Iron Bull taucht wieder auf

Kapitel 246

Xiao Yan and Hong Xiaogui had both stolen information from here, but they never expected that there would be a living master from District 51 right in front of them.

"Yes, my mission this time was to find the legendary 'Pandora's Box.' Now that I'm about to die, I don't want to keep this secret to myself. Speaking it out might be helpful in finding Miss Suren. Pentagon intelligence agents stationed in South and West Asia have reported that an extremely strong radiation source has been discovered near the Sichuan-Tibet border in mainland China. Its intensity and continuous radiation duration are 40,000 times that of any artificially synthesized product produced by the United States to date. Therefore, Pentagon intelligence analysts suspect that it was caused by a leak in the fuel system of an alien spacecraft."

He took a hard breath, his face gradually darkening.

The Sixth Part: The Mystery of the Heavenly Ladder

— Chapter 8 — Where is the Crimson Blood Night-Shining Toad? —

I grabbed his wrist and continued to transfer my internal energy into his body, palm to palm, while I couldn't help but wonder: "Xiao Yan and Hong Xiaogui have broken into the archives of Area 51 several times, and Yan Xun is a well-informed person inside the Pentagon. How come I've never heard them mention this before?"

"After arriving in this area as a biologist, I traced the origins and gradually discovered some clues. In fact, even if Suren hadn't formed this expedition to find the Epang Palace, I would have done the same work. Our goals were different, but our directions were completely the same. However, at this point, a small accident happened: I truly fell in love with Suren—"

My wrist jerked suddenly, and I quickly focused my mind, clearing my head of all distractions caused by his words. In the grand scheme of things, gains and losses are determined by fate. While I was distracted by Guan Baoling's unexpected encounter, Su Lun also gained many fervent suitors. Perhaps this was the greatest punishment Heaven could impose on me.

"Don't laugh at me, Feng. She was my first love. For a time, I was even intoxicated by unrealistic fantasies, truly believing myself to be the scholar Schiller, yearning for the opportunity to be with her, without any ulterior motives, only wanting to help her achieve her wishes. My superiors quickly noticed my abnormality and immediately sent a special envoy codenamed 'Nirvana' to take over my work. As far as I know, he was also handling another matter at the same time, concerning another defecting spy, a girl codenamed 'Silver Dandelion'."

With the continued surge of powerful internal energy, his breathing stabilized, and a touch of color returned to his face.

This method of treatment is like setting up a stove to boil water in a winter wilderness; once the firewood burns out, the water that was boiling will return to cold. How long the water boils depends solely on how long the firewood burns. I am truly grateful to have received Master Bumenlu's "Yin-Yang Divine Power," which has given me this emergency rescue today.

Resica, codenamed "Silver Dandelion," had long since faded from my memory. Not wanting this interlude to disrupt Schiller's narrative, I immediately coughed: "Schiller, I hope—"

He's a smart man; otherwise, he wouldn't have been selected by the US military through layers of screening to join Area 51. He glanced at me and immediately understood what I meant: "Feng, I'll speed up the narration. It's precisely because Nirvana is about to occur that I urged Suren to set off into the mountains immediately, hoping to find clues about the radiation source before the special envoy arrives, to make a great contribution, and thereby apply to the organization to leave and become an ordinary American citizen, so I can stay by Suren's side normally. Actually, her preparations are not sufficient, and she has been dragging her feet and delaying the time, most likely waiting for you to come."

I was so remorseful that I wanted to kill myself. When Su Lun left Japan, she hinted and begged countless times that I should go with her, but I refused as if possessed.

Gu Qingcheng suddenly interjected: "Mr. Schiller, please skip the middle part of the narrative. After you and Su Lun parted ways with the main group, did you continue straight ahead without turning onto any other paths? The real key point is within the ten minutes or so after the parting, because according to Fei Ying, he waited until Li Kang and his group left before immediately leading his men to catch up, but he could no longer find you."

