"What is this?" Bodie asked.
"I'm going to ask you." Yaleriga replied.
The man sitting on the top of the huge iron ball, a man who is still alive today and has obvious local characteristics in appearance, has been laid flat on the ground by Yaleriga. She called Qiaoqiao Tianyi, hoping to use the ability of spacecraft experts to understand what was going on inside this person. Qiaoqiao Tianyi also brought in two local people - she didn't like them, but it seemed difficult to refuse requests from weak people.
When Qiaoqiao Tianyi's horns glowed brightly, the two locals were obviously surprised. They all knew that this animal they had never seen before could speak the same language as Yaleriga, but they still seemed to regard her as some kind of very smart alien pet. At this moment, Bodi was hit far harder than Yi, because he was one of the few people in the world who had come close to being immortal.
"What is it doing?" he asked Yaleriga, "What is it doing to the Immortal?"
"Are you sure this is an immortal man?"
"His clothes are like that. And you see, he looks very young."
Yaleriga did see the characteristics he mentioned. The shriveled appearance of the living dead was due to lack of nutrition, but the bones and back did not show the forward bending and contraction of the native people as they aged. His clothes are also well preserved and are different from Yi's workman's clothes or Bodi's long cloth. A gorgeous but light way of wearing clothes, in Yaleriga's impression, is not in line with the fashion aesthetics of the people here.
She shook the golden ball in her hand: "Do you have any impression of this? He held it in his arms."
Bodie and I both looked at the brilliant toy carefully. It seemed to be made of gold, with two nested structures inside and outside, which jingled when it shook. A very delicate object, perhaps a bell or a musical instrument.
They all deny seeing anything similar.
"I don't know what the immortals usually do for entertainment." Bodi said, "Maybe this is his favorite collection."
"When he became like this, you still held him in your arms?"
"People always have the right to choose their own burial objects."
But it wasn't a dead man. When Qiaoqiao Tianyi extinguished the light on her horns, she confirmed this to them again. But at the same time, she also said that there were not many mechanical components in this person that she could detect, at least not as many as Bodi. His digestive, secretory and excretory systems were partially modified to allow him to absorb nutrients more easily. More touch and taste receptors. The outer layer of the skeleton is reinforced with alloy, but the modifications are also very careful.
"This is a transformation that is very suitable for enjoyment and life." She concluded, "However, these transformations are not enough to delay aging. I think they used methods other than mechanical ones, such as cultivating replaceable transplant organs. This is not me Something that can be detected with talent. This is quite strange. Ya Lai, look at his appearance, he is still alive. Although the basic consumption is very low, it is much higher than Freeze. If this is from more than a hundred years ago, In the state he started before, during this period he should have only had mechanical parts and a little bit of tissue left. I don’t know if this is a special influence of the environment, but the environment here is not a vacuum."
"Maybe he has another photosynthetic nutritional system in his body."
"I don't know. Are you going to get him on board to check it out? We don't have special equipment, so it might take some time."
Yaleriga did think so. However, before that, Bodi began to walk towards the center of the iron ball and the bracket, only a dozen steps away from them. There is a fairly obvious passage that allows humans and small aircraft to enter and exit. It's tightly closed at the moment, but doesn't look difficult to break.
Yi stopped in front of Bodi: "What do you want to do?"
"Damn it." Bodie said, "What do I want to do? I want to find out what the hell happened here, instead of just standing there chatting. I want to find an explanation for these more than a hundred years. And you, if you still Plan on living half my age and get out of my way now.”
Bodie raised his arm in a potential attack gesture. There was no doubt that he could cut Yi into several pieces in a second, so Yaleriga went up and pulled Yi away. She saw Bodie's cheeks twitching, the skin around his ears wrinkled, and he looked like a beast in pain.
He walked around Yaleriga, smashed it with his fist, and then tore it with his fingers. He roughly opened the thin door of the alloy passage.
Yi was shocked when she witnessed this behavior. It seemed that he really realized what kind of monster he had fought against at this moment. Yaleriga patted him on the shoulder.
"You go back to the ship first," she said. "I'm not sure it's safe here. Whatever turned the Ageless One into this, it might still be hidden in their base."
"And you?"
"I'll go in and take a look. I have experience dealing with this kind of place."
Yi hesitated. He looked again at the entrance to the passage, just in time to see Bodie jump into it. The pipes made a harsh tearing sound, like someone climbing down the wall. He turned his head again and looked at Yaleriga with burning eyes.
"I'll go down too," he said.
"That's not very safe."
"I'll be careful."
Caution is not enough. But when Qiaoqiao Tianyi started coughing and flapping beside them, Yaleriga was not going to continue the argument. Time was delayed. Although Bodie was a filthy bastard, he was the person she found who knew the Ageless Man best. Abandoning him would be harmful to the investigation.
She handed the golden ball in her hand to Yi.
"You keep this. Maybe it's something important."
Yi held the ball firmly between his arms. Then he sat awkwardly on Qiaoqiao Tianyi's back and flew into the vertical downward passage with her help.
"Hey, it's me who's unhappy!" Qiaoqiao Tianyi protested, "I don't like being next to a stranger's butt!"
Yi became even more uneasy. He turned to stare at Yaleriga sitting behind him, as if expecting her to give him some strength, but Yaleriga didn't pay attention to this small problem. Her attention had been turned to the interior of the Immortal's abode.
The passage is very bright. The lighting beams that line the walls are mostly intact. The air is flowing smoothly, but the dust is almost invisible. It seems that the purification and circulation system has worked well for hundreds of years. Everything looks like it was carefully maintained not long ago.
