[Volume 2] Chapter 9: Starfarer

(Note: Sainquartz is genderless, and their third-person pronoun is 'they'.)

The newly arrived Sainquartz looked around and spotted the other version of themself lying on the couch. Surprise immediately crossed their face.

“Who are you?”

“I’m you,” said the Sainquartz on the couch. “I traveled back from three days in the future to make up for being late.”

Seven colors of light lit up on both their foreheads, flowing and shifting, with chaos seemingly restrained deep within. It appeared to be some kind of identification mark.

“That’s right. It’s me.”

“That’s right. It’s me.”

The two versions of Sainquartz spoke in unison.

The newcomer nodded. “Then I’ll be going.”

With that, they transformed into a rainbow streak and flew away again.

The brief interruption did nothing to derail the meeting. Everyone interested in joining Chen-Awelon’s mission continued discussing how they should proceed.

Bearmont clearly had plenty of operational experience. He laid out his thoughts with confidence.

“From my past experience, we should wait until Battle Through the Heavens has finished serialization before entering its Imaginary World. A world formed through the resonance of its audience’s collective imagination is at its most complete once the original work has ended.

“Entering an incomplete Imaginary World is extremely dangerous. If the fictional world collapses, any travelers inside it will die as well.

“I suggest everyone make a backup of their consciousness or soul. That way, if anything goes wrong, we’ll still have a contingency.”

Moonbell, the little girl floating in midair, smiled. “That won’t be necessary. One of my recent research projects happens to involve Imaginary Worlds. I’ve developed a new method of entry that doesn’t require converting your consciousness into an incorporeal state. If the Imaginary World collapses, you can simply exit.”

“I’ll be counting on all of you!” Chen-Awelon, who was hanging from the ceiling, cupped his hands toward everyone. By now, even he had stopped trying to put on airs.

After all, he had never entered an Imaginary World before. He was better off listening to those who actually knew what they were doing.

“Gargle, gargle... gargle, gargle...”

A distinctly untimely gargling sound interrupted the discussion.

In the nearby holographic projection, Su-Jin had gotten out of bed and was brushing her teeth at the sink.

She wore SpongeBob pajamas, her hair was a mess, and she looked thoroughly disheveled. Yet she calmly went about her morning routine in full view of everyone.

“Su-Jin, you still need to brush your teeth?” Moonbell asked in surprise.

With water still in her mouth, Su-Jin mumbled, “Doing the things humans do helps me feel human.”

Finn knew Su-Jin wasn’t actually human. She belonged to the rare race known as the Starfarers.

The Starfarers were a legendary race born naturally in tune with space and time. They were natural spacetime travelers.

Whenever a Starfarer child was born, the elders threw the infant into a black hole, then went to the corresponding white hole on the other side to wait.

If the baby emerged safely, it proved they were worth raising.

As for those deemed unworthy of being raised, they simply died inside the black hole.

Su-Jin was a real oddball. After she was thrown into a black hole at birth, she failed to emerge from the white hole.

Her people assumed she was dead.

No one expected seven-year-old Su-Jin to crawl out of the white hole seven years later.

It turned out she had survived all that time by devouring fragments of spacetime and gravitational turbulence. Not only had she avoided death, she had actually grown up inside the black hole.

But those lonely years left deep scars on her. She came to despise the Starfarers’ brutal tradition, so she abandoned her people and took up driving for a living across the Endless Worlds.

During her long journeys through time, Su-Jin befriended many humans.

She grew to love humanity. From then on, she considered herself human, always maintained a human form, and longed to truly become one.

In the holographic projection, Su-Jin finished washing up. She leaped onto the couch, turned on the huge television, tore open a bag of chips, and started watching the seventh season of Dorohedoro.

Finn recognized the anime and called out, “Hey! Dorohedoro already has a seventh season? Send me a copy!”

“Sure.”

A translucent touchscreen appeared in Su-Jin’s hand. She logged into the Myriad Realms Network and sent the files to Finn.

“At your age, you’re still watching cartoons?” Bearmont said, shaking his head.

He walked over to Su-Jin’s holographic projection, only to find himself watching along before he knew it.

Chen-Awelon, still hanging from the ceiling, grew both angry and flustered. He wriggled around and clapped his hands hard to get their attention.

“Su-Jin! If you don’t want to attend the meeting, turn off your remote projection! Stop disrupting the meeting!”

“Hmph!” Su-Jin pouted and turned the television around so its screen was no longer visible in the holographic projection.

“Send me a copy later too!” Bearmont shouted before returning to the discussion.

Bearmont, Finn, and Chen-Awelon had all transmigrated from Earth. In that sense, they were practically compatriots, and all three knew Battle Through the Heavens.

Finn took out his phone and looked up the relevant information. “Battle Through the Heavens ended on July 20, 2011. We just need to enter its Imaginary World sometime after that.”

Bearmont nodded.

“Battle Through the Heavens may be a landmark web novel, but its popularity would still decline over time.

“We need to choose the moment when its popularity was at its peak. That’s when the Imaginary World formed by its readers’ collective imagination would be at its strongest and most stable.”

Chen-Awelon thought for a moment. “How do we determine the exact moment its popularity peaked?”

Moonbell rested her chin on one tiny hand. “Give me some time to research it. I can build a popularity analyzer.”

“There’s no need to go to all that trouble,” Finn said confidently. “We can just check China’s Baidu Index.”

“You mean the Baidu search engine?” Chen-Awelon asked in realization.

The Baidu Index allowed users to see how often a given keyword was searched, how its search volume rose and fell over time, changes in related news and public discussion, and even the demographics and geographic distribution of the people searching for it.

Put simply, the more popular something was, the more people tended to search for it on Baidu. Broadly speaking, popularity and the Baidu Index had a positive correlation.

“I don’t want to use that thing.” Bearmont looked disgusted. “Back when I was still in the special forces, I already knew about patients dying because of Baidu’s paid placement system for medical search results. Their ads have conned countless people too. That company is a cancer.”

“We don’t have much choice. We’re only using the Baidu Index, so we’ll just have to make do.”

Finn pulled out his ThinkPad workstation laptop, connected to the Myriad Realms Network, and jumped back to Earth’s internet in 2011.

“Found it. After Battle Through the Heavens ended on July 20, 2011, its Baidu Search Index remained at its highest from July 20 to July 24. After that, its popularity fell off a cliff.”

“Good!” Chen-Awelon made the decision. “Then we’ll travel to July 20, 2011, and enter the Imaginary World from there.”

“What do we do once we’re inside?” Bearmont asked.

Chen-Awelon’s expression turned grave.

“That’s the most important question, and it’s where we’ll need everyone’s ideas. Xiao Yan, the protagonist of Battle Through the Heavens, is a Child of Fortune protected by the entire Imaginary World!

“We need to engineer an event—a plausible, logically consistent event—that forcibly disrupts Xiao Yan’s fortune.

“Only something unexpected, yet perfectly reasonable in hindsight, can overturn the fortune protection the Imaginary World grants him.

“Once that happens, I can capture Xiao Yan for research. Then, using the knowledge contained in the Flex God’s Legacy, I’ll analyze the laws governing Children of Fortune.”