Schiller pondered with difficulty, his breathing becoming increasingly rapid: "Yes, after leaving the main force, we did indeed keep moving forward, and five minutes later, we passed a large expanse of dry grass. I remember Suren saying that the smell of hay reminded her of the terrace of her villa in Cairo; her contemplative expression was like that of a Renaissance lady sculpture, mesmerizing me. The crisis began from that moment; we all heard a low, drumming sound coming from the ground in the center of the grass—"

Gu Qingcheng's attention was immediately drawn, and she couldn't help but lean forward: "Drumming? On the ground or underground?"

The situation was exactly like this: the weather was clear and the light was good, and the sound of the drum was only twenty paces away from the donkeys they were riding.

Suren was the first to react, immediately slapping the donkey's rump and rushing over. Strictly speaking, it shouldn't have been a drumbeat, but a huge "thump-thump" sound, three seconds apart. The sound was so loud that it made both of their bodies tremble, and their heartbeats were easily controlled by the drumbeat, slowing down more and more.

There was nothing unusual in the center of the meadow, except that some of the dry grass had been gnawed off by animals, leaving only the broken roots.

Suren measured back and forth several times, picked up a dry twig, drew a large circle ten paces in diameter, and made a very certain judgment: "The sound came from below."

Schiller, with his extensive experience in jungle life, immediately grabbed a short shovel and prepared to dig beneath the turf. He always obeyed Suren unconditionally, regarding his words as gospel—a quality I could never match.

Unexpectedly, the moment his shovel touched the ground, a tremendous suction force snatched it from his hand and automatically burrowed under the turf, disappearing completely in the blink of an eye.

Before the two could even cry out, Schiller suddenly felt dizzy and as if he were being swept into a giant vortex, sinking deeper and deeper into the earth. Although his martial arts skills were superb, his adaptability was no match for Suren's, and he became flustered and helpless in the chaos.

The girl's body was light and agile, so she descended more slowly. Suren leaped over, grabbed Schiller's shoulder, and used a clever technique to throw him straight up, while she herself sank three or four meters in an instant.

Schiller couldn't understand how the lush meadow had turned into a swirling vortex of liquid. He struggled to jump out of the painting by Sulen and immediately activated the remote-controlled camera system hidden in his bag. The equipment came from a top-tier European electronics supplier, and components from the same product line had already been used on NASA's Mars rover, becoming a global focus of attention.

Both he and Suren were equipped with wireless monitoring cameras, located on the second button on their chests. On the monitor screen, all the images he received were of high-speed rotation, estimated to be around 200 revolutions per minute.

Gu Qingcheng finally couldn't help but interrupt him: "Two hundred revolutions per minute, more than three revolutions per second. In a very short time, anyone caught in it will feel dizzy and suffer a severe concussion. You mean, Su Lun was already unconscious when he was caught in it?"

Vomiting, amnesia, and mental fog are the most common manifestations of severe concussion, but highly trained individuals can successfully overcome these by utilizing external rotational patterns. In my opinion, Suren will not have an excessive adverse reaction.

"No, she wasn't unconscious. Instead, she calmly reported the situation down into the microphone. She said that the descent was like being in a private swimming pool by the Dead Sea, and she could feel the powerful buoyancy of the liquid around her body. She couldn't see the soil or rocks, but was just descending in a transparent blue liquid. When she pointed the camera at her feet, I saw a faint blue-gray palace in the far distance."

Schiller's account brought my thoughts back to that harrowing night in the tunnel. Sun Gui had also entered the blue liquid. Could what Su Lun experienced be the same scene I witnessed? If some force can turn a solid into a liquid, it would be completely unimaginable in the applied physics theories of Earthlings.

The witch Long said it was an "entrance," and perhaps I should have jumped down with Sun Gui then, and I could have seen Suren directly—the phone in his pocket suddenly rang, startling Schiller from his reverie. His shoulders trembled violently: "What? Who's calling? Is it Suren?" He frantically reached for his pocket, looking extremely confused.

Gu Qingcheng walked over, placed her left hand on his shoulder, and gently comforted him, "Don't panic, it's Mr. Feng on the phone, not Su Lun."

More than anyone else, I hoped it was Su Lun calling, but the LCD screen displayed a number from a Pacific island nation. I figured it was Yan Xun calling, so I immediately turned off the power and tossed the phone aside.

