"Any news?"
The rain kept hitting the windows and then bursting open. The wind was roaring and the ship was rocking. Mance stood firmly, blew out a puff of cigar and asked the girl in front of the screen.
Two commissioners had already dived underwater before the heavy rain, and it was too late for them to retreat. The mission itself comes with risks, and if they shrink back when faced with any problems, they are destined to accomplish nothing.
And the most important thing is that if they abandon this mission, they will probably never have the opportunity to come here to investigate the ruins buried under the water that are suspected to be the Dragon King's palace.
You must know that in order to get the official permission this time, they went to great lengths and even risked being infiltrated to allow three employees from the company to enroll for 'exchange learning'.
In short, they were fully prepared to carry out this mission, and they would not be able to retreat easily just because of a heavy rain.
"Wow wow ah ah -"
The faint sound of a baby crying from the back cabin made Mance frown even deeper, "Go and see what's wrong with the baby? It keeps crying. Doesn't any of you know how to take care of a child?"
He pretended to complain in an attempt to ease the tense atmosphere.
In fact, everyone here knew that there was no ordinary person on board, including the crying child.
That is no ordinary child, it is the 'key' they brought specially for this mission. The blood level is even higher than most of the commissioners here. Such a child is born extraordinary and does not cry on weekdays. Now The crying is most likely a way of conveying some kind of message to them due to the inability to speak...like danger.
"Professor, how about... let's let Ye Sheng and Ya Ji come up first? We can wait until the rain stops before continuing to explore..."
"I told you to call me captain now! I am now the captain of the Monyach, not your substitute professor. No, no..." Mance had a look of helplessness on his face and shook his head. "The time they gave us was not enough, and we didn't know when the heavy rain would stop. We couldn't miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
"But……"
"No, but, do you think I'm not worried about them?" Mance said with a little annoyance in his tone, "Everyone who came here for this mission came with a good understanding. Don't worry, I will judge the situation well. , if the situation becomes overwhelming, I will be the first to issue an order to retreat. Angers will not be able to stop me even if he comes! But now the investigation has just begun and you are just backing out here. It’s bad luck! It’s better to influence my judgment here than to influence my judgment here. Let’s find a way to comfort our little baby first!”
"You are making things difficult for us, Professor. None of the main members of the executive department here are married. I think that except for a tough guy like you, I am afraid that no one with a family would dare to carry out such a dangerous task. Let's do the mission..." The girl sitting in front of the monitor complained without raising her head. She was about twenty-three or four years old, with black hair and a typical Latin beauty appearance. She was wearing a combat uniform specially customized by Kassel College, and her figure looked curvy.
"Where do you expect us to learn to take care of a baby?"
"Okay, I'll just take it as you complimenting me."
Mance took off the cigar in his mouth and puffed out a smoke ring while rolling his eyes. These students didn't know how to respect the old and care for the young at all. They all told them to call the captain, but no one obeyed. He wondered if he was always right. Are these guys so nice that they lose their dignity? But that's not right. He is the most strict in class. He takes roll in every class. Do these little guys have any strange habits?
"Hey, forget it, you each take care of your own position. Since I am the only married man, I have to go and see our baby, Thelma. Pay attention to their life signals at any time. If there is any abnormality, please Retract the line immediately!”
"Understood! Also, there is no need to emphasize that you are married, professor. The work meal is so rich that you don't need extra meals." The Latin girl Thelma replied.
The atmosphere on the ship has eased a lot due to the tacit cooperation of several people, but the commissioners still did not relax in the work at hand.
Mance was walking in the corridor to the back cabin and soon heard the report from the third officer in the headset.
"Captain, I received a signal from the Maritime Safety Administration of the Yangtze River Channel. They sent a friendly reminder that the storm will continue in the middle of the night, the wind will increase to level 10, and the rainfall will reach 200 millimeters. This is a rare event this year. Heavy rain, possibly accompanied by thunderstorms! Let us proceed with caution. If necessary, you can always call them for help."
