A strange word that had never been heard before came into his ears, and its mysterious and awkward pronunciation did not even resemble any language Tirian knew.
He looked down at the document in astonishment and looked at the "stone ball" picture painted with precise brushstrokes on it. After a long time, he raised his head: "Father? What did you just say? The 'moon'... is this thing.
Name? Do you recognize this mysterious sphere?!"
Duncan seemed not to have heard anything, and was still staring at the image of the moon on the paper that was particularly familiar to him. It wasn't until Tirian asked twice in a row that he seemed to suddenly wake up and looked at Tirian and said quickly: "What did you just say?"
You mentioned Lucretia, what’s going on?”
"Um...this is the information she sent from the Brilliant Star," Tirian said hesitantly. His father's strange reaction made him feel uneasy, but under the stressful gaze, he still said what he wanted.
He told the truth, "Some time ago, a mysterious luminous object fell from the border area, and it happened to be discovered by Lucy. She has been studying that thing for a while. This weird sphere is the 'core' of the falling object..."
Tirian recounted the ins and outs of the whole incident, including the current judgment of the scholars in Qingfeng Port on "the falling object came from Vision 001" and all their current research progress on "stone balls" - and what they encountered.
All the difficulties were explained.
During his narration, Duncan did not interrupt even once. The latter just listened quietly with an unusually serious silence that made Tirian feel pressured, as if he wanted to engrav every word deeply in his mind.
In my mind, I took every word apart, crushed it, and dissected it a thousand times.
After more than ten minutes, the dome office became quiet again.
Duncan was silent for a long time, and finally exhaled softly before the air gradually became solid: "Why didn't you mention this to me before?"
"...Lucy hopes to contact you after the research has made some progress, and more importantly...it was during the frost crisis."
After a while, Duncan felt his pounding heart slowly calm down. Listening to Tirian's words, he finally nodded slightly: "This thing is in Qingfeng Port now, isn't it?"
"Uh... yes," Tirian nodded quickly. He felt that his lips were a little dry. At the same time, he paid more and more attention to the changes in his father's expression. After hesitating several times, he couldn't help but ask again, "Do you know me?"
This mysterious sphere?”
"...It's called the moon, at least it looks like it, but the moon I know is not ten meters in diameter, let alone floating on the sea and towed back to the city-state by a ship with a steel cable," Duncan said slowly, "Maybe it's just
Some kind of man-made object that imitates the appearance, maybe just the ancient kingdom of Crete..."
He stopped mid-sentence. The huge sense of contradiction and the confusing conflict of ideas in his mind made it impossible for him to explain the matter with any kind of conjecture. In any case, one thing is without doubt, Tirian
The information picture in hand is indeed the "moon", regardless of whether the "stone ball" Lucretia picked up on the sea is the real "moon" or an "artificial one" made by the ancient kingdom of Crete to imitate the moon.
Flying objects", there is always a problem:
Why does the image of the "moon" that I am familiar with appear here? Why does it appear in this weird and twisted "different world"?
In the midst of his thoughts, he frowned and looked at Tirian: "You just said that the scholars of Qingfeng Port have determined that the mysterious luminous body fell off from the rune ring of Vision 001?"
"Yes, they have visually confirmed the shape of the gap on the sun rune ring," Tirian said, and then asked another question, "You said it is called 'moon'... Then what exactly is the moon?"
"The Moon..." Duncan hesitated for a moment, and suddenly realized that he did not have the right words to explain such a simple name to Tirian. After thinking for a long time, he could only say, "...it is a planet."
When Tirian heard this, the confusion on his face became more obvious: "What is a planet?"
Duncan fell silent.
After a long time, he heard Tirian's voice again: "Is this a taboo question? Am I asking too much?"
"No, this is not a taboo, it... should be the simplest question, but I can't explain it to you." Duncan shook his head gently and looked at the opposite side of the mirror with a complicated look, "Sorry, Tirian
, the answer to this question is simple, but getting you to understand it is the biggest difficulty.”
Tirian was a little startled.
He looked at his father with a complex and apologetic expression in the mirror, and suddenly felt that... this scene seemed to have happened a long, long time ago, in the depths of that distant and hazy memory, on a faded afternoon...
…
On that day, he and Lucretia stood on the deck of the Lost Home for the last time, asking his father, who was determined to cross the border, what was beyond the border.
At that time, my father's reaction was exactly the same as now.
It was like knowing some extremely simple truth but not knowing how to explain it to others.
