Mu Yiran looked at Fang Fei with a very serious expression. They had agreed to find a suitable time to try on the witch's mask, but who knew this girl would suddenly…
Fang Fei looked even more serious than Mu Yiran with the mask on: "I've already read that book. The witch who wears the mask is outside the cycle of reincarnation, so her lifespan is often very long. —Apart from that, there are no other dangers."
Wei Dong: Is that the key point? Is a long lifespan a danger…?
"What did you see?" Zhu Haowen asked.
Fang Fei slowly looked around: "It's very fantastical. It's like you can see a very distant world through this room, like a wide-angle lens." Fang Fei paused slightly, seemingly observing for a while, before speaking again, "It can even adjust its perspective, it's amazing.
"The Lamp Journey is a cluster of houses with lights on. In front of it is a bright world, that should be the Light Journey; behind the Lamp Journey is a cluster of dark stone houses with pale green, pale blue, and pale white light spots, I think that should be the Fluorite Journey; beyond the Fluorite Journey, it's completely dark, illuminated by snow, that's probably the Cold Night Journey... Beyond the Cold Night Journey is the Light Journey again.
"It's a circle, the four Journeys form a circle," Fang Fei raised her head and slowly moved her feet, "This circle is in the middle of the Earth Egg, a bit like the equator on Earth. The Reverse Journey's houses are built on the inner circle, just like you guessed before, the Reverse Journey is inside the Earth Egg."
"Can you tell me about the Earth Egg?" Shao Ling asked.
"It's like a glass egg. I can only see the inside, but not the outside," Fang Fei paused for a long time. "I still can't see it, but I can see the exit. It's right next to the Cold Night Journey. There's an exit leading outside, like the mouthpiece of a xun (a type of ancient Chinese wind instrument)."
Wei Dong: "I remember someone saying when we first arrived that the suffocating feeling was like swimming in a preserved egg."
Luo Jin: "Brother Dong, you said it."
Wei Dong: "Me?"
Luo Jin: "I said it was like asphalt, you said it was like a preserved egg. It seems you described it more accurately." Wei Dong
: "…"
"So, if we want to get out, we have to go to the Cold Night Journey because it's closest to the exit," Shao Ling said. "The signature is outside the Earth Egg. Getting out of the Earth Egg is our only option."
"There's a problem," Zhu Haowen said. "How far is the exit from the signature? From the image, the signature is on the left side of the circle, but the exit isn't necessarily right next to it. If we look in the wrong place, we might end up going in the wrong direction. The egg-shaped structure is huge; searching outside it will likely make things more difficult."
This was indeed a problem. Wei Dong asked Fang Fei, "Can you look through the egg-shaped structure and see roughly where the signature is? How far is it from the exit?"
Fang Fei, wearing a mask, shrugged. "I can't see it. I can't even sense the light."
Wei Dong inexplicably wanted to draw facial features on the white mask…
Mu Yiran, however, took out paper and pen and drew a large circle on it: "I'll draw a simple sketch, a rough reconstruction of the original—the signature is in the upper left corner, the light source is in the upper right corner, that's everything outside the circle. Perhaps I…" " We can deduce something from this."
Luo Yiran: "You can deduce something from this? I'm begging you, brother-in-law, to solve this..."
Mu Yiran drew an arrow pointing towards the circle at the location of the light source: "The light comes in from here, and we should also come in from here. Our previous world and the time we were in should have been filled with light, and this painting tells us that our homeland is the Lightbringer."
Mu Yiran drew a large cross on the circle, dividing it into four parts: "Assuming the upper right corner is the Lightbringer, according to what Fang Fei just said, adjacent to it are the Cold Nightbringer and the Lampbringer, and opposite it is the Fluoritebringer," Mu Yiran wrote the words 'Fluoritebringer' on the part diagonally opposite the Lightbringer, "Currently, we can only determine the location of these two brigades. The location of the other two brigades is difficult to define. The only information we can refer to is probably the content of the painting within the circle."
"However, this painting is rather abstract. It only depicts a house in the center of the circle, but in reality, our four brigades are built on the inner circle," Qin Ci felt at a loss for analysis. "Of course, the world inside the painting cannot completely follow the content of the picture. Currently, there is only a house and its shadow in the center of the circle…"
"I think the shadows are very useful!" Luo Yu, who had been thinking hard with everyone for a long time, finally spoke up. "If they weren't useful, the painter wouldn't have specifically painted shadows! My brother-in-law just said that the angle between the light bulb and the shadow was wrong, which caused the time confusion, but I think the shadows must have other uses. I think the shadows are a kind of darkness, so the lower right corner of the circle should be the Cold Night Journey!"
Everyone was stunned by his words. Wei Dong said, "Luo Bo, you're really something."
Mu Yiran frowned, but hesitated to write the words Cold Night Journey in the lower right corner. "If that's the case, then the exit here is very far from the signature. It can be said to be the farthest distance in this painting world. You know, once we leave the exit, we have to measure the distance from the spherical surface of the earth egg—we don't know how many days it will take to reach the Cold Night Journey yet. If we add the time to find the signature outside the earth egg, five days is far from enough—moreover, in our timeline, there are only 12 hours in a day."
