51: Chapter 51 Countdown to the Extinction of the Sun

Inside the United Nations Building, Chen Mu leaned his phone against his cup and continued eating his pancake.

Maya sat across from him and also picked up a pancake, but she didn't eat it; she just repeatedly poked at the charred edges of the crust with her fork.

Time passed bit by bit.

In Times Square, the countdown clock jumped to 08:59:50.

The seconds on the screen ticked away. Someone started whispering the count, and the voices grew louder until they became a collective roar of tens of thousands counting down in unison.

"Ten."

"Nine."

In Tokyo's Shibuya, under the giant screens at the intersection, office workers, students, and tourists huddled together, silently looking up. Some squeezed the hands of those beside them, while others closed their eyes.

"eight."

In London's Trafalgar Square, beneath Nelson's Column, an old man took off his hat, pressed it to his chest, and prayed with trembling lips.

"Seven."

At the Champ de Mars beneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris, countless people held up candles, their flames flickering in the early morning breeze. One girl even held her candle above her head, the flame dancing in her pupils.

"Six."

In Moscow's Red Square, the onion domes of Saint Basil's Cathedral shimmered with gold in the dim light of dawn. Soldiers stood in formation; no one spoke, all eyes fixed on the sky.

"Five."

At the India Gate in New Delhi, three hundred thousand people fell silent simultaneously. The wind from the Indo-Gangetic Plain blew through the archway, making a hollow whistling sound.

An old man took off his shoes and stood barefoot, unfolding a neatly folded handwritten sign that read: "We were born on this land, and we will be buried on this land, whether the sun is there or not."

"Four."

At Table Mountain in Cape Town, the entire city spread out at the foot of the mountain. Lights began to turn on across vast areas; the surge in the power grid load within that minute set off every alarm in the dispatch center.

The chief engineer of the South African Power Company shouted into the phone, "Do not cut the load! Let it shine! Let it all light up!"

"three."

At the Hong Kong and Taiwan Stock Exchanges, no one was calling out orders in the trading hall anymore. Everyone stood at their workstations staring at screens; some held phones, some held Buddha statues, and some held nothing at all.

"two."

In the White House Situation Room, President Trump stood before the real-time monitoring wall. Behind him, his staff, generals, and analysts all stood up.

"one."

On the International Space Station, in the Cupola, the commander's face was pressed against the glass, his eyes reflecting the blue planet below.

He pressed the communication button one last time, his voice surprisingly calm: "Houston, this is the Space Station. No matter what happens next, it has been my honor to watch the Blue Star from up here for four years."

Seeing the countdown about to hit zero, Chen Mu sat in the chair by the window and accessed the system interface.

The S-class Mothership, hidden behind the sun under the cover of the Cosmic Illusion, used its ring-like structure to unfold against the impact of the solar wind. Hexagonal modules began to rearrange, and a massive funnel-shaped opening opened in the center, aimed at the sun's surface.

[Stellar Energy Extraction Device · Activated]

[Plasma Shield deploying...]

[Target Star Locked: Sun, G2V-type Main Sequence Star]

[Extraction Zone: Bottom of the Chromosphere above the Photosphere]

[Estimated Extraction Duration: 3 minutes 00 seconds]

[Warning: Radiation across various bands of the target star will significantly weaken during extraction.]

In the final second, the moment the barrier was fully deployed, a needle-thin guiding beam shot out from the center of the mothership, piercing the solar Photosphere.

The sun dimmed!!!

——————

As the countdown on the big screen in Times Square hit zero and the numbers jumped to nine o'clock, tens of thousands of people held their breath at once.

But in the next second, what everyone saw was still that radiant, intact sun.

One second, two seconds, three seconds.

The sun didn't budge.

Five seconds, ten seconds, twenty seconds.

The sky over New York was impossibly blue, with a few white clouds drifting leisurely by. The sunlight reflected off the electronic screens in Times Square, making them blindingly bright.

A pigeon took flight from the red steps, cooing as it swept over the heads of the crowd.

Nothing happened.

People in the crowd began to laugh; some smashed their signs on the ground, and others raised their middle fingers to the sky.

Someone shouted, "I knew it was a fake!" and after that, hundreds of people around them followed suit, the sound swelling like a rolling snowball.

Meanwhile, in Sima Bei's livestream room, he had already begun to laugh arrogantly.

He snapped open his folding fan with a "clack." Four large characters were clearly visible on the fan: "All is Fair in War."

After a brief silence, the bullet comments suddenly exploded.

[Hahahahahahaha]

[Master Sima is the eternal god!]

[Master Sima is right, he's just a fraud.]

[I told you, how could the sun possibly be turned off?]

[Blue Star, don't panic!!!]

[Family, spam 'Master Sima is awesome' in the chat!]

[Chen Mu, come out and take your beating!]

"Everyone, everyone!" Sima Bei's voice was a full pitch higher than usual, and he waved his fan like a propeller. "What did I tell you? It's all an illusion! It's all psychological warfare! The same old tricks! Some people just wouldn't believe it, now you see!"

The bullet comments were completely out of control. The screen was filled with "Master Sima is awesome," and the occasional comment asking "What if it's a delay?" was immediately buried by an overwhelming tide of "Face-slapped" and "You've been kneeling so long you can't stand up," leaving not a trace behind.

The special effects from donated gifts piled up in the bottom right corner of the screen like a mountain of constantly exploding fireworks.

Sima Bei picked up his purple clay teapot and tilted his head back to take a large gulp.

"Everyone, I'm putting it out there today: Chen Mu is at his wit's end. Even that outer space army of his might not even be real."

"Fans, let's go to the UN Building right now. I will question him personally and expose his lies."

He was about to say a few more fancy words to wrap up when he suddenly noticed the stream of bullet comments seemed to be choked off by something.

The entire comment section turned into a vacuum-like void within a fraction of a second.

[Master Sima, Chen Mu just posted on X.]

Then, like a tide, a massive amount of identical bullet comments flooded in from all directions of the screen, covering every corner so densely that even his face was completely obscured.

Sima Bei's teapot hung in mid-air. He quickly set it down, picked up his phone, and swiped to Chen Mu's account.

[Ambassador of Guga Planet: Sorry, everyone on Blue Star.]

[It was my mistake. I forgot that there is a seven-minute light-travel time from the Sun to Blue Star, so the time you enter darkness should be around 9:07.]

[It was indeed my oversight. Sorry for making you count down for nothing.]

[Now, let's count down together once more!]}],