At this moment, Duncan's voice suddenly came from the mirror, interrupting Tirian's sinking memories: "I have changed my plan. Next, the Homeless Ship will go to Breeze Port."
It was expected - when his father reacted like that to the sphere called "the moon", Tirian knew that things would develop like this.
"I understand, I will explain the situation to Lucy."
…
Nina looked worriedly at Duncan who was standing on the edge of the deck in the distance looking at the sea. Alice passed by her and was stopped by her.
"What's wrong with Uncle Duncan?" Nina lowered her voice, "He has been looking into the distance since just now. He seems to have a lot of things on his mind..."
"I don't know," Alice looked up and shook her head in confusion, "The captain came out of the captain's cabin like this. He said he wanted to think about something..."
"Thinking about something?" Nina blinked in confusion, "What happened?"
Alice recalled it carefully and nodded: "He was in contact with Tirian, but I don't know what they said."
"Mr. Tirian?" Nina was startled, and then she began to use her full imagination, and the expression on her face gradually became weird, "Is it because Mr. Tirian never gets married?"
Alice looked confused: "Ah? What does this mean?"
Nina thought for a while and began to analyze seriously: "I heard from Mr. Morris that he is often worried about Miss Heidi's marriage, and Mr. Tirian is older than Miss Heidi. The captain must affirm that
Worry more about this..."
Alice was stunned for a moment, and nodded in confusion: "So that's it!"
As soon as she finished speaking, Duncan's voice suddenly came from beside the two of them: "You're almost done - Nina, you can't tease Alice like this, she will take it seriously."
"Wow!" Nina was startled. Then she noticed that Uncle Duncan had come to her side at some point. She quickly shrank her neck and stood up obediently.
Alice scratched her hair in confusion and looked at Nina doubtfully: "Were you teasing me just now?"
"...Anyway, don't take what she just said seriously," Duncan said helplessly, and then his eyes fell on Nina, "Don't worry, nothing happened."
Nina stuck out her tongue, but then she still looked worried: "Uncle Duncan, what happened? You rarely feel so worried..."
Duncan didn't know how to answer the girl's question for a moment. What came to mind was still the picture he had seen in Tirian's office and the picture Lucretia "picked up" at sea.
That weird thing.
Moon……
He raised his hand and pinched his swollen eyebrows, but the next second, he suddenly stopped and turned to look at the girl in front of him steadily.
Nina stood there obediently, with a slightly worried expression on her face.
Duncan looked at her, at this stagnant, gentle, and well-behaved little prominence. Under the body of a human girl, he seemed to be able to directly see the bright arc left behind after the star shattered.
To the dazzling plasma heat flow that once spewed out in the universe...
The little prominence tilted its head, stretched out its hand forward, and stroked Duncan's frown, as if wanting to smooth those deep ravines: "Uncle Duncan, are you really okay?"
Duncan didn't speak, but gently grabbed Nina's hand, put it against his forehead, and then breathed out slowly.
He understood something again. Behind the heavy curtain, the world once again showed him a corner of the "truth", but he had no one to share this corner of the truth.
"Don't worry, Nina, everything is fine," he said slowly, gradually regaining his usual appearance, "I have encountered some problems, but it is difficult to explain to you at the moment. Wait until I solve the problems.
Well, I’ll tell you carefully.”
Nina listened blankly, then nodded vigorously: "Yes."
"Very good, let's go back to the cabin first. It's time for us to set off - but before we set off, we have to take a detour to the base of the Sea Mist Fleet. We have to help Tirian carry something..."
…
Frost City, inside the archon's domed office.
With a slight buzzing sound, the crystal ball gradually lit up, and the figure of the "Sea Witch" gradually became clear in the dim light.
"Brother?" Lucretia looked here curiously, "Have you finished your work over there? Is it going well?"
"If you're talking about the inauguration ceremony, it ended in the morning and everything went well," Tirian said, his expression gradually becoming complicated, "But I'm looking for you for something else."
Lucretia frowned: "Something else?"
"Two things," Tirian hesitated for a moment, then said while considering, "The first thing is, I have prepared the spiritual world lens you want. Through the legal channels of the city-state, I have obtained the best quality lens for you.
, the most precise lens device.”
In the crystal ball, Lucretia's face instantly showed a happy look: "Ah, that's great! Brother, you are quite reliable! What about the second thing?"
"...The second thing is, who do you think is going to give you the lens?"
"Is it your transport ship?"
Tirian remained silent.
Lucretia's expression finally changed: "...is it your transport ship?"