Chapter 12 Red Wanderer

“Don’t say random things. After the bronze coffin flipped, its lid was no longer stable. Just now, the lid probably just moved a bit,” Lin Jia very calmly reasoned. Her reasoning pacified everyone’s minds.

Nine t.i.tanic dragon corpses, each a hundred meters long with thick scales; black light sparkled over them as they lay not far from the crowd. The bronze coffin was twenty meters long. It pressed down on the five-colored altar, causing people to feel extremely nervous.

“I think we should still all go together to scout that light ring.”

“I agree. We should all move together.”

Quite a few people suggested this. Obviously, they were afraid. n.o.body wanted to stay here any longer than they had to, and in the end, they all agreed to all move together to explore the light source.

The entire ground was russet-colored soil and sand. The huge boulders were merely sporadic and random, leaving the rest of the scenery vast and desolate.

When they walked past that huge boulder they had used to gaze into the distance, Liu Yunzhi suddenly cried out in amazement, “There are traces of words on this boulder!”

When they walked around to the side of the boulder that faced the light, they could see two distinct and immense ancient characters carved into the stone. Each ancient character was five to six meters tall, written with bold and vigorous strokes. They were imposingly majestic, like two intense dragons circling each other.

It was much more complicated than the calligraphic style of the modern era. It should have been carved in ancient times, and existed for countless years until now. Everyone gathered around that side of the boulder to stare at the bold, ancient characters. Some people furrowed their brows, as it was difficult to figure out the words’ meaning.

“This appears to be bell-cauldron script[i]. The first word should be ‘red.’” Zhou Yi recognized the first word. Knitting his brows, he muttered to himself: “We actually ended up in this kind of place….”

“It really is bell-cauldron script. These two words should be ‘red wanderer,’” announced Ye Fan when he identified the two words. He appeared to be calm, but the two words meanings shook him to his very core.

Red Wanderer... how could the words be Red Wanderer? He simply could not believe it all. He couldn’t help staring up at the sky. But although it was getting dark, the stars still hadn’t appeared.

“Red Wanderer… what does it mean?”

“Is Red Wanderer a place?”

Many people didn’t understand just what the meaning of the two words was.

When Zhou Yi heard the two words “Red Wanderer’, his heart was as shocked as Ye Fan. His face turned pale, saying, “A fiery twinkling light, traveling in confusion. We really… have no way of getting back.”[ii]

“What do you mean? Where are we?” Everyone was completely bewildered.

When w.a.n.g Ziwen heard the words ’Red Wanderer’, he also understood its meaning. Explaining it to everyone, he said, “I’m afraid this place might not be Earth. Twinkling like fire; an ominous sign. In ancient times, they called Mars the ‘Red Wanderer’.”

Countless years ago, the ancients noticed Mars’ red color. It seemed to change frequently, so it was called a red twinkling light. Also, it often switched between traveling east-to-west to west-to-east. This pattern seemed extremely complex, puzzling people. ‘A fiery twinkling light, traveling in confusion.’ In ancient times, they termed it the Red Wanderer.

The kings and emperors of ancient times were afraid of superst.i.tion. They viewed Mars as an evil omen. It was such a terrible omen that each time Mars appeared, the prime minister would need to be removed from office, or they believed the emperor would die. Modern people would naturally not continue to believe these old superst.i.tions.

“Oh my G.o.d!” Beside Li Xiaoman, Kade gasped when he understood the meaning behind "Red Wanderer." He grabbed handfuls of the russet ground and smashed rocks together, observing the geology as he repeated himself over and over again.

“How is this possible?” Most of them were flabbergasted. There was no way for them to believe in the reality before them.

“The russet ground beneath our feet is… Mars? We aren’t on Earth anymore?!” Anyone who heard such an absurd thing would be lost in a daydream. There was just no way to understand this.

Half an hour ago, they were still on Mt. Tai. Half an hour later, they were standing on the ancient planet Mars. This had to be a fantasy!

