This red light screen was not far from Xiao Yu. After asurents, he found that it was about 10 billion kiloters away from the star. Moreover, Xiao Yu discovered that the light screen was continuously shrinking inward at a speed of about 1.6 kiloters per second.
“If I calculate based on this shrinking speed, it will indeed reach its minimum point in around 200 years. But I can’t forget, this is a red giant… its diater alone is 60 million kiloters. With my current ship performance, I can at most survive 20 million kiloters away from it. Any closer, and I might not be able to co back. So, recalculating, that gives about… 196 years.”
“I should check out the condition of this barrier first.” Xiao Yu thought, maneuvering the massive fleet forward slowly.
After traveling to a distance of 2 billion kiloters from the star, the Hebei led the main fleet to a halt. A City-Class ship took on the role of flagship for the exploration fleet, leading several hundred small ships further ahead.
The scenery was quite strange. Xiao Yu knew the shape of the barrier; it was elliptical, wrapping around the entire star system. However, because of its sheer size, its curvature was imperceptible on smaller scales. In other words, viewed from any single point, it appeared flat.
It was like looking up at the sky, except the entire sky had turned a faint red. Behind this red veil, no stars were visible.
Inside this enormous sphere, which had a radius of 10 billion kiloters, there was only Xiao Yu’s fleet and the massive central star. Apart from these, there was nothing else.
This was an interstellar prison, and Xiao Yu had beco its sole prisoner.
The Langfang carried many precision instrunts as it moved forward. It was going to begin a survey of the barrier to gather technical paraters for Xiao Yu’s future research.
After a day of travel, the Langfang arrived at its target. At that mont, the Langfang was less than 300 kiloters away from the barrier, and it was following the barrier, moving inward at a speed of 1.6 kiloters per second. In this way, the Langfang maintained a relatively stationary position relative to the barrier and could conduct stable research.
Several Village-Class ships slowly approached the barrier.
Xiao Yu first attempted a penetration test. One of the Village-Class ships directly crashed into the light screen. As the ship hit the barrier, the Langfang kept a close watch on it. Nurous precision optical instrunts were recording.
But to Xiao Yu’s amazent, sothing unexpected happened.
He saw that when the ship touched the barrier, its bow disappeared instantly. However, although the ship vanished, communication between Xiao Yu and the Village-Class ship remained intact.
Xiao Yu imdiately ordered the Village-Class ship to send out a broadcast, allowing nearby satellites to locate it. Xiao Yu was shocked to discover that the ship, without anyone noticing, had gone from being 10 billion kiloters away from the central star to only 1 billion kiloters away.
In an instant, the ship had crossed nearly 9 billion kiloters.
“Does this an that any matter that touches the barrier gets transported to another location?” Xiao Yu pondered as he maneuvered another Village-Class ship to conduct the experint again.
The result was the sa: this second Village-Class ship disappeared without warning upon contact with the barrier. Using the satellite positioning system, Xiao Yu found it again, this ti 1.03 billion kiloters from the central star.
“Is the teleportation random?” Xiao Yu speculated as he continued experinting.
The result was the sa. Any ship that ca into contact with the barrier was randomly transported to a point between 1 billion and 1.1 billion kiloters from the central star.
“It seems what Taihao told was true,” Xiao Yu thought. “This barrier really is impassable.”
After the ship contact tests, the next step was a check in the visible light spectrum.
The barrier emitted a faint red glow. Xiao Yu attempted to extract so specific information about the barrier from this light.
However, the spectroter showed that the red light was identical to the light from the central star.
At extrely high energy levels, such as on the surface of a star, different elents emit different light. Through spectral analysis, it is possible to determine a star’s elental composition.
For example, during Earth’s era, humans were able to analyze the elental composition of distant celestial bodies billions of light-years away using spectral analysis.
Xiao Yu had long since conducted spectral analysis of the central star and had full data on it. Yet the light from this barrier matched the star’s light exactly, which surprised Xiao Yu.
“Perhaps… the light emitted by the barrier is actually just reflected light from the central star?” Xiao Yu speculated, and began analyzing the ultraviolet and infrared spectra.
The results were still exactly the sa as those of the central star.
