Xyrin Empire

I've always thought that the girls in my household might be incredibly easy to feed. Of course, this sentence needs to be understood from multiple perspectives. I admit that Sandora's appetite could scare the finance minister of a medium or small country to death, but at the same time, you must recognize her advantage of not being picky about food. That's what I mean. Look at them—Qianqian, Sandora, the Pandora sisters, my sister, and even that heiress worth billions. Each of them has the power to make several universes tremble with a sneeze, and the small trinkets in their personal space could exchange for thirty years of GDP from this little blue planet. Yet I can still take them to roadside stalls to eat fried skewers, buy five-dollar bracelets from street vendors, and the Imperial Princess doesn't mind her new toy being just two glass balls. The Imperial Empress also doesn't care if her lunch covers the entire periodic table: in fact, she probably desires it.

We had just left the house when we ran into Lin Xue. Although this heiress doesn't live with us, she has almost become a regular in this neighborhood. I can't understand why such a family would allow one of its heirs to run around outside so recklessly. Mr. Lin must have a lot to do with it. Anyway, while I was busy buying fried skewers for Sandora and discussing with my sister whether to go to the theme park or the museum—Sally is particularly fond of that place, even though I think that more than half of us at home have no need to supplement our knowledge in a human museum—the heiress floated over to me.

She really floated here—Lin Xue, this girl, was wearing a flowing goose-yellow long dress and floating around the street in the frosty spring weather at five degrees Celsius. Her free-spiritedness is out of this world.

"With body enhancement, I can't feel hot or cold. Without a calendar, I don't even know what to wear," Lin Xue waved her hand unconcernedly, her eyes landing on Sandora, who was munching away at a large pile of fried skewers. "Gosh, taking the First Family out, and you feed Her Majesty the Queen with this stuff?"

"Whatever I feed her is the same," I shrugged, wiping Little Baobao's face full of sauce, "didn't see you coming over for breakfast this morning."

"I've been so busy I could die," Lin Xue gave us a quirky look, "hardly slept at all last night, half of the organization had a sleepless night—I'll tell you what's going on later. It's a big surprise. So, where are you headed now?"

"Amusement park, or museum," I first patted Little Baobao's cheek, then slightly tilted my head to touch the large backpack behind me. After confirming that there was no one around, the zipper on the backpack was pushed open from the inside, revealing a third of Sally's small head. Her crystal-clear red eyes flashed a hint of happiness, and I casually smoothed her hair, "The two daughters have different opinions again; I can't afford to offend either."

"Who do you call a daughter to whom, whose daughter to whom, and daughter who to whom!" Sally ranted in a low voice without using subject-verb-object, then started pulling at my neck, "Anyway, today I want to go to the museum! I want to see T-Rex ribs and ancient sea anemones! You didn't take me last time!"

I pinched Sally's nose before she could protest and stuffed her back into the backpack. This girl, she was firmly protesting at first, but later on, she just accepted the identity of daughter and began to whine and throw tantrums openly, now still kicking around irresponsibly inside the backpack.

"I really don't know what kind of interest a doll has in T-Rex ribs."

I whispered in Lin Xue's ear, "Honestly, we haven't gone out much in the past few days. My sister thinks I've been growing mushrooms at home and need to get some fresh air. But you, what were you busy with last night?"

I asked this, my mind already racing—this is a habit formed after spending time with Lin Xue—speculating on how much this Miss Prophet has seen before she opens her mouth, which is quite amusing, though my guesses usually turn out too conservative. I figure Lin Xue should already know what happened on Barrier Star last night, and her sleeplessness is mostly related to it. The only mystery is why her so-called "organization" also stayed up all night.

"Let's head back first; we can't go out to have fun today," Lin Xue patted my shoulder, acting like a good buddy, despite wearing an elegantly styled dress. Yet her behavior is so carefree—how should I put it, it's kind of a cute quirk, "All the amusement parks and such in the city are my assets; I guarantee that they're all closed for maintenance of communication lines today, the museums might be closed too, for similar reasons."

"Uh, what's going on?"

I could feel the rolling black aura suddenly expanding from the backpack behind me. Little Baobao might not understand yet, but Sally's intelligence is nothing Little Baobao can match; she immediately realized she'd be stuck at home again today.

I'm really curious. Shadow City spans hundreds of kilometers, and Avalon is almost a mini-nation. In the Macro World, just one command from the Princess could have her on a 24-hour express trip with free tickets. Why is Sally so interested in a paleontology museum in the Outer World? The others in the house who come out to roam from time to time are just the same. Are the fake goods on Erli Bridge tomorrow more attractive than Misaka Shopping Center in Shadow City?