Zhu Haowen walked to the table and picked up the pen on the paper. "I have an idea. The shadows here are not necessarily black."
"What color is the shadow if it's not black? Isn't the shadow in this picture black?" Luo Yi said.
"The house in the center of the circle is abstract, so the shadow should also be abstract, merely expressing people's intuitive understanding of shadows. But the world we live in is not the same as the real world." Zhu Haowen pointed to the light bulb, then to the circle. "Fang Fei just said that this earth egg is like glass. When we first entered the painting, we also felt that indescribable sense of medium. So I think the material of the earth egg should be glass or a transparent material similar to glass. If so, then the shadow produced by glass will not be black."
Everyone listened attentively, and Mu Yiran's eyes brightened, revealing a rare look of anticipation.
Zhu Haowen drew a straight line on the light source, as if to draw the effect of a beam of light: "If that's the case, it solves why the effect of light and shadow is so strange. We all know that glass or water will produce a refraction effect, and the material of the earth egg is even more special, which may produce a very special refraction effect. This also explains why there is such a strange angle between the shadow and the beam of light."
"You mean to say that the shadow here is not actually a shadow?" Qin Ci asked.
"Yes, that's not a shadow, but refracted light," Zhu Haowen used an arrow to indicate the direction of light refraction. "The light source comes in from the Light Brigade and is refracted out from the lower right corner. Although the refracted light is not as intense as the light from the source, it still has a certain effect—that's why our Light Brigade only has four hours of brief daylight.
We all know that the Fluorite Brigade and the Cold Night Brigade have no daylight at all, and the faint light that the Light Brigade receives cannot be without origin. If it comes from refracted light, then this makes perfect sense."
Everyone listened in astonishment, secretly admiring Zhu Haowen's analysis.
Mu Yiran nodded: "Very reasonable. If that's the case, the lower right corner is where we are now in the Light Brigade, and the upper left corner is the Cold Night Brigade."
"The exit of the Earth Egg is also located in the Cold Night Brigade. If the signature is also there, things will go much more smoothly!" Qin Ci's voice was very excited.
Luo Yi was confused, but nodded happily, "That means once we get to the Cold Night Journey, we'll be able to find the autographs soon!"
Mu Yiran looked at Fang Fei, "How do we get to the Cold Night Journey? Whether from the inner or outer circle, the Light Journey and the Cold Night Journey are quite far apart. Do we need to go through the Light Journey to get there?"
"My vision was at its limit just now, and my eyes are a bit tired. I can't see very clearly now," Fang Fei was saying when the door suddenly opened, and the other members returned with lunch.
Several new members were startled to see Fang Fei wearing a mask, but Ke Xun remained calm and even joked, "I thought you were wearing a face mask."
Fang Fei smiled slightly, her masked face turning towards Du Lingyu standing to the side. Her shoulders stiffened slightly, but because the mask covered her expression, it didn't attract much attention.
Ke Xun turned on the room light: "I knew you guys must have come up with another important result, but I want everyone to see this first."
Ke Xun cleared a corner of the table, placed a large basin full of water on it, and then went to get his bag: "Yiran, bring out your duck too."
Everyone: "..."
Two identical wooden ducks were placed on the table. Ke Xun turned the two ducks upside down: "There's something on their bellies! The bellies of these two ducks can be connected."
Everyone: ...
Then Ke Xun placed the two ducks belly to belly together and twisted them around for a long time like winding up a toy.
Everyone: ...
"Everyone, watch carefully," Ke Xun placed one of the ducks head up in the basin, while the other duck sank to the bottom of the water like a reflection.
Everyone found it unbelievable. Wei Dong even asked, "Is the duck down there made of a different material?"
"It's made of the same material. Keep watching," Ke Xun gently tapped the head of one of the ducks on the water's surface. That duck stretched its neck, touched the water's surface, and flipped to the bottom, while the other duck at the bottom floated up and appeared above the water.
"Wait... Brother, you've been demonstrating this for so long, what are you trying to say?" Luo Yi couldn't help but ask.
"Actually, I don't understand what's going on either."
Everyone: ...
Ke Xun quickly added, "But I don't think these two ducks would appear in our package for no reason. This must be a clue left for us by another 'us.' Why choose these two ducks? Because it just so happens that Yi Ran and I both had a wooden duck toy like this when we were little. It's because it aligns with the original owner's memories that these two ducks weren't blocked by the drawing.
"But why were these two wooden ducks left behind, and why do they have such a strange way of playing with them... I think there's definitely more to this than meets the eye." "
Shao Ling said from the side, "Does this represent a kind of reincarnation? Or a change of identity?" "
The wooden duck toy's reminder is very important; this is the point where the two timelines intersect." Mu Yiran's expression was slightly excited; he rarely showed such an expression.