It was like driving on an empty highway—you could go wherever you wanted.
The giant sound whales, however, ran into a lot more trouble.
If the gravitational waves were too strong and the moving speed too fast, it could have adverse effects on Jiuzhou and Taiyin.
If the gravitational waves were too weak, they wouldn’t be able to push Jiuzhou at all.
The giant sound whales gathered together, scratching their heads anxiously. The starlight inside their bodies dimmed.
“What do we do? How do we tell Lin Xiaohe that we can’t do it?”
“Wah wah wah… this is so embarrassing.”
“How about we go ask for outside help?”
They had really never done this kind of job before!
The lead giant sound whale thought it over for a moment and decided to take Lin Xiaohe along to find some outside help.
The elder wasn’t around, so that outside help definitely wouldn’t do it a favor. But maybe, just maybe, it would do one for Lin Xiaohe.