No one came out to greet him. There was no resistance with weapons either. After landing, there is a vast and warm round hall.
The floor of the rotunda is green. A lush, soft green meadow. Due to lack of pruning, it grew to Yaleriga's knees. Dotted among the grass are strings of colorful flowers, shaped like finger-sized birds. There is water gurgling down the hall wall, exuding the sweet smell of ** and essence. The light covered the top, but it was even and not dazzling. Yaleriga almost thought she was in the daytime of Essen Island.
Yi sat on Qiaoqiao Tianyi's back, staring at the grass at her feet with a hint of horror. He probably didn't know this part from Yaleriga's memory, because he thought these rugs with sharp and raised ends were some kind of fatal traps.
"This is grass - grass," Qiaoqiao Tianyi said. "It won't bite you. It's generally edible. Look. They're so smooth."
She leaned over and took a bite of the grass, spitting it out under Yaleriga's warning gaze. Then he jumped and threw Yi off his back.
"Don't be so careless. There may be toxins in the plants."
"Oh, poison is no problem for me. I've been blessed. And, you see, these grasses are so soft and smooth, they can't cut the skin. I guess it's the owner's decoration - but, I want to say something Not there.”
They looked there. Bodie was standing in front of an arched passage, watching what was going on inside. He stepped forward with one foot, but did not step in. The sight in the passage made him worried.
Yaleriga walked next to him. She was mentally prepared, guessing that she would see some horrific scenes. But there weren't many dead bodies in the passage as she thought, or anything beyond what she could bear.
There was indeed something guarding the passage, but it was hard for Yaleriga to tell whether it had ever been a living thing. That thing was like a mechanical disk with four small wheels, about half a person tall. There is a flashing indicator light at the top. There are also some confusing parts scattered around the mechanical disk: some are obviously firearms and sharp weapons, while others are also dark, smooth and thin rods. They are completely falling apart.
"What is this?" Yaleriga asked.
Bodie stared at the mechanical disk and after a moment replied: "My kind."
"I've seen your feet."
"That's not important. This thing... I have seen similar ones. During training, their transformation methods are different from ours. They are used by the immortals to garrison their bases."
"So, the top of the wheel?"
"It was supposed to be a human being. Like my upper body. And those weapons were supposed to be on his six or eight hands."
They could not find any human tissue among the scattered parts, and it seemed that the parts had completely decayed over the past hundred years. As they walked in, the indicator light on the mechanical disk flashed rapidly, as if a living thing was blinking. But the wheels didn't turn, and the weapons on the ground didn't jump up and fire automatically. The part responsible for making decisions is gone.
Bodie stepped slowly over the mechanical disk. The conclusion has become obvious. If all guards have been lost and all defenses have failed - that means the base has indeed been destroyed. While the guards and spies were carrying out their duties in the mortal world, their masters were dead. No. Not dying.
Bodie walked forward along the passage, and the others followed him. They passed through many beautiful and strange rooms. Even the chairs are made of precious stones in the banquet hall. The massage room is like the belly of a giant beast. In a spacious room with six sides as soft as flesh, naked, lifeless male and female dolls sat quietly, but the energy lines behind them were all cut off. A room full of liquid, exuding the fragrance of wine when swimming in it. Just like in every dimension before, they found the immortal man still alive but unresponsive under the water.
Not dying. Bodi brought up the immortal man from the bottom of the water. They continued walking, Yareliga counting every living dead they found. They didn't go into every room, they just followed the downward passages. But she had already counted three hundred and forty-two.
Finally, they reached the bottom.
It was a garden that both Yi and Bodi were very confused about. The sky showed a light and transparent rose red color. Flowers that even Yareliga didn't recognize covered the ground and the walls. They even saw strange animals that had formed a population balance in the garden over the past hundred years.
At the bottom of this sunken garden, the last immortals sit in a hanging basket-style pavilion. The pavilion itself is not closed, but some kind of sonic repellent is still in effect, so that the people sitting inside are not eaten by the carnivorous creatures wandering outside. These dozen men and women were still sitting, silently looking at the entrance.
Bodie entered the gazebo first. He approached the man and woman in the middle with slow steps. Because of the cover of his body, no one knew what he saw. But he froze in place, almost making people think that he had become a living dead.
Yaleriga called him. Bodie turned and stared strangely at her head.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Bodi stepped aside, his eyes still fixed on Yaleriga. His reasons were quickly revealed to the rest of the group.
The man and woman sitting in the middle each had something unusual placed on their legs. On the man's lap is a very standard miniature projection playback device that can be easily purchased in the gate city; on the woman's leg is a metal flower, which is made of the same material as the chariots placed in the city. Gloomy and colorful. The rough surface of the metal branches has a unique texture like stacked flakes. On the branch that was split into two, two five-petaled flowers poked out from the fingers of the living dead.
The inspection took a while. They finally activated the projector in the clearing. When the language selection interface was mapped in the air, only one of the three options could be understood by Yaleriga. She clicked play.
The image that appeared in front of them caused an illusion to Yaleriga in a short period of time. She seemed to see Jing Huang, who was nearly thirty years old, with his hair tied back, wearing a simple linen shirt and oil-proof trousers, with the sleeves of his arms rolled up to his elbows. He sat on the jeweled chair in the banquet hall they had seen before, his face expressionless, but then he showed a greeting smile - it was at that moment that Yaleriga connected him with the former owner of the Silence Differentiated.
"Record three." He said, "Hello fellow researchers from the alliance, I am Ji Xun."
