Once, after a meal at Willie's house, we had some leftovers. I asked, "On Earth, we can store food in a refrigerator. I'm from a poor rural area without one, though I've seen in movies that city dwellers usually have fridges. But Willie, I noticed that there doesn't seem to be a fridge on your Planet. Oh, I get it! With your advanced teleportation technology, you don't need to refrigerate food, right?"
Willie responded, "Actually, we do have fridges. They're generally quite large but not commonly used for storing food. Our fridges serve different purposes than those on Earth."
"So, let me guess, because your teleportation technology is so convenient, you use a massive fridge like a public storage facility. Everyone stores their items there and retrieves them conveniently via GMW teleportation, just as easily as if they were stored at home. This saves electricity and space, right?"
"Not exactly," Willie corrected. "We absorb all the nutrients we need through computer-controlled teleportation directly into our bodies, so we seldom need food or a fridge. Our fridges are mainly used for industrial production and scientific research."
Willie waved her hand, and a 3D holographic image created by GMW and GIW's remote transmission technology appeared beside her. She accessed the GIW browser, showing many of Guoker Planet's gigantic fridges that looked like buildings, all labeled in Guoker script.
Willie continued to explain, "Our fridges don't use low-temperature freezing. Instead, we employ a method that solidifies time. An artificial field irradiates the interior space of the 'chrono fridge,' making the time within it different from the outside. It's as if time for the items inside is frozen. If you put food in it, even though thousands of years might pass outside, only a minute passes inside. This is why we call it a 'chrono fridge.'
"For example, if you place an ice cream from Earth inside a chrono fridge, the temperature inside is the same as outside. But a year later, the ice cream would have experienced less than a second, virtually unchanged when retrieved."
"Wow! Your chrono fridge is amazing, way beyond my expectations! So, if I were to stay inside briefly, could it be that thousands of years would pass outside?"
"Exactly," Willie confirmed. "On Earth, you would probably freeze to death in a regular fridge. But if a chrono fridge were placed on Earth and you stepped inside for a moment, by the time you step out, your family and neighbors would have been gone for thousands of years, turning you into an instant ancient relic and a celebrity akin to a major museum or zoo exhibit." Willie gave a peculiar laugh.
"And what if it were reversed? If I spent a year inside the chrono fridge, but only a few hours passed outside?"
"That's perfectly possible," she replied. "Our chrono fridge has adjustable settings and a time shift switch. Setting it low means one minute inside equals one year outside; setting it high means one minute could equal thousands of years outside. If you hit the 'minus' on the time shift switch, it reverses the flow, making time inside pass faster than outside."
I asked curiously, "Can the chrono fridge reverse time? Is it possible for me to return to ancient times?"
Willie replied confidently, "That's impossible! The perception of time's speed is based on the comparison between two different locations. We say time moves faster in one place by comparing it to another. How can you compare the same location? It's like asking how one part of your body can be taller than another. You can say you're taller than me, but not that one part of you is taller than another. Time cannot flow backwards, and neither can the chrono fridge make it do so."
I sort of understood her explanation. "Then what exactly is time?"
"Time is merely our perception of space radiating at the speed of light," Willie answered vaguely. "Without people, there is no concept of time. That's all I really know about it. If you want a more detailed explanation, you'd need to ask Suldair."
Willie suggested we visit a bio-research institute on Guoker Planet that uses giant chrono fridges. I agreed, and she contacted the institute's manager via GIW to inform them of an Earth visitor's impending arrival.
"Would it be alright to invite Norton as well? He's a renowned biologist here on Guoker Planet," Willie asked for my opinion.
"Absolutely!" I readily agreed.
Upon Willie's request through GMW, we instantly teleported to a large building where Norton awaited us at the entrance. Inside, everyone showed deep respect for Norton, and Willie whispered to me that they were under his leadership.
The manager who greeted us looked male, about a meter tall, with a facial resemblance to Norton but distinctively different due to his hair made of long, soft, black tubular strands that fell over his shoulders.
Willie explained that his name was Wentai and his hair served special purposes during intimacy with women, providing pleasure in unique ways. Willie declined to elaborate, leaving me to imagine the specifics.
Wentai led us through the institute, speaking so quickly that the GIW translation service struggled to keep up. Honestly, I was more casually observing the unusual equipment than seeking to understand it deeply.
Later, I saw a row of glass-like containers filled with a slightly yellow, translucent liquid, each holding various naked human bodies. Some were enormous, reaching four to five meters tall, while others were mere tens of centimeters.
Among them, I noticed a human female body that closely resembled Earth humans, exceptionally voluptuous with massive breasts and thighs as thick as barrels, standing about two meters tall. Her alluring form was connected to external tubes. These bodies appeared drowsy or sedated, each connected by tubes.
When Willie noticed my bewildered expression, she slapped me and exclaimed, "Damn! GIW's translator didn't interpret this, but I guessed it might be a Guoker expletive.
Wentai explained, "These are Guoker backup bodies. For instance, when Guokers need to carry out missions on Earth, they sometimes use bodies that resemble humans to blend in. None of these bodies in the containers possess consciousness."
"We utilize field scanning technology to download a Guoker's consciousness into a body similar to those on Earth, and store the original Guoker body in a container. This allows the individual to undertake exploration missions on Earth using the Earth-like body. Upon completing the mission, we reverse the process: the Earth-like body is stored, and the consciousness is transferred back to the Guoker body, allowing them to resume life on Guoker Planet with their normal body and consciousness."
Curious about the infrastructure, I asked, "What's the purpose of the tubes connected to their backs?"
"These are part of a circulation system. It's not just for delivering nutrients and removing waste; it also circulates other substances. However, most of the nutrient delivery and waste removal are handled by GMW, not solely by this circulation system," explained Norton.
"These containers are essentially large chrono fridges," Norton continued. "In our terms, a body inside might only experience a few seconds, even though a year passes outside."
"Why not make it a thousand years outside to just a few seconds inside, so they wouldn't need any nutrients?" I asked further.
"The greater the difference in time between the inside and outside of a chrono fridge, the more energy is required. Additionally, the equipment would need to be significantly larger and the system would become less stable," Norton explained.
Later, we encountered even larger chrono fridges, equipped with opaque walls and virtual 3D screens that displayed the scenes inside. "The images you see are processed for clarity," Wentai explained. "Inside the chrono fridge, time moves much faster than outside; tens of thousands of years could pass inside, while only a few hours pass outside."
"What's the purpose of accelerating time inside these fridges?" I inquired.
"The main goal is to observe the natural evolutionary processes of organisms," Norton elaborated. "For example, we can study the evolution of viruses over tens of thousands of years or see how the human form might evolve into a more efficient structure. This helps us refine our own methods of manufacturing bodies, as we frequently do with bodies modeled on those from Earth."
Wentai added, "For viruses, bacteria, and other organisms, observing their life and evolutionary processes within these chrono fridges greatly benefits our biological research on Guoker Planet."
"In addition, our computers often use chrono fridges. Calculation results that would normally take ten thousand years to obtain can now be obtained in just a few minutes by placing the computer in the chrono fridge."
He also mentioned, "Here we have relatively few storage containers compared to our body replication factory on Guoker Planet, where the numbers are vastly greater."
Willie, holding my hand and with a tone of pride, said, "This facility is mainly for experimental purposes. Later, I'll take you to the Guoker body replication factory, which is incredibly large and will truly amaze you, Qian. Let's head back now; there isn't much else to see here, just a few bodies in medicinal solution."