Chapter 1: Buzzing and the Substructure

The heart of the city roared. The excavator's iron arm brutally tore through the old platform floor, concrete fragments and dust cascading down like a black waterfall. The air was thick with the scent of rust, cement dust, and some indescribable, damp smell emanating from the depths of the earth. Zhong Hua stood outside the cordon, his brow slightly furrowed. He wasn't part of the construction crew; he had simply happened to be passing by, drawn by the sudden, unusually clear "humming" sound.

The sound wasn't like the noise of machinery; it was more like... a low-frequency, penetrating resonance, as if vibrating directly into one's chest, carrying a strange sense of familiarity. It came and went quickly, and if the ground hadn't actually been dug up shortly afterward, he would have almost thought it was his imagination.

The construction foreman, a dark-skinned middle-aged man, was wiping sweat from his brow as he directed the workers to clear the newly dug trench. "Be careful! See what we've found!"

As the dust settled, an unexpected sight appeared before everyone: about three meters underground, instead of the expected solid soil layer or old pipes, there was a neat concrete interlayer. The surface of the interlayer was unusually smooth, forming a stark contrast with the surrounding rough foundation.

"What...what is this?" someone muttered to themselves.

Curiosity piqued, the construction foreman went down into the trench and tapped the surface of the interlayer with tools. "It's hollow!" he exclaimed, his expression changing. "Be careful, pry it open and see!"

The sound of tools clashing against concrete was ear-piercing. As the first precast slab was pried open, a stronger smell, mixed with old paper and dust, wafted out. Zhong Hua's heart skipped a beat. He leaned forward, his gaze piercing through the swirling dust to the mysterious interior of the interlayer.

There was no gold or silver treasure in the hidden compartment, nor any earth-shattering secret weapon, only a roll of something carefully wrapped in waterproof tarpaulin, lying there quietly, as if waiting for the day it would be discovered.

The construction foreman carefully carried the roll out and placed it on a makeshift wooden plank nearby. The edges of the tarpaulin were somewhat rotten, but it was generally intact. He gestured for his men to open it.

The tarpaulin was peeled back layer by layer, revealing its contents—a roll of yellowed blueprints.

“It’s a planning map!” A young engineer wearing glasses came over and examined it carefully. “Look at the paper and the lines… it looks like something from decades ago.”

The drawings were slowly unfolded, revealing intricate lines and symbols drawn with red and blue pencils. Although the text at the title was somewhat blurred, it was still legible—"1978 Metro Line X Planning Map".

"1978?" The construction foreman clicked his tongue. "That's really ancient. Did this city even have plans to build a subway back then?"

The engineer shook his head: "I don't know, it might be an early, abandoned design."

However, when Zhong Hua's gaze fell on the winding red and blue lines on the drawing, his pupils suddenly contracted. He wasn't an engineer and couldn't understand the technical markings and symbols, but he had an almost instinctive sensitivity to maps and geographical shapes—especially those places he had personally visited.

“This…this tunnel route…” Zhong Hua’s voice was a little hoarse. He pointed to a main red line on the drawing, “Don’t you think it looks a lot like…a lot like the volcanic fault line of Weizhou Island?”

The engineer and construction foreman were both taken aback, then their expressions turned dismissive. "Young man, are you mistaken? This is a city subway plan; how could it be related to volcanic rocks by the sea?"

"No, look!" Zhong Hua eagerly pulled his phone out of his pocket and quickly searched for photos. "I went to Weizhou Island last year and took pictures of the volcanic rock faults there."

He found a photograph and held it up next to the drawings. It was an overhead shot; the black volcanic rock faults displayed unique curves and textures in the sunlight, like scars on the earth.

At that moment, everyone fell silent.

The volcanic rock fault line in the photo and the main direction of the subway tunnel marked in red pencil on the drawing show an astonishingly almost complete overlap in outline and several key turning points!

This is by no means a coincidence.

How could a city subway plan from 1978 so accurately depict a volcanic fault line on a southern island? That's incredible.

Chapter Two: Crayons, Smoke Rings, and Coordinates

Shocked, everyone's attention returned to the yellowed planning map. The edges of the map were irregular, as if it had been torn from a larger book, and... in the lower right corner of the map, near the edge, there seemed to be some incongruous marks.

Zhong Hua looked closer and saw that it wasn't a pencil or ink mark, but... a crayon mark?

Yes, it's the kind of crayon children often use. The color has faded a bit, but you can still tell it's red and yellow. It's a simple, even somewhat naive, doodle—a train engine.

The locomotive's lines were crooked and twisted, the wheels looked like several circles, and the chimney was a rectangle. But what made Zhong Hua's heart stop was the "smoke rings" coming out of the locomotive's chimney.

The smoke rings were drawn into several curved circles of varying sizes, rising gently into the air.

“This…” Zhong Hua’s fingers trembled slightly. He flipped through his phone’s photo album again, and this time, he found a photo taken in Dunhuang.

It was at the Singing Sand Dunes in Dunhuang, at sunset, with several colorful hot air balloons floating in the sky. The photo captured the moment one of the balloons had just taken off; the flames from the burner created a shockwave that left several blurry, unique, smoke-ring-like trails in the air.

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