"Did you notice that the street is unusually quiet today? I'm saying there's none of that loud music,"

Lin Xue nudged my elbow and gestured around with her chin, "And aren't there usually not as many pedestrians at this time?"

"Didn't notice, it's always like this here."

"Okay, it's not as obvious as the city center," Lin Xue shrugged indifferently, "Didn't you watch TV this morning?"

"TV?" I was momentarily dumbfounded, "No, who watches TV anymore when there are over twenty thousand channels on Xyrin Media and the Macro World? Now only the kids watch cartoons at night."

Lin Xue sighed and rested her forehead on her hand, then took out a pretty pink lady's phone and waved it in front of me: "This is not a Xyrin Information Terminal disguised as a phone; it's a dedicated tool issued by our organization, claimed to be able to video call the International Space Station without delay from the bottom of the Mariana Trench, but now it has no signal. Let's head back home and talk on the way."

I was stunned for a moment and caught up with Lin Xue's pace. She continued speaking before we could open our mouths: "This is what's happening with cutting-edge human technology, and consumer-grade devices fare even worse. Consumer phones, radio, TV, the internet, some military communication channels, and many organizations' weird and secretive leased satellite channels are now down or clogged. The modern communication network experienced a near 60% shutdown between ten last night and midnight. The human information transmission systems, of which Earthlings have been proud for decades, faced a two-hour massive cerebral infarction. I suspect government heads worldwide didn't sleep last night—Americans were lucky; it was daytime for them."

"Wow! That's incredible!" Qianqian suddenly got excited and miraculously pulled a radio from her "pocket," turned it on, and high-pitched noise immediately blared from it, "Full-band blockage? Human communication network down? This is like a global movie scene! Lin Xue, Lin Xue, what exactly happened? Did you go off with the Superpower Team to save the world last night?"

I covered most of my face with my hands, unable to bear witness to Qianqian's dullness and lack of clarity, while Lin Xue firmly grasped Qianqian's shoulders with a beaming expression: "According to reliable sources, at the time when human communications were cut off last night, there was a sudden massive radiation of energy from the moon, something humans haven't encountered since they started knotting ropes to record events. It was even more intense than the largest solar flares—did you know that within two hours, a third of the satellites launched into space over the last twenty years were knocked out…"

"Hasn't the history of humans launching satellites been more than twenty years?"

"But even the oldest satellites can't hang in the sky for thirty years – I'm serious here," Lin Xue pinched me, "Now do you know what's the matter? It's all because of your pile of junk. Miss has barely slept all night!"

With Lin Xue's reminder, I suddenly realized belatedly and slapped my forehead, shouting, "Whoa, why is there such a big fuss this time?"

Everyone belatedly followed suit and started loudly exclaiming.

"Ugh…" Lin Xue helplessly glanced around at everyone, shrugging, "A bunch of enemies of humankind… wait, seems like I implicated myself too."

"Nonsense," I looked at the sky with a complex expression, then raised my hand to knock Lin Xue on her forehead, "So don't say it's just my pile of junk, that's your junk too, you're still hanging onto the title of Imperial Empress."

"How serious is the situation?"

Sandora's voice interrupted my and Lin Xue's daily bickering. As a leader, she was very aware of the importance of information systems for a civilized society. So while Lin Xue's tone was still irreverent, she had already gotten serious and started asking about the hidden impact of this matter on human society.

"Serious, but not that serious," Lin Xue was swinging her arms while walking ahead, looking like she had no psychological pressure at all, "The civilian communications network is basically finished, a third of the satellites in the sky are missing, in a few days ordinary folks might have to return to the FM era, it sounds terrifying, but such serious situations are only concentrated in civilian areas. Governmental and military stuff is special, although impacted, the most important lines are still usable. Now's the time for the old masters to show their divine power, let's see how they restore the human society neural network in the shortest time using their old experience, you know, when there were only a dozen satellites around the world, this planet still turned normally…"

"Let's hope it's really like you said," I somehow started worrying about national affairs too, "I remember reading a paper before saying that once the human communications system is paralyzed for over forty-eight hours, the world's funeral bell will sound…"

"That's right, but luckily it's not fully paralyzed this time, it's a partial paralysis. As long as the major information channels on Earth aren't down, those big shots can still use wired video to see their nuclear missiles obediently resting in the silos and other people's missiles are not jumping around either, everything is negotiable. In fact, through various emergency channel switches, after a few hours, Earth's communications have been restored to fifty percent, the repair speed is astonishing. You know, those satellites all have bandwidth surplus, in disaster situations, having them overload the entire Earth's communications in a short time isn't impossible."