Schiller pressed on, his voice trembling, "Is it her? Or isn't it?"

His hand unconsciously brushed across his cheek, his beard falling more freely than the sharpest razor. The next step might be a massive, horrific ulceration of his skin due to cellular mutation. Tragically, no one could change this outcome; current knowledge of Earth's medicine was powerless to prevent it.

I took a long, deep breath and smiled apologetically: "Schiller, please continue."

"The process lasted for nearly three minutes. I was so focused on watching the screen that I didn't notice what was happening around me. Suren entered the palace, and I saw a metal door that gleamed with a blue light. Her landing point was right in front of the door."

The focus of the incident once again points to the "metal door," the very door that was first mentioned by Gui Luo, the "King of Catchers."

Gu Qingcheng took out paper and pen from her pocket and started writing rapidly, the pen tip rubbing against the paper, making a soft "shush" sound.

Schiller shrugged. "Gentlemen, that's the end of the story. The only thing I need to add is that I was so engrossed in the moment that I unknowingly re-entered that '***'. When the communication signal was lost, I suddenly fainted. When I woke up again, I was already lying in this tent."

Gu Qingcheng quickly added, "Mr. Schiller, you may not know that from the time you disappeared until you reappeared, you lost all the metal items you carried with you, including the nails on the donkey's hooves."

Schiller answered the question easily: "It's simple. We encountered an unimaginably strong magnetic field. The immense geomagnetic force first pulled away my shovel, and then, during the final stage of the magnetic oscillation, the attraction suddenly increased hundreds of times, taking everything away. For example, in 1940, the British sailing ship 'Tarisena' disappeared while crossing the Devil's Triangle in the Pacific Ocean. Two months later, the coastal rescue team found all the planks that made up the hull on the sea. Considering that before the ship sank, the captain reported on the radio that he had detected a strong magnetic field, and that the compass and all the clocks were spinning wildly, the maritime experts concluded that 'the strong magnetic field pulled away all the nails used in the ship's construction, thus causing the ship to break apart…' Suren, Suren, Suren—"

He suddenly straightened up and shouted, the veins on his neck bulging menacingly, forming a crisscrossing net. Before Gu Qingcheng and I could react, his voice suddenly dropped, like a phonograph whose power was rapidly decreasing.

I suddenly gathered my strength and unleashed a tremendous force from my palm, hoping to save him once again.

Gu Qingcheng swept over, pressed her finger against the side of Schiller's neck, and smiled bitterly: "It's over."

Schiller died; for a patient exposed to high levels of radiation, such a death might be the least painful.

“Mr. Feng, now I understand why he went on and on about his past with Suren at the beginning. He knew that life could end at any moment, and if he didn’t speak up now, he couldn’t predict whether he would live or die in the next second. In his heart, the little things he had spent with Suren were more worthy of being remembered than these incredible and mysterious events.”

Gu Qingcheng wore a strange expression that was both envious and regretful, which made me feel extremely uncomfortable, like a fishbone stuck in my throat.

In such a perilous environment, I should have been by Su Lun's side, not the biologist Schiller who appeared out of nowhere, especially since he was a secret American spy. Next, I must deeply reflect on my feelings for Guan Baoling; we are not the same kind of people, and getting too close is inherently dangerous.

I laid Schiller flat and closed his eyelids.

"Nirvana, silver dandelion, Pandora's box? How far and how deep will the Americans' fingers reach around the world? Or will they only be truly satisfied when every inch of the earth is covered with the Stars and Stripes fluttering in the wind?" I muttered to myself.

Gu Qingcheng frowned: "Those intrigues and power struggles in international politics are not something we petty businessmen can casually comment on. Mr. Feng, the success or failure of crossing the tunnel hinges on tomorrow. I hope the 'Azure Blood Night-Shining Toad' you bring back will have the legendary miraculous effects."

We walked out of the tent together, and Gu Qingcheng immediately instructed the team members on duty nearby: "Find two people to dig a deep pit to bury Schiller's body, and strictly spray disinfectant."

Knowing that disinfectant is useless against the harmful effects of residual radiation, she still took as many precautions as possible, which was better than nothing.

