Jinshi had two moons, Hanyue and Xiayue.
Earth had one moon.
While busy with trying to figure out everything even when bagged with the knowledge of Earth and all its technology, the realization that I knew nothing about this new world where magic took precedence over science.
There is a North Star in Jinshi - the one with the ominous reddish glow in the skies. Unlike the more peaceful looking North Star of Earth. Lingyu's knowledge was only coming from Ji Feng's po in the body.
"That's Yuedu," Lianfeng pointed up westwards. "Hardly shows up but today that star shines bright."
Yuedu - almost like the Chinese characters which represented Tsukuyomi-no-mikoto in Japanese. If Zaixing could come here, why not Tsukuyomi himself - he was after all the Kami of the Celestial Nights, illusions and Earth's moon. The universe is always in the night mode.
"That's Baxing, the star of Hegemony, it's dim, so that is good news. When it brightens up, that's bad news. A bright Baxing means a Great War."
Great War. The last one happened just two centuries ago. Given the history of how this world runs, one Great War was statistically on average taking place every 400 years.
Now in a time of peaceful interlude, just the two of us watching the night skies on the top of Xuanlong's Mountain Bei, which overlooked Xuanlong sect's headquarters.
Xuanlong is the sect in Jinshi with its own private mountain peppered with several defense formations aka security surveillance devices. Then again, it was the only sect around for the entire region.
Lianfeng's invitation - something about a star shower, more likely an asteroid shower, came at an opportune time for exploration. The 17-year-old would be a hot science nerd on Earth. You can imagine drool dripping from his mouth when he spoke about their science.
Lianfeng held out his device, a flat bronze disc which resembled the Chinese geomancy compass. Carvings of the Chinese-like symbols were all around the 48 dials. It was called the star compass.
Yes. The name is ridiculously simple. The Star Compass, not the fantasticmagickystarexplorer.
The twilight enhanced the gentle glow of his ling qi flowing into the device. So ling qi was also a battery. A 3D hologram of the celestial stars appeared above the disc and the dial rotated on auto each time he moved the disc in a direction. A red dot seemed to indicate where we were.
That was an ultimate Star Trek moment. Except Scotty was beaming my brain up into the peak of absolute stupidity.
If only they counted in degrees, latitude and longitude wise, but no, it had to be an obscure type of calculation which turned my mind blank. Previous life was about statistics and modeling equations. Now trashed in the bin.
However, the way their manual algorithm worked was beyond the difficulty of multivariate calculus or even rocket science.
Maybe an astrophysicist would find it easier than me. A crazy one at best.
Even Ji Feng has not grasped the astrological calculations. His memories only had basic data, general like a Wikipedia page, but nothing more. At least, with his age, there was an excuse for ignorance on my part.
"It should start from there in a bit," Lianfeng gestured at a northeast location on the star compass.
"Brother Lianfeng!" three girls' voices called out above us. They were on flying swords.
When I already sat in a flying carriage, flying swords are not that fascinating. Those must be the three female disciples I had heard of. From the distance, they seemed pretty enough.
Lianfeng, you devil, you wanted to date a girl. And you used me. Now, you would think an 17-year-old hot blooded male would be all smiles.
AH NOPE. This one smacked himself in the forehead as they were turning in for the landing with those swords. Reminds me of the surfers on earth. In Lingyu, this would be sword surfing.
"Shit."
This is the first time I have heard him uttering an impolite word.
Then again, I have only known him for five days. His expression changed from 'don't care' to 'cringe'.
Give me a break, boys on my previous world at his age would be trying to date girls beyond their league to cop a feel of the forbidden fruit, or indulging in the usual playboy magazine, Japanese hentai where big boobs and/or arse were the focus.
Whatever their fetish was.
In my previous life, a cousin, younger than him, used to hide porn dvds from his mother under the bed. Come to think of it, I missed the past, especially blackmailing him, using his under-bed collection.
Don't men think of sex every second? Wild oats sowed to spread around his gene pool for generations? I mean, even my eyes are checking them out. Instinct is there, flesh is willing, just zero desire and the spirit, or rather my hun, gagging.
"Eh? What's wrong?"
"I didn't want them here," he whispered. "They are very distracting. At least, you ... we can discuss something of learning value."
Nerd. No wonder he wanted to be friends with Ji Feng.
Ji Feng was a prodigy without much a childhood. Most of his time were focused on education, cultivation or training.
His po was an huge repository of information. Just not readily accessed… yet.
Blurbs of memory will come from his po at times. Consistency of repository service was poor. This was f**king me a lot.
Lianfeng was not aware of the personality that laid behind Ji Feng's facade - Ji Feng had secretly wished that he could be ordinary, like other kids.
Isolated as a prince, forced to make use of his talents to impress his father - being allowed to play as a child, was something exciting that Cangtian could bring.
"Who are you with?" The first girl, the Queen Bee, glanced at me.
Queen Bees are the bane of every high school girl, or boy, on earth. Nothing is worse than a wannabe alpha pretty girl who thinks that she is prettier than Miss Universe, and everyone should worship the ground she shits on.
It was dark, and I was wearing my hood over my head for warmth.
Her tone was very demanding, almost bratty, like the rich spoilt brats of Earth. Small, soft wannabe gentle type of pitch which was a banshee's screech. A daddy's little sweet angel of a monster.
Her dress looked thin with the off shoulder style, reminiscent of mass produced cheap polyester hanfu that unknown actresses would wear in a budget poor China made historical drama film on Earth.
With the two girls peeking from the back. Unlike her, they were better dressed for the weather with fur-lined cloaks. Pretty, but no interest. Puberty had hit all of them with those mid sized bosoms, covered or not, the biological twin hills were visible - give or take, three of them would be around 16 to 18 years old.
Still not as tall as me. The girls were dressed more for a date than to look at stars in the wild. Obviously out to impress Lianfeng.
By right of etiquette, I should get up like Lianfeng , prince or not.
By left of my warm comfortable bum on the granite like ground, no way am I surrendering this sweet spot for girls.
"This is the third prince." Lianfeng introduced.