It seed as though the barrier was an enormous mirror, reflecting all light that struck it, whether visible or invisible.
However, it was clear that it could not be as simple as just being a mirror.
Based on this, Xiao Yu formulated a hypothesis.
“Perhaps this is the wonder of the four-dinsional fragnt. It’s not literally a mirror, but it has acquired certain physical characteristics of one. Its fourth dinsion might be curved from the perspective of the three-dinsional world. When light touches it, it enters the four-dinsional world, then, due to the curvature of the fourth dinsion, returns along its original path.”
“My ships might have operated on the sa principle, but with a different chanism, causing them to be randomly transported into the inner star system instead of returning along the sa path.”
“It seems Taihao was not lying. Indeed, no information can get out. This star and the 10 billion kiloters of space around it have been completely isolated.”
“No, wait!” At that mont, Xiao Yu suddenly realized a contradiction.
“If all the light is reflected back, doesn’t that an the star’s heat can’t escape either? That would violate the most basic laws of physics.”
If the heat from the star couldn’t escape, that would an that if the temperature inside the barrier was three degrees, and the temperature outside was two degrees; one higher, one lower. By the laws of physics, heat would inevitably transfer from the hotter side to the cooler side. However, if the barrier prevented temperature transmission, how would heat conduction be possible?
This phenonon would be like having a thermos that completely blocks the loss of heat, keeping the water inside hot forever. Basic scientific knowledge told Xiao Yu that such a thing was impossible.
This was entropy increase theory. In any system, over ti, entropy can only increase; it cannot decrease, nor can it stay constant. No thod can block entropy’s increase without producing other effects.
It was obvious that if no heat transfer was occurring around the barrier, the entropy increase theory would be violated.
If such a phenonon truly existed, the foundation of Xiao Yu’s theoretical frawork would need to be completely overturned.
“There’s only one explanation that can reconcile my theory with the observed phenonon,” Xiao Yu thought to himself. “The only possibility is that this star and the surrounding space have been separated from the three-dinsional world I originally inhabited. They now belong to two different systems. Since they are not in the sa system, entropy does not continue to increase.”
This conclusion made Xiao Yu feel a chill down his spine.
“This situation is sowhat like what’s described in certain fantasy novels… a ‘Small Thousand World’,” Xiao Yu concluded, finding it both amusing and unsettling.
“There’s a good chance that this is the case. My theoretical frawork should be fundantally correct; otherwise, I wouldn’t have achieved so much within an incorrect system. But now, a phenonon that contradicts my understanding is clearly happening. My explanation is the only one that accommodates both sides, so it should be correct.”
Xiao Yu arrived at a conclusion.
“But there’s another question: what does this place look like from the outside?”
“If light and heat can’t escape, then from the outside, it must appear as though the star has suddenly vanished from the universe.”
Obviously, a star would not just disappear without reason. If a star suddenly vanished, it would certainly attract the attention of many civilizations.
“Taihao said this barrier would block all prying eyes and keep absolutely safe. It seems I should question that claim. After all, this is a star. Its disappearance can’t possibly go unnoticed by other entities. The Sweepers are just a few hundred light-years away. Even if other civilizations are too afraid of the Sweepers to co and investigate, what about the Sweepers themselves? What if they co to check? Taihao’s four-dinsional structure was shattered directly by the Neutron War Star. I don’t believe this barrier can stop the Sweepers from investigating.”
After thinking of this, Xiao Yu felt a vague sense of anxiety.
“I wonder if this was a lapse on Taihao’s part, or if Taihao had other plans in mind. Sigh, even if Taihao ant well, this feeling of being manipulated is uncomfortable. But… there’s no point dwelling on it now. I should just focus on developing my technology. Do what I can and leave the rest to fate. If the Sweepers discover , then that’s just my bad luck; there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Having worked through these thoughts, Xiao Yu let go of his ntal burden, turned his attention away from the barrier, and resud his work on developing his technological systems.
[T/N: 小千世界 (Small Thousand World) traditionally refers to a self-contained universe of 1,000 worlds in Buddhist cosmology. In this chapter, Xiao Yu uses the term taphorically to describe his star system being completely isolated from the main universe, like a sealed pocket world where normal physical laws no longer fully apply.]
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