"Is there anything else that needs to be explained about Feiyue's death?" Gu Qingcheng noticed my exhaustion and asked tentatively.

I answered briefly: "When the Southwest caravan attacked the ancient village, Feiyue was shot by the enemy while trying to save me. In the end, no one in the ancient village survived. Even He Jishang was ambushed by the caravan's puppeteer. The poisonous insects he had been raising inside him backfired, and he could only detonate explosives, which destroyed him along with the village."

I've said everything I can. There's no need for outsiders to know about the details concerning my elder brother.

I took out the metal box and handed it to Gu Qingcheng: "This contains the 'Azure Blood Night-Shining Toad,' which He Jishang personally gave to me. It can't be wrong."

The lid was still tightly closed, and there wasn't a single scratch typical of metal products around the box; it radiated a calm and austere silver light.

Gu Qingcheng weighed the box in her hand, muttering to herself in confusion, "What exactly does that Five Poisons Sect treasure look like? This box is heavy, and the metal is neither silver nor copper. The surface doesn't seem to have the common high-grade chrome plating process. It's quite strange, isn't it?"

A wave of drowsiness washed over me, and my mind was buzzing. After all, I hadn't had a proper rest for several nights before rushing back to the ancient village, and now I had neither the mood nor much curiosity to investigate the contents of the box. Intuitively, He Jishang was deeply devoted to her elder brother, and in her near-death state, she would never lie to me.

"I'm going to take a nap. Please let me know immediately if anything happens." I put away the box, insisted on returning to my tent, and collapsed onto the mattress, falling into another dreamless sleep. Too many deaths seemed to have numbed my senses: Fei Yue, Yan Zhi, Kaku, the Puppet Master, and finally He Jishang, who disappeared with the explosion. No one could predict where the killing would end.

I awoke from my deep sleep to find the curtains swaying in the wind, and the light inside the tent was extremely dim.

Someone quietly walked in, tiptoed to the mattress, and nudged my shoulder: "Hey, Feng, where's the box? Let me see it?" It was Red Devil's voice.

I didn't want to reply; He Jishang's face, stained with blood and tears, was flashing before my eyes.

Red Devil reached into my pocket and muttered to himself, "What kind of treasure does the Five Poisons Sect possess? Let me examine it."

With a flash of silver light, the metal box was in his hand, and then with a "click," he turned on the tent light, and the blinding light suddenly poured down.

"Haha, you're awake. I thought I'd sleep until dawn. Feng, let's check if the contents of this box are still there, so we don't waste our time running all the way to the end of the tunnel tomorrow only to find the snake formation still there." He picked up the box and shook it vigorously, then listened to it, but there was no sound.

As one of the sacred objects of the Five Poisons Sect, the toad has always existed as a venomous insect that strikes fear into the hearts of martial arts practitioners. Since the item in the box is named "Azure Blood Night-Shining Toad," it must undoubtedly be a toad, whether alive or a specimen, and will more or less carry seven parts of venom.

I held down the little devil's hand, about to stop him, when the curtain rolled up and Tiger, Gu Qingcheng, and Uncle Wei walked in together.

"Let Feng try. This is a serious matter. We need to find out if what's inside is real or fake before deciding on tomorrow's actions. Nine and a half out of ten members of the Five Poisons Sect are cunning and perverse. We must be wary. What do you think?"

Tiger's words made Red Devil even more smug. He casually pulled out a sharp knife and tapped it three times on the box: "Ha, Wind, this is everyone's opinion. You can't argue with that anymore, can you?"

The four of them naturally stood in a row, expressing their shared stance.

I rolled over, not caring what their intentions were, but my attention was drawn to the dull knocking sound. Any metal box struck would produce a hollow, clanging sound, but now, the hilt of Red Devil's knife struck down as if hitting a solid steel ingot.

"Listen, something doesn't sound right?" I sprang up, snatched back the box and Red Devil's knife, held my breath, and gently tapped it. Sure enough, the sound was extremely hoarse and short, confirming my judgment.

"A solid box?" Gu Qingcheng exclaimed in disappointment.

When He Jishang handed me the box, she said that it contained the "Azure Blood Night-Shining Toad," but now it's solid. How could it possibly hold anything? Was she lying to me?

