translator: loop
God once gazed at this sea of stars, where he slept long and awakened. ——Esther《Neverland》
The black cedar forest had been languishing for many days. Its needles were withered, hanging listlessly, but somehow the forest still did not give off the bitter scent of rotting wood.
The woody fragrance that lingered year-round still floated quietly, hiding twenty-five single-person cyro-capsules deep in the forest.
The cyro-capsules were arranged in a neat square, their sealed glass covers coated in frost.
An ear-splitting alarm siren suddenly came from one of them, piercing the silence of the deep forest.
“Insufficient energy, malfunctioning.”
“Warning: cryo-capsule will soon stop working, please replenish energy in five seconds.”
“Countdown: 5.”
“4.”
“3.”
“2.”
“1.”
“No new energy detected, cryo-capsule shutting down—”
Before it finished speaking, the electronic voice had already abruptly stopped.
Whoosh…
The sound of the capsule shutting down sounded like an air leak. Under the influence of the emergency heating system, the frost on the glass cover faded at a speed visible to the naked eye, revealing a handsome but pale face.
The thin layer of frost condensed on his brow made him look cold and lifeless, as if he had been sleeping for a long time and would never wake up again.
However, almost a second after the frost faded, those beautiful eyes opened without warning.
To be honest, although this lump of metal used to freeze a body was called a cyro-capsule, its shape was not even half-related to a capsule.
It was ugly, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, a hexagon with a face longer than a horse’s. Once a person laid down inside, it would become a well-made coffin of standard specifications.
When the designs first came out, Chu Si was busy dealing with a riot in the Space Prison. He hadn’t slept for three days, and his face was shrouded in gloom.
The unlucky designer knocked on his office door and put a thick stack of drawings on his desk.
According to regulations, all documents for cryo-capsules had to be reviewed and approved by the Executive Officer of Office No. 5 of the Security Building, and signed before proceeding.
And Chu Si happened to be the executive who sat in Office 5.
He closed his eyes as soon as he saw the thick stack of drawings. In the middle of the designer’s enthusiastic description, he simply turned to the last page and signed.
The day the finished product came out, he wore a well-cut shirt and sat elegantly in the conference room on the top floor of the Security Building, calmly listening to the old guys scolding the design.
They had scolded him for two complete hours, but this bastard just listened without any expression on his face. Not only did he not have an inkling of self-reflection, but he even tapped on the table and said with a smile: “The planet’s lifespan is still very long, as long as it’s not our turn to lie down inside this cryo-capsule, just let it be ugly.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Lf gfjiis tjv ab ilf vbkc lc atlr euis ogbhfc mboolc. Pa kjr fnlvfca atja tf tjv vbcf abb wjcs atlcur atja fnfc Xbv mbeivc’a ibbx qjra. Ktlr kjr qgbyjyis mjiifv gfaglyealbc.
Chu Si coughed muffledly for a while under the glass cover, coughing out all the cold air in his lungs, then moved his fingers and opened the safety lock.
His muscles and bones were still stiff, and it took him a long time to just push open the hatch.
The feeling of his feet on the ground was so foreign that he stumbled backwards, and simply sat down against the cryo-capsule.
Half a step away, another cryo-capsule was still functioning normally, its glass cover displaying two lines of text:
Caro Time 13:20:07
Inner Capsule Temperature: -206° New Celsius
13:00 should’ve been the sunniest time in the afternoon, but there was only a sea of stars overhead, and the surrounding silence was like midnight.
Chu Si looked around and took a deep breath.
The air here was stuffy even though he had come out of the cryo-capsule. He seemed to be smothered by something, even breathing was uncomfortable, and didn’t even know if he had frozen his lungs.
Crack—
Behind him suddenly came the sound of needles crunching, as if something had stepped on them.
“Who?” Chu Si turned his head sharply.
He had not spoken in a long time and his voice was a little hoarse.
At the same time he asked, his fingers had habitually touched his waist.
Thank goodness, his gun had not been unloaded when he entered the cryo-capsule in such a hurry.
He flicked the safety lock, and the sound of the “click” was very clear in the silence.
