“The destination, P146T1631W7814, has been reached.”
Each time Rolin did his job, he sounded rigid. Huang Xuan stepped on the hard ground, feeling it much better than the rootless inside of the passage.
“Where is this?” Huang Xuan gasped and said, “It’s so cold.”
Suddenly, he felt warm.
“It is the year 1631 of the standard time zone. The location is near Longyearbyen City, Spitsbergen Islands, close to the Arctic Circle. Present temperature, 2 °C. I have put an energy ring on you to keep you warm, but I suggest that you put on more clothes,” answered Rolin.
“You asked me to wear fewer clothes.” Huang Xuan looked at the shirt he had put on, considering that short sleeves would have a too strong visual impact to people. Although he wasn’t cold anymore, he still shivered. Then he stamped his feet and said, “Find people.”
“There are a lot of human activities three kilometers away westward. Notice: you can stay in P146 for 84 hours at most.”
“Which means three and a half days. Why did you complicate it?” Huang Xuan shrank his neck and didn’t feel connected with the frozen soil around him. He shook his head, aimed at the direction and walked away.
On the way, Rolin started searching information on the plane. It was the most important thing to do because, on the one hand, they could check their security, and on the other hand, they could decide whether to stay or move on. Before spatial and temporal oscillation, the surroundings of the planes had been fully explored. However, it was all outdated now. They had to put their hope on the similarity of planes. If it was also a plane that had survived a severe spatial and temporal oscillation, it would have a high similarity, in which case, the spatial and temporal wilderness would become an advantage. If it had been in the big plane age, there would have no similarity, and everything would have been destroyed. If it hadn’t been so, spatial and temporal oscillation wouldn’t have happened.
As a human habitation closest to the North Pole, the vegetation area of Spitsbergen Islands was much too small, especially in the places near inland areas, where only moss could be seen on the ground. Rolin said that polar bears could also be seen walking around, which scared the hell out of Huang Xuan.
While they were walking, Rolin started to share the information on this region, which was a lot and complex, troubling Huang Xuan very much. “If I listen to all this carefully, with a few more time travels, I can be a historian or a geographer,” he thought.
Spitsbergen Islands were a part of the Svalbard Archipelago. In the time Huang Xuan lived in, it was a part of Norway’s territory. Presently, it was inhabited by the Dutch.
In the 17th century, the Netherlands had been the most powerful country in the world and had been called “the coachman at sea”. As its colony, Spitsbergen had been valued a lot.
Even the air was cold. Human sounds could be heard from afar. A fishing village could be seen through the open wilderness.
“It seems like a fair.” Huang Xuan sped up. The energy ring worked, but he still preferred clothes.
“What was valuable in the 17th century?” He was thinking about what kinds of clothes to be traded for. “Polar bear fur? It sounds heavy.”
“Tulips.”
Huang Xuan was stunned. All of sudden, he remembered that he had heard something relevant: there had been a time when the tulip trades had prevailed in the Netherlands. People had even sold their assets to purchase the corms of tulips for reserve and vied for the newly-bred morbid variety, and as a result, a rare tulip had been sold for thousands of guilders, 30 times the average yearly income of the Dutch.
Of course, this kind of madness came to an end eventually. Afterward, the tulips once cherished so much had devalued by 90%, and the ordinary ones had been fed to livestock. This incident was seen as the first economic bubble in the history, which had had a substantial impact on the country’s economic order and strength.
“Are tulips valuable now?” Although he knew he was around the Arctic Circle, Huang Xuan still couldn’t help asking.
“According to the similarity, tulips are hot-selling.”
Huang Xuan was a little disappointed. He regretted that he hadn’t brought some tulips that were far better than the variety of Semper Augustus.
Several sailboats with three sails appeared in front of Huang Xuan soon, which had never been seen since the Electricity Age. The boats all had square sails made by sewing pieces of canvas together, with a vertical seam on each. The sail was tied with a rope and supported by adjustable stays. By then, lateen sails hadn’t been invented yet, so the sails at this time were much smaller.
Seeing boats coming, the villagers started shouting. Some men from North Europe walked out from the low enclosing walls and saw Huang Xuan. They were shocked. Huang Xuan shrugged his shoulders. If it had been him who had seen a yellow man in a shirt, he would have screamed. After all, it was too strange.
“Hoe gaat het? (How are you?)” Huang Xuan greeted first. Rolin helped with the interpretation. He imitated the tone well as if Huang Xuan himself was speaking Dutch.
“Hoi!” returned a man, holding out one hand. Huang Xuan was pleased and asked loud, “Hello. How far is it from here to Longyearbyen?”
“Just ahead,” a young man curiously looked at Huang Xuan who was approaching, pointed to the west and said. “Where are you from?”
“Amsterdam, my friend.” Huang Xuan deliberately showed his civility. He had heard a lot about the North European pirates. He smiled and said, “I have been to Amsterdam from the Java Island. Now I work for the British East India Company.”
Java Island was the present Indonesia. As the Chinese knew, the Dutch East India Company had used Java Island as a fort and invaded Taiwan. A hundred years later, it had been defeated and thrown out by Zheng Chenggong. Obviously, this young man didn’t know where Java Island was. However, every Dutch knew East India Company. Hearing that Huang Xuan was so familiar with the Dutch’s lives, the middle-aged man standing behind stepped up and said, “You can go with us later.”
“Thank you very much.” Huang Xuan shrank his body and said, “Can I trade spice for some clothes?”
Although spice business hadn’t made exorbitant profits since the 17th century, spice was still expensive. But since this place was at the very north end of the Earth, spice wasn’t selling as well as in Europe. The middle-aged man shook his head but was still willing to give Huang Xuan a suit of clothes.
Huang Xuan took it with embarrassment because he couldn’t move a batch of grains out of the passage at the moment. The youths were very cordial, especially after Huang Xuan had put on the seal skin and looked like them.
The sailboats they had seen before had shipped some fish, algae, and a lot of shrimps, plenty of which were the well-known Norwegian Scampi that was even more expensive than the shabby boats carrying it, but now, it was just the villagers’ snack food.
Looking at the scampi thrown casually on the ground, Huang Xuan was inspired and didn’t even feel the cold anymore.