52: Chapter 52 The Darkest Hour

In the livestream room, Sima Bei looked at that tweet, sweat continuously sliding down from his temples, dripping along his jawline onto the standing collar of his frog-buttoned shirt.

"Everyone," he coughed, his voice half as loud as before, "don't panic yet. This might also be a smokescreen. It's very likely there won't be anything after seven minutes. This excuse of light-speed delay is very low-tech. Everyone, don't panic, I'll wait with you..."

Before he could finish, the light in the entire livestream room suddenly dimmed.

Sima Bei looked out the window. He saw that although the sun was still there, it was no longer that blinding, piercing white disc that was impossible to look at directly.

It was turning into a dull copper-red color at a speed visible to the naked eye. The corona seeped out from the edges of the sun like a ring of pale fire, slowly pulsing in the dark sky devoid of light pollution, displaying the pale tendrils only seen during a total solar eclipse.

At this moment, the sky looked as if someone had overturned a bottle of jet-black ink at the zenith. Stars suddenly lit up densely, and the band of light from the entire Milky Way unfolded across the sky.

The electronic screens in Times Square appeared blinding in the darkness. Only blue screens remained, reflecting tens of thousands of faces below, all dyed blue.

No one screamed, no one ran, no one spoke.

Hundreds of millions of people around the world stood in place for three seconds simultaneously, until a cold wind blew through, and everyone woke up as if from a dream.

A middle-aged man took off his glasses and wiped them repeatedly with the hem of his shirt. A young woman held her phone up to the sky, her hands shaking so much that the image was nothing but a blur.

A child asked his mother if the sun was broken. His mother opened her mouth but couldn't say anything, then she squatted down and hugged him.

Sakura Country, Tanegashima Space Center. An observatory observer stared at the data stream from the spectroscope, fingers tapping rapidly on the keyboard. The data showed that radiation in all wavebands had almost dropped to zero.

He stopped and said into the microphone, "The sun is still there; it just can't be seen."

The NASA chief astronomer's coffee cup slipped from his hand, shattering into three pieces on the console floor.

He stared at the real-time imaging screen, repeatedly muttering, "Type II civilization, Type II civilization!"

International Space Station. The commander floated in the Cupola, face pressed against the glass, watching half of the planet below being swallowed by darkness.

He pressed the communication button: "Houston, I can't see the sun anymore, but I can see the lights on Blue Star turning on. The cities are glowing; the entire Western Hemisphere is glowing."

"I've never seen those lights during the day before. Now they've connected into a single expanse, as if stars have grown on the ground as well."

——————

What can you do in three minutes? Just enough time to steep a bowl of instant noodles or for a cigarette to burn out.

The time was too short—so short that before the countdown ended, humanity hadn't even had time to complete the psychological transition from fear to despair before the sun returned.

Nothing makes one want to cry more than a beam of light leaking through a gap in the curtains.

The first to light up were the solar panels of the International Space Station. The moment the power output curve jumped from zero back to its normal value, the Cupola commander didn't report data; he only said, "Good morning, Blue Star."

In Times Square, when the sunlight hit the electronic screens again, everyone looked up in unison at that star that had changed from dull back to blinding.

Letting the sunlight crash directly into their pupils with the naked eye, they felt that tear-inducing burning pain.

Some began to scream, some began to cry, and everyone was shouting: "The sun!"

At the Shibuya Station crossing, several high school girls hugged each other and jumped in place, screaming as they jumped.

The green light turned on, but no one moved. Everyone stood on the sidewalk, and cars stayed in place. A taxi driver stuck his arm out the window and gave a thumbs-up to the sky.

Mount Corcovado in Rio. A barefoot boy pointed at the sun and shouted to his sister, "It's back! The sun is back!"

His sister didn't speak; she picked up her brother and let him ride on her shoulders. The boy spread his arms and spun in the sunlight like a bird released from a cage.

Vatican City, Rome, St. Peter's Square.

The Pope stood at his study window, watching the gathered crowd below kneel in the sunlight.

His lips were quivering. An assistant later told the media that the Pope was reciting Genesis 1:3: "God said, 'Let there be light!'"

At the United Nations Building, Maya's hand let go of the curtain fabric, and the curtain slid back into place with a clatter.

She looked out the window. People were running back one by one, picking up the protest signs from the ground, afraid to leave even a shred of evidence.

Chen Mu glanced over, still paying attention to Sima Bei's livestream room on his phone screen.

The moment the sun brightened again, the bullet chat went eerily silent for about half a second, and then, it erupted like a volcano.

[Call him 'Daddy']

[Didn't you say you'd call him 'Daddy' if the sun went out?]

[Do it now]

[Family, stop sending gifts, spam 'Daddy']

[Does Blue Star still need to panic, Teacher Sima?]

[Can I get a refund for the same-model folding fan?]

[Blue Star doesn't need to panic, but you have to call him 'Daddy']

[Can I get my coins back?]

[Can my Rockets be refunded?]

[Strongly demand the platform add a refund feature]

[Teacher Sima, say something! Why aren't you holding your purple clay teapot anymore?]

[He's more honest when he's not talking]

[Suggest renaming the livestream to "Blue Star: Don't Panic at 9:00, Panic at 9:07."]

[LMAO, the sun really did disappear at 9:07]

[The internet's number one face-slapped streamer]

[Quit the internet!][Quit the internet!][Quit the internet!]

The bullet chat began to spam "Quit the internet" in perfect unison, overwhelming the screen.

Occasionally, one or two messages like [Don't quit yet! Make him finish calling him 'Daddy' first!] popped up, but they were quickly drowned out by the screen full of [Quit the internet].

Sima Bei looked at the screen full of "Quit the internet" and suddenly snapped his fan open with a "clack."

"Everyone, don't panic, don't panic yet. I said I'd call him 'Daddy' if the sun was extinguished at 9:00 sharp, right? Check the comments; I said 9:00 sharp."

"And the result? Did the sun go out at 9:00 sharp? No. It didn't go out until 9:07. Strictly speaking, I wasn't wrong. It indeed didn't go out at 9:00 sharp. Does anyone want to split hairs?"

The bullet chat became heated again.

[????]

[Playing word games with me, are you?]

[Haha, this rhetoric seems pretty effective]

[From now on, rename your show "Sima Bei's Screen Recording Treasure Hunt"]

[This wave is a semantic victory]

[Suggest a career change to lawyer]

[The audience isn't here to fight a lawsuit with you]

[Truly no sense of responsibility]

Sima Bei picked up his purple clay teapot and gave it a shake: "Fine, even if the sun was obscured at 9:07, what does that prove? Think about it, everyone, it was only three minutes at most."

"What can three minutes prove? There are already analyses online saying it might just be a large-scale solar eclipse projection, an illusion! Still an illusion! I wasn't wrong."

"The same old trick repeated. Want me to quit the internet? Everyone, I've been through storms and bullets since I debuted; what do these small ripples on the internet matter..."

He wanted to say a few more words to regain his momentum and subconsciously glanced at the bullet chat. But at that moment, the bullet chat uniformly changed to the same sentence.

[The International Observatory has issued an announcement]

[Teacher Sima, look at the announcement before being stubborn]

[The observatories just held a joint press conference]

[Signed by over a dozen observatories]

[Quick, look at it, right now]