Lin Jia’s figure was slender and enchanting. Her pretty cheeks had lost their color, and her red phoenix eyes glanced at everyone. “Right now we only have seen this side of the boulder. We can’t confirm that we really are on the planet Mars.”

“But, I’ve heard that on Mars, the surface is all red soil and sand because it is so dry. Isn’t that exactly what’s in front of us?” a female cla.s.smate asked in a sobbing tone.

As early as the last century, in the 1960’s, humanity had already sent out s.p.a.ce probes to explore Mars. In 1997, the Pathfinder capsule successfully touched down onto the surface of Mars.

After its approximately ten years worth of probing, they had obtained a huge amount of data and humanity was already no longer ignorant about Mars.

“Mars’ soil contains a great deal of oxidized iron. Due to long exposure to UV, the whole planet appears to be rusted. It’s completely consistent with what we’re seeing right in front of us. Don’t tell me… we really have left Earth and are now on a different planet?” A male cla.s.smate was tightly clenching his fists, to the point where his joints were already turning blue.

“If we really were on Mars, we wouldn’t be able to survive. There’s not enough oxygen and the temperature isn’t suitable…,” said Li Xiaoman. Even though her complexion was pale, once she said this, quite a few people felt a trace of hope rise within them.

During this whole course of events, Ye Fan, Pang Bo, and some of the others had always remained calm. They knew that they had already left Earth, so what worse could happen? No matter what happened now or later, it couldn’t be worse.

Everyone stopped in front of this huge boulder for quite a long time before continuing on towards the feeble light source. It didn’t appear far, but even after walking five hundred meters it was still quite a distance away, maybe requiring another five hundred meters.

Everyone was very nervous, so it was very rare for anyone to say anything. The mood was very oppressed. Apparently, they were afraid that the last bit of hope in front of them would also be shattered.

Bang!

Pang Bo randomly kicked a rock beneath his feet. It flew into the air with a shower of dust, and at this moment, he became shocked; that rock he kicked out was actually a tile.

“It’s a tile!” When he picked up that broken-in-half tile, he immediately confirmed this was an artificially created tile.

A crowd of people immediately surrounded him, studying the broken tile. Quite a few people became excited.

“Since there’s a tile, there must be buildings. There must be other buildings on this vast land, not just a five-colored altar.”

“We’ll be saved!”

“We’ll definitely be able to escape!”

The pessimistic mood lessened and a joyous mood replaced it. Everyone had found hope for their survival.    

At this moment, the sky had already darkened, and a vast mult.i.tude of stars had appeared.

Ye Fan looked up at the starry sky, and discovered a vague disk suspended on the horizon. This disk was only half the size of the Earth’s moon, meaning this place was definitely not Earth. Furthermore, in the other direction was a fist-sized bright star, much brighter than other stars, but still a bit dimmer than the moon on the other side. It was too bright to be called a star, but too dark to be called a moon.

Zhou Yi, w.a.n.g Ziwen, and Liu Yunzhi were all standing not far from him. Noticing Ye Fan’s actions, they also couldn’t help but look up at the sky. When they saw the two graceful moons hanging in the sky, they immediately changed color.

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[i] Bell-cauldron script, a kind of Chinese character used in metal inscriptions.

[ii]荧惑 (ying huo): ying means twinkling, while huo means puzzled. I combined this meaning with the nickname for Mars, the red planet, in order to come up with Red Wanderer.

Translator notes: The name 荧惑 for Mars came from how it seemed to twinkle brighter than other stars in the night sky, but its...o...b..t was different, and it seemed to wander through the sky randomly (as they didn’t know it was a planet, so its...o...b..t confused them). Also, the word "planet" originates from the Greek word for "wanderer." This is because planets seemed to wander throughout the sky instead of being more fixed in the sky like stars. So that’s how I just made up "Red Wanderer."

Mars has two moons on it, Phobos and Deimos. From Mars, Phobos is 1/3 the size of Earth’s moon. Deimos appears as a bright star/planet; at its brightest, it is about as bright as Venus from Earth.