The box was passed from hand to hand, affecting everyone's emotions. Only Little Red Devil remained enthusiastic, laughing: "Let me pry it open and see what's under the lid!"

He extended the thin, cicada-wing-like blade towards the narrow seam where the lid and the box met, but with tremendous effort, he couldn't pry it open even a fraction. Disappointed, he shook his head and asked, "Feng, can you explain what this is? Is it a half-finished steel ingot from the cutting production line? Or an award-winning piece from an avant-garde art exhibition?"

I can't explain why He Jishang, who gave it to me, has disappeared from the face of the earth. Any further doubts can only be kept to myself.

The most disappointed was Tiger, who paced anxiously: "What are we going to do tomorrow? We have to find a way to get through the snake formation. If all else fails, I'll prepare explosives. Even if we have to detonate them every ten steps, I'll still have to move to the ladder. Be careful, it's somewhere inside, it's really there."

No one responded to him. Continuous blasting was carried out in the nearly sealed cave. The danger of a roof collapse was like lighting a torch to put a gasoline depot into a minefield, which could turn the mountain into a grave at any moment.

Red Devil quietly slipped out; he wasn't interested in this perplexing situation and didn't want to take any responsibility.

The tiger sighed deeply and strode out, the curtain being flung into the air, swaying in the wind for a long time before slowly falling back down. Men troubled by love are often irritable and easily angered; this is human nature.

"Tomorrow, I will first arrange for the remaining team members to escort the unconscious person to safety. The rest of us will then take two jeeps into the tunnel. If the box does not work, we will have to temporarily suspend our expedition."

Without consulting anyone, Uncle Wei uttered these words, turned and left, leaving Gu Qingcheng alone.

This is the situation I least want to see. As soon as difficulties arise, people's morale immediately collapses, and no one is willing to sit down and discuss things again.

“Mr. Feng, your phone has rung several times, but you haven’t woken up yet. I hope you can call back later. Can you tell me the truth? What exactly is that box? Where is the Azure Blood Night-Shining Toad?” She stared intently at my face, her gaze calm and still, without any suspicion or cunning probing.

I gave a bitter smile: "These are the two questions I want to know the most. So many people died, and this is the result. I am not reconciled, but this is the reality. There is no useful explanation."

Gu Qingcheng smiled: "Alright, what are you planning to do tomorrow? I've already contacted some friends outside the mountains. If it's really necessary, we can expedite the dispatch of a batch of highly toxic insecticides, which will take about a week. The key issue is whether the insecticide will work on the mutated venomous snakes. Based on the length of the crevice provided by the tiger, the amount of medicine needed is staggering, almost encompassing all the quotas for this year from Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Guangxi provinces. This will inevitably arouse suspicion among suppliers on a large scale, and our operation will lose all secrecy."

The Sixth Part: The Mystery of the Heavenly Ladder

— Chapter 9 — Miniature Pictures on the Jade Plaque —

I picked up the box and stared intently at its lid, holding onto one unwavering belief: "He Jishang would never lie to me!" In any case, what she entrusted to me before her death must have astonishing value.

"We're sending Flying Eagle and the others out of the mountains tomorrow. Should we go check on them again? Schiller is dead. Who knows which one of them will be next?"

Gu Qingcheng was the only one in the camp who was willing to accommodate me, and she always spoke to me in a gentle and consultative tone. Before I could even nod in agreement, the phone beside my pillow rang again. She nodded knowingly, then quickly bowed her head and left the tent.

The number from Java belonged to Yan Xun, and it was still her deep, gentle voice: "Feng, am I bothering you too much? Is it convenient to talk?"

I composed myself and calmly replied, "No."

“This call is for personal reasons. I have 90 seconds of talk time, so I'll keep it short—I can't persuade Xiaoyan. He stubbornly stays in the underwater world and won't come out no matter what I say. He says he will transform into a god, shedding his cumbersome human body and becoming a free being. Feng, if possible, I would like to ask you to make more efforts to persuade him to come out.”

Even in a state of great anxiety, Yan Xun maintained a pleasant voice without the slightest hint of impatience.