We were strolling on the street leisurely while discussing these issues potentially impacting world peace, Little Baobao had already eaten fried skewers to the back of my head, and Mercury Lamp was mumbling about T-Rex rib cage and her Cretaceous in the mountaineering bag, I found this scene really delicate: the moon base got hit with three pits, human civilization is facing a moderate crisis, leaders worldwide are sweating bullets looking at the nuclear weapons temporarily within their sight, and we are indirectly responsible for this, we're responsible persons wandering in a medium-sized city in China with wives, kids, and pets, munching on ten skewers for ten yuan while discussing world peace interspersed with how to make stewed eggplant tastier. Considering this slightly, I felt truly sinful.

"Speaking of which, where's your car?"

I glanced at Lin Xue, usually when she came over, she'd come driving her extraordinarily cool, extraordinarily pretty, extraordinarily flamboyant red sports car, said to be the favorite of this Miss, even after driving Imperial Military Shuttles and Stealth Special Service Ships, Miss remained deeply fond of a car produced on Earth, showing how favored it was. Despite being relatively affluent, taking a spin in her sports car would attract many eyeballs, but today Lin Xue didn't bring it.

"Say it, I almost forgot!" Miss immediately grimaced and pointed at me, "I bet you all got rid of seventy percent of luxury cars worldwide! Poor me, all those sports cars accumulated over the years, all the chips burned out! Today I had to hitch a ride with my brother's broken car, that little brat, he took Sally for a spin, and dropped me off just at your street corner…"

Lin Xue grumbled away, I couldn't help but snicker, thinking it serves you right, Earth-made stuff, the more high-tech, the less resistant to tinkering – the car chips burned, pedal a bike, even if Visca turned into a vibration, it wouldn't affect your travel.

"Okay, fine, count it as work loss, will the Royal Family compensate you?" I grinned at Lin Xue, "Compensate you with a 'Golden Throne' Royal Observation Shuttle, guaranteed to be cooler than your sports car – nothing on Earth can outrun it."

"Use three-quarters light speed to commute, do you think I'm not annoyed enough?!"

Lin Xue immediately side-kicked me, Little Baobao sprang down to protect, bit Lin Xue's ankle, causing Miss to exclaim, "Uh-oh! What's wrong with this unlucky kid, I was cuddling and kissing her just yesterday!"

Nonsense, parents fighting takes parent's side, Little Baobao's logic is set this way!

I picked up Little Baobao and let her hang on my shoulder, grinning at Miss while Little Baobao cooed reporting her combat results then asked Sandora for a skewer, steadfastly continuing to smear sweet bean paste onto the back of my head.

The street scenes remained unchanged, ordinary folks had no idea what had happened, nor what was happening, those buying groceries continued buying, those going for a stroll continued strolling, those arguing continued arguing. The failure of one-third of the global communication satellites felt as far away and unattainable as the moon getting hammered three times to them, seems like professionals had cleverly masked this unusual event. I heard someone complain loudly about their TV malfunctioned from the morning, while others stared blankly at signal-less phones, many showed unease after suddenly losing those previously habitual noises in their lives, but some stepped out and chatted up rarely seen neighbors. With phones and the internet gone, the distance between people grew, but the distance between hearts shrank quickly. See, we can be cultured too—though those chattering in the zero degrees Celsius winds at the doorway were truly strong, don't they feel cold?

Today's outing plan ended fruitlessly, the girls at home could only continue being idle, Pandora led her sister to Shadow City to do some follow-up check on Visca, also to see if there was new progress researching those three wreckages, Sandora also tagged along but she headed to Avalon—she planned to deal with the remaining fish from Dingdang, since not many were left anyway…

Bubbles turned on the TV in the living room, as expected the screen was pitch black, with only central English letters: NO DATE. Changing through many channels showed the same, except a few channels broadcast jerky local programs, signal strength almost negligible, Lin Xue told us actually not all civilian channels were paralyzed, just under comprehensive safeguarding of governmental communication, civilian channels had to take a backseat, extra bandwidth had been squeezed or artificially cut off, to prevent opportunists from stirring chaos all over, this statement soon was verified as after changing many channels we finally found a clear normal program channel with a poker-faced man announcing the communication interruption was due to solar flares and assuring the public everything was under control, government was well-prepared for similar events and solar flares were non-lethal natural phenomena, soon everything would be back to normal, ordinary folks needn't panic, the only impact of this event on human society was you couldn't steal vegetables on time… the last sentence was my addition.

The host started explaining what solar flares were, but Bubbles pulled out a thin blue light strand from her hair, connected this non-substantial "cable" to the TV, then began connecting to the Blizzard server using remaining military channels…

"Damn! ERROR 35!!" Bubbles, with wire connected, leaped from the sofa, "Dad, we better act quick!"

Me: "…" (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to Qidian (qidian.com) to vote for recommendations or monthly tickets, your support is my greatest motivation.)