"Good intentions are nothing! If we really wanted to be kind, they would give us more time..."
Mance cursed and complained, "Tell them not to worry, we will be careful. You don't have to worry, this is the Monyach, it is a tugboat on the surface, but in fact it is a warship! It is suitable for storms of level 12 It’s not a problem for it.”
"Captain, don't be angry. Maybe they really care about us? I heard that the people here are very friendly." The third officer comforted with some embarrassment.
"Do you really believe it? I guess these guys are eating melon seeds and drinking tea around the shore to watch the show!"
Mance complained angrily.
But he soon calmed down.
Although I am quite angry, if anything happens, I might really rely on these guys.
The face of the academy is important, but in his opinion, nothing is more important than the lives of his students.
The channel fell silent again, and everyone tensed up to pay attention to everything. When Mance came to the back cabin, the only sounds he could hear at this moment were the baby's cry, and the two intertwined heartbeats echoing in the headphones. .
The two sounds merge together like sorrow and music, making people's breathing become suppressed. This heavy rain reminded him of the ice sea in Greenland ten years ago... Every time he got close to something like this, he would have a feeling of impending disaster.
The crying baby is naturally the baby he is preparing to comfort, and the heartbeat sound comes from the system's heartbeat monitoring of the diving personnel. At this moment, green light spots can still be seen in the monitoring window of Selma in the front cabin, and the two young and active hearts are still beating normally.
············
"This is fifty meters below the water."
Under the dim deep water, Ye Sheng muttered to himself. The spotlight cannot penetrate too far in the deep water, and only a blue-gray light strip guides their only path.
Shutoku Aki's slender figure floated next to Ye Sheng, and Ye Sheng could reach her as long as he stretched out his hand.
She did not respond to Ye Sheng's words, nor did she disturb him.
Because this is not talking but recording.
Every commissioner who goes deep into dangerous areas should be fully prepared, and recording everything they experience here is naturally one of their tasks.
If something unfortunate happens, latecomers can find useful messages in the voices they left behind.
Yaji understood which words Ye Sheng was talking about working and which words were talking to her, because this was their twenty-seventh underwater collaborative operation. They were classmates in the academy and entered the executive department at the same time. They had been diving partners for five years. They could read each other's hearts from one look even without communicating.
Just like now Ye Shengyou spoke, and Yaji knew that he was complaining to himself.
"I heard that Lu Mingfei, the 'S'-level freshman, killed Chu Zihang and Caesar in the 'Free Day' on his first day at school. When we interviewed him, we didn't see that he had such ability at all."
"Your gossip is lagging behind. Before I dived, I heard Professor Mance complain that our operation seems to be related to the alien organization in your country. As a condition for us to conduct an investigation here, they have three conditions: Several employees are going to enter the college. Professor Schneider decided to let Lu Mingfei interview them as one of the commissioners, saying that he wanted to give them a show of strength. Maybe this point is still in a stalemate, right?" Shude Aki complained. Looking at the gossip he had heard, his tone was full of helplessness, "I heard that Professor Schneider also spoke highly of Lu Mingfei. Maybe we really got it wrong? Is he really hiding it?"
"Ah?" The corner of Ye Sheng's mouth twitched, "Maybe the principal and professors do have a unique vision... Anyway, I didn't see it at all... But then... where did you get these gossips?"
"Secrets between women, hehe."
Shutoku Aki responded with a smile.
The dim environment and the thick masks on each other's heads made it difficult for them to see the expressions on each other's faces clearly, but the sound could be transmitted through a separate signal line between the two.
"Okay, no matter what, I hope both of us can go smoothly..."
Ye Sheng did not continue to ask. The oxygen under water was limited, so they had to hurry up and carry out the task.