“Don’t don’t don’t! I’m coming out! Don’t shoot!” A dark thing popped out from behind a frozen capsule, like a round-headed mop… the kind that had been marinating in a mud pit for two years.
Chu Si narrowed his eyes, and found a pair of eyes on the mop with difficulty— it was a person who hadn’t combed his hair for an unknown period of time.
“Who else is there?” Chu Si’s finger was still hooked on the trigger.
The mop hesitated for a moment, kept his hands up in a surrender position, and turned his head to mumble something.
Another smaller mop then cautiously stuck out its head.
The smaller mop looked at the larger mop and raised his hands in a similar fashion.
“Calm down a bit, calm down. It’s just us two, there’s no one else,” Big Mop said as he stared at the gun.
“I’m very calm,” Chu Si said.
“To be honest, I don’t believe you. After all, when I just crawled out of the cryo-capsule, I was so hungry I could’ve eaten a person.” Mop’s voice was tinged with a bit of suspicion.
Chu Si looked cold: “If I can’t find someone cleaner than you, I may be more inclined to starve to death.”
The mop was refuted, but he still felt a little regretful, “Actually, we just haven’t washed for six months, now can you move the gun away slightly?”
The fact was, the gun had been frozen in the cyro-capsule for a long time, and whether it could still be used or not was unknown. But Chu Si was a bastard and did not mind scaring this big mop of unknown origin for a while longer, so he replied, “Depends on my mood.”
“Then what how are you feeling right now?” Mop asked.
“Not very well, it’s too stuffy here.” Chu Si said calmly.
To be precise, the air here was so stuffy that it made the heart irritable, physiologically.
The mop gave a long “oh” and deflated, “Unfortunately, that can’t be helped, after all, its been like this for a long time.”
He turned his head and looked at his wrist.
Only then did Chu Si notice that something on the mop’s wrist was flashing a luminous blue light, like the screen of a smartwatch.
“Do you mind if I touch it?” Mop stared at Chu Si’s gun, afraid it would go off.
Chu Si did not refuse, and the mop bravely and carefully touched his watch screen.
A cold electronic tone rang out loudly enough for Chu Si to hear clearly:
“Ground temperature: 5° New Celsius.”
“Humidity: Dry.”
“Warning: Oxygen content is severely below normal, 32 minutes and 57 seconds from the critical value.”
This warning was not unfamiliar to Chu Si, he had heard these words in various safety experiment report meetings. The so-called critical value of oxygen content corresponded to the survival limit. Once below the critical value, people would soon suffocate and die.
Mop’s voice was a bit dishevelled. “Look, even if you don’t shoot, we still have less than 33 minutes to live.”
When Chu Si heard this, his gaze shifted.
It couldn’t be.
The design concept of the cyro-capsules was very special. Its energy was all converted from exhaust gas, and the exhaust gas actually contained oxygen. This was designed to maintain a certain degree of survival.
These principles and functions were known to the public.
Mop noticed Chu Si’s gaze, he followed his eyes to the cryo-capsules on the ground, and said: “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s useless. It’s been fifty years, the balance has long been destroyed.”
Chu Si finally had a glimmer of expression on his face. “How many years?”
The mop found a breakthrough and touched the watch screen decisively. The electronic voice sounded again:
“It is the 29th day of April, year 5763 of the new Gregorian calendar, Caro time—”
Not waiting for the end of the chime, the mop cut off the voice, muttering, “Be considerate, still need to save some power.”
Yet Chu Si wasn’t even paying attention to what he was saying.
The year 5763?
He remembered exactly what the evening of December 27, 5713 was like. The golden-red light of the setting sun softened the cold black cedar forest as he stood by the window, talking to a doctor while flipping through his private communication channel.
One second he was still looking at the information forcibly transmitted by a dangerous person in the Space Prison, and the next he received an alert—
The core energy reaction process suddenly accelerated for unknown reasons, the expansion rate far exceeded the upper limit, the estimated evacuation time was 3 minutes and 11 seconds.
In layman’s terms: the planet is going to blow up, everyone run.
