bad seeds - Chapter 21
“There is no abnormality. The soil color of the mountain is even darker than it was three days ago. The iron pipes exposed outside the mountain seem to have stopped growing and instead started to grow underground... Wait... Anomaly! The metal absorption capacity test has detected an anomaly! Absorption capacity... Absorption capacity..." The monitor, who was staring intently at the instrument, was pale.
"What's wrong?" Liang Yingwu suddenly stood up and shouted.
"The rate of metal absorption has increased again, and it is now 20% to 30% higher than it was half a minute ago. It has reached 30%, and the rate of increase is still rising."
The conference room fell silent, as if everyone had been deprived of their tongues at the same time.
People looked at each other in bewilderment.
Only the inspector's hoarse voice kept reporting alarming figures.
"100%".
150%
200%.
Ten minutes later, the inspector wiped the sweat from his brow: "The rate of increase has leveled off; the current rate of increase per minute is approximately... approximately..."
"How much?" Old He asked with difficulty, his lips turning blue.
47.857%
Good heavens, its metal absorption capacity is increasing by nearly 50% every minute!
"All personnel must evacuate immediately," Lao He decided immediately.
Is this retaliation for nuclear weapons? If they retreat, where can they retreat to? At the current rate, they could devour the entire China, no, the entire Earth in no time. Where can they escape to?
Everyone packed their belongings as quickly as possible, some heavy equipment was even left behind. I could clearly feel my powerlessness, a feeling I had never experienced before, even at the core, as if my life force was being continuously absorbed by the black hole.
I ran towards the Cherokee, but suddenly my legs gave way and I nearly fell. It wasn't because my legs were weak, but because the ground shook violently.
The sudden tremor lasted for about 30 seconds before gradually subsiding.
A voice suddenly cried out, "The metal's absorption capacity is decreasing; the nucleus is moving away from us." It was the inspector.
"The nuclear reactor is moving away? How is that possible? In which direction?" Liang Yingwu asked loudly.
"Underground, it went underground."
Mount Baigong still stands before us unscathed, just as it has spanned millions of years, and it will continue to exist in the Qaidam Basin for millions of years to come.
Nearly thirty people, dressed in bulky, yellow radiation protection suits, filed into the cave, a scene that looked somewhat comical.
Liang Yingwu, Ye Tong, and I led the way, while the "mother body" mysteriously disappeared. After some consideration, Lao He decided to let us lead the team to take a look.
On the fourth visit, the terrifying atmosphere of the intricate tunnels inside Mount Baigong had completely disappeared. As we approached the central cave, I discovered that the high-strength radiation-resistant plastic used to support the rock walls had completely melted—the nuclear bomb had indeed exploded, but we hadn't felt it at all, and the instruments hadn't detected it. Was this the power of this creature?
Half an hour later, 27 25-watt helmet lights illuminated the cave in the center of Mount Baigong, but the cave was now completely empty.
All the branches surrounding the "mother body" have disappeared, and the cave walls are covered with a layer of silver and red metallic material, presumably molten metal from the nuclear explosion that adhered to the rock walls. I suspect that it was because this dense metallic layer absorbed most of the energy of the nuclear explosion that Mount Baigong escaped destruction.
In the center of the cave, where the "mother body" originally stood, a bottomless pit with a radius of about twenty or thirty meters remained. It seems that when the "mother body" burrowed underground, it took some of its core iron branches with it.
As I approached the cave, a faint yet persistent force suddenly stirred my senses again, causing me to stand at the entrance, staring blankly into the darkness within.
“It seems we don’t need to hold any more meetings,” Liang Yingwu said. “The ‘mother’ has disappeared. According to my preliminary deduction, some of its materials reacted under prolonged and high-intensity radiation and exploded on their own.”
Lao He said, "Except for the necessary personnel at the observation station, all researchers have been withdrawn from Baigong Mountain. The observation station will continue to closely monitor and report data."
"Professor Tang, please try to eliminate the radiation here as quickly as possible. Continue to seal off this area until the radiation level outside the mountain is reduced to a level that is harmless to humans and animals."
On the way back to camp, I said to Liang Yingwu in private:
"It's still alive! I can feel it's still alive!"
“I know,” Liang Yingwu said.
"The Earth's core sank because of the large amount of metal there, not because of a nuclear explosion," I said.
“I know,” Liang Yingwu said. “Millions of years have passed, and I think it has matured. Like a ripe fruit about to fall to the ground, it has finally gained enough power to burrow into the ground. Perhaps our nuclear explosion provided it with its final energy.”
"It's ridiculous. If it had matured earlier, our ancestors wouldn't have had to abandon Earth."
Shortly after I returned to Shanghai, I learned that Liang Yingwu had been transferred from the Tosu Lake Research Station due to "command errors that caused huge economic losses." However, because of the discovery of the prehistoric civilization spaceship, his merits and demerits were considered to have offset each other, and he did not receive any punishment. He continued to return to Shanghai to teach at the School of Life Sciences at B University.
Organization X built a highly classified research base centered on the spacecraft at the site of the spacecraft's remains. During that year, my country's manned spaceflight technology made rapid progress, attracting worldwide attention.
The blockade of Baigong Mountain was lifted shortly after we left. The "branch" separated from the mother plant by "thousands of mountains and rivers" died in the harsh cold of the Gobi Desert the following winter and was buried underground.
Speaking of the ancestors of the Demilhi, they disobeyed the "oracle" because of their desire for the convenience of making iron tools, which led to the ruin of their homeland, displacement, and transformation into a nomadic people. This can be verified by the parchment scrolls and the iron tools found in the ancient village ruins of Lake Kruk. However, Ye Tong has always refused to admit this, and we had a big argument about it on the train back. She didn't contact me for two whole months. Of course, this cannot overshadow the enormous contributions Ye Tong's people have made to the human living environment.
Before returning to Shanghai, we searched for traces of Ye Tong's people throughout Delingha and its surrounding suburbs. However, this mysterious ethnic group vanished without a trace; no one ever encountered them again, as if they had always been merely legendary figures, never truly existing. The old house where they held their ceremonies was now empty, the shrine in the basement had lost its "divine box," and even the ashes of the bonfire in the courtyard had been blown away by the wind and sand. That solemn ritual, Grandma's wrinkled and spotted face, seemed to have only appeared in her dreams, something that had deeply saddened Ye Tong.
We also asked some locals, and without exception, they were unwilling to say a word about the Demilshi tribe. We wanted to tell them that the legends of the "Demon Mountain" and the "Gatekeeper of Hell" should end, but we didn't.
Thus, the warning on the parchment that one could never return to the tribe was more like a curse.
Finally, before returning to Shanghai, what Liang Yingwu said to us left a deep impression on Ye Tong and me:
“You’ve all been working in journalism for years, so you should know what to do. I think keeping quiet is the best approach, and of course, I won’t do anything to harm you.”
This statement led Ye Tong to ultimately conclude that he was the same kind of person as the secret agents in spy movies who would kill people at the drop of a hat.
end