Soon, the two of them arrived at the bottom of the water. The violent storm was filtered by more than fifty meters of water and arrived here. The remaining gentle water waves could be completely ignored and would not affect their actions. However, the terrain here made it impossible for them to do anything. Move as you wish, the geographical location here was submerged due to the impoundment of the reservoir, but before this it was a mountainous area, and the stones were polished extremely smooth by the rapid water flow at that time, making it difficult to set foot on.
Ye Sheng used the hook equipped on his diving suit to pierce the rock and stand firm, then leaned down and groped in the bottom mud with his hand.
Soon he seemed to have discovered something, and showed what he had found to Shutoku Aki who was standing aside. It was a pottery fragment with an ancient pattern. Shutoku Aki understood and took out the prepared underwater camera to take photos. and passed it on to the Monyach above. All discoveries made throughout the mission need to be recorded, and they cannot let go of any small clue.
"It has a history of at least thousands of years. It is something from before the Shu culture was engulfed by the Central Plains culture. It is probably related to the Baidi City we are looking for."
After passing the photo information, Aki Shutoku took the pottery and looked at it. During class, she listened much more carefully than the guy next to her, who usually copied her notes.
"But there seems to be no trace that can be called a 'city' near here. If there once was a magnificent ancient city, it's impossible to leave only a piece of pottery, right?"
"Yes, but our oxygen is not enough to support our careful search. We'd better call for outside help."
With that said, Ye Sheng pressed the call switch on his mask to connect to the college's supercomputer, "Norma, I need to use sonar to scan the terrain."
"Roger, the Monyach is ready for sonar scanning." The central processor in the United States immediately issued instructions to the Monyach and executed them directly, bypassing the operating console.
Dark green contour lines outline a three-dimensional sonar map and display it on the masks of Ye Sheng and Shuode Aki. The surrounding terrain environment becomes clearly visible in front of their eyes in an instant.
"Although we didn't see it, this is indeed a geomantic treasure." Ye Sheng pointed at the topographic map sent by Norma, "There are mountains in the northeast and southeast. The one above the water is Baidi Mountain, and the one under the water is Chi Jiashan, two mountains connected together to form a structure similar to a 'gate'. The opposite side was originally the Caotang River, passing through a valley. According to our domestic Feng Shui, this is where the mountain dragon and the water dragon meet, gathering the energy of yin and yang. , if I were the king back then, it would not be surprising at all to choose such a treasured land to build a city."
"That is to say, it's probably just that we didn't see the city, not that there is no city here, right?" Shutoku Aki asked seemingly understandingly, "Speaking of which, you usually don't pay attention to these mysterious things in class. of?"
"Chinese culture is extensive and profound, how can it be called Xuanhu?" Ye Sheng said seriously, "Okay, in short, if Baidi City really exists, it should be nearby. Dragon's Castle is destined not to be seen with ordinary eyes. I guess we have to find the entrance."
"Nibelungen, right..." Shuode Aki nodded slightly.
The city that cannot be seen with the naked eye can only be found in the dragon's domain, the Nibelungs.
"But where will the entrance be? Even the Nibelungen must have a medium as an entrance, right? Thousands of years have passed, plus the sand and gravel brought by the river..."
"underground!"
The two got the answer quickly while chatting.
The question now comes to how they can explore the castle buried deep underground.
They did not bring any excavation equipment, but such problems did not trouble them. As a survey team, of course they must have people suitable for such work.
Yanling·Snake.
This is Ye Sheng's speech spirit. He can control and release countless 'vacuum snakes' in his mind as his eyes, ears and even mouth for surveying or communication.
It sounds mysterious, but in fact it is highly sensitive to electrical signals. Hybrids with this kind of speech spirit can use their mental power to amplify their perception of power plants and explore everything around them through changes in electric fields, especially at low temperatures. The effect is best in environments with resistance, such as rainy days, areas with dense metal lines, along railway tracks, and inside bodies of water. Theoretically, if there is no resistance in the entire world, they can even spread their domain to the entire world.