He would never forget the three minutes of chaos, how the ground shook and crumbled, how they scrambled to activate the fragmentation plan, and how they evacuated from the villa to the cyro-capsules in the cedar forest…
Everything was as vivid as if it had been a day ago, as if he had just slept in the capsule overnight.
However, when he woke up, fifty years had already passed?!
Perhaps the momentary shock caused a change in his heart rate and raised his oxygen consumption. After the dismay, Chu Si only felt more stuffy.
The mop took a look at his expression and aggrievedly said, “Do not breathe deeply! Do not breathe deeply! We originally don’t have that much oxygen anyways! Don’t forget, we only have a little more than thirty minutes left… Do you have any ideas? I am too stupid, and woke up three years ago but still did not come up with any plans… I don’t want to die so early, suffocation, this kind of death is really too terrible to experience…”
The man was a chatterbox, talking endlessly and giving Chu Si a headache, leaving him neither able to sort out the current situation nor think of a way out.
“Quiet.” Just as he coldly threw out two words, something in the pocket of his suit pants buzzed.
Chu Si froze, reached out and touched it, then remembered that when he evacuated to the cryo-capsule, he dropped the communicator he was holding into his pocket.
A communicator was not like a wristwatch, and consumed more energy. For the energy-saving mode to last fifty years was already a miracle.
The vibration just now was the prompt “low battery, about to shut down”.
He was planning to turn it off directly and throw it back into his pocket when he saw an unread message on the screen.
Chu Si’s eyebrows immediately jumped up.
Without looking at the content, he could guess who the message came from, after all, to dare to take his private communication channel as their own backyard, there was only that one psychopath.
As expected, the message came from the Space Prison:
My dear executive, I have great news for you.
I’ve escaped from prison.
——Sa’e Yang
Chu Si: “…”
Fuck your great news.
The author has something to say:
Reminder: this novel is not science fiction, no mecha, the whole story is nonsense, the kind that can’t hold down the coffin boards of Einstein’s old man, don’t think about it with common sense, it’s just for fun, it’s better to read it as a space magic fairy tale, okay~
Note: Esther’s《Neverland》 — there is no such book.
Hi everyone! This is my first time translating a novel, so if there are any grammatical or translating inaccuracies, please notify me so that I can fix them~
Black Sky is 1v1, action-packed, there’s some angst (as expected of a Musuli novel), a lot of bickering, and a happy ending.
…why tho’? It IS a great news!!
I don’t know whether the translator will see this comment or not. But I am so very grateful that they’ll translate this novel. I have tried so many times to MTL this novel but it never made much sense, I’m so glad that I’ll finally be able to read it.
Hehe I read everyone’s comments! and I’m really glad to be translating this novel too~ I’ll try my best to provide a quality translation!
I hope you don’t mind me asking but is this MTL or HTL?
MTL base, HTL editing~
Oh, it’s pretty comfortable prison, if he can sent messages. Or he’s evil genius. I think second one is legit
Thank you for your translation 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍
And Happy July for everyone!!!!!
On your note about the novel’s title being “Nights” on novel updates and you trying to change it: the official Thai version has “Nights” on the cover [see here: https://twitter.com/SUGAR_ARCHIVE/status/1684845317240586240%5D, so “Nights” may be the preferred English title, rather than a literal translation of “Black Sky”.
Obviously, it’s your project, and I don’t have any in depth information, but just an observation from an outsider.
Hi, thanks for letting me know. Twitter says the page doesn’t exist, but I understand what you’re trying to say… I can’t argue with an official version, so I’ll stop trying to change the NU page, but I’ll be keeping the title as Black Sky, it’s just preference ^^
You’re welcome. Here’s a different post with the covers, if you’re interested (the covers are so pretty!):
https://twitter.com/noodesoup/status/1681706437175808000
Ah, Chu Si and Sa’e Yang look so handsome 😌
This will be a ride as a physics major
Tasty food to be condumed
Not me, having been severely derailed from the start looking for Esther’s Neverland until I saw the AN at the bottom 😅
Nice start!