The bow cut through the last wave, and the distant tower's silhouette finally stopped swaying. Chen Hao's hands rested on the steering wheel, his knuckles slightly white from prolonged tension, but he didn't let go. He knew that this time they had truly reached the shore.
“The water is 3.2 meters deep. If we go another five meters, we’ll hit the bottom.” Nana stood behind him, her voice steady. “I suggest turning 15 degrees to the right and slowly entering the berth.”
"Karl, go check ahead," Chen Hao said. "Don't let it get stuck in the shallows again. Last time it took three days to get it out."
Carl responded and headed towards the bow, probing rod in hand. Susan gathered up the last piece of canvas, casually rolled up the rope, and tossed it into the crate. She walked to the edge of the deck, looked at the familiar row of tire cushions on the dock, and let out a soft sigh.
The ship slowly turned, the sound of the propellers lowered, like a wild beast catching its breath. Karl tapped the bottom with the probe, then turned and gestured: "You can go in."
"Slow down a bit more." Chen Hao gritted his teeth. "If this ship falls apart here, I won't dare to look up when I go out in the future."
Nana stared at the instrument panel: "Speed has dropped to 0.6 knots, and the direction is stable."
The bow of the boat gently bumped against the rubber mat with a dull thud. No one spoke; all four men simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief.
"We're here." Chen Hao leaned back, slumping in the driver's seat. "We didn't die out there."
“We haven’t started unloading yet, so let’s not celebrate prematurely.” Susan opened the hatch. “The samples need to be stored as soon as possible, and the temperature of some live containers cannot be interrupted.”
"I know, I know." Chen Hao stood up, leaning on the handrail. "I was just expressing my feelings. Everyone has the right to express their emotions, right?"
“Yes.” Carl jumped off the dock from the bow of the ship. “But something always happens after you finish expressing your feelings.”
Chen Hao rolled his eyes and joined the others in moving things.
The first batch consisted of sealed boxes containing collected plant root and soil samples. Susan walked at the front, checking the numbers on a list one by one. She suddenly stopped when she reached the third box.
"Wait a minute." She crouched down, brought her nose close to the seam of the box, and sniffed. "The smell is off."
Nana immediately leaned over, ran her finger along the seam of the box, and pulled out a thin tube, inserting it into the detector. The screen flashed a few times, then a red warning appeared.
“The organic solvent leaked at a concentration of 3.7%, which has reached the alarm threshold,” she said. “The seal was worn out, and vibrations during transport caused micro-cracks.”
"Put it aside for now." Susan immediately waved her hand. "Stop all sample transfers and prioritize this batch."
Nana took out an emergency caulking gun from her toolbox and applied two reinforcing coats to the gap. She then attached a yellow label: "Priority A, requires secondary sealing."
"Be careful when you move them," Susan reminded them. "These are the only complete living samples; we can't make up for any lost ones."
Chen Hao nodded and rearranged the order: "Put the heavy items in the warehouse first, and move the fragile ones last. Karl, you lead the way."
The four people lined up again, their pace much slower than before, but more steady.
By the time the last box was placed in the storage room, it was already dawn. The lights in the base's main hall turned on automatically, illuminating the footprints and scattered packing ropes on the floor.
"Have a seat." Chen Hao pulled out a chair next to the wooden table and sat down first. "Anyway, no one's going to host a welcome dinner for us."
Susan took out several bottles of water from the cabinet and gave one to each person. Carl stood against the wall, still holding the probe in his hand, as if ready to check something at any moment.
Nana walked to the projector and lightly pressed the switch. A beam of light swept across the table, revealing the first image—a blue-gray arthropod with six legs.
"This is the first new species confirmed during this voyage," she said. "Codenamed 'land crab,' it does not actually have the ability to swim, but it can move quickly in the intertidal zone and is extremely adaptable."
The images switch to show a dynamic record of it moving through the rock crevice.
“It eats moss and humus, and its excrement promotes the growth of certain fungi,” Nana continued. “Based on preliminary assessments, this species may play a decomposer role in the island’s food chain.”
“And it’s not afraid of people,” Chen Hao interjected. “The first time we saw it, it was squatting on my shoe, munching on the mud.”
“You let it gnaw on it for ten minutes,” Susan said.
“I think it’s pretty cute,” Chen Hao shrugged. “Besides, I was too lazy to move it at the time.”
“The second species is a bioluminescent vine that is active at night.” Nana pulled up the next video clip. “There are symbiotic fluorescent bacteria on the back of the leaves, which emit blue-green light when stimulated by vibration or changes in humidity.”
“We used it to find our way in the cave,” Susan added. “It was bright enough to provide light, and it didn’t use any electricity.”
“The key is quiet,” Carl finally spoke. “Unlike a flashlight, which attracts a swarm of bugs when you turn it on.”
“The third is the underground fungal community.” Nana showed a set of cross-sectional diagrams. “It is distributed at a depth of three to eight meters, forming a symbiotic network with a certain type of tree root, and is suspected of having information transmission functions.”
"What do you mean?" Chen Hao asked.
“It’s like they can ‘notify’ each other where there is water or danger,” Susan explained. “We conducted disturbance experiments at different locations, and after thirty minutes, the activity of the mycelium at the other end changed significantly.”
"Sounds like Wi-Fi," Chen Hao grinned. "And it's free."
“It’s not possible to determine at this time whether neural signal simulation is involved,” Nana said. “More samples are needed for gene sequencing.”
"Didn't you just say there weren't any more samples?" Chen Hao was stunned.
“Only half is left,” Susan said. “The other one fell into the sea on the day of the storm.”
"Oh." Chen Hao rubbed his nose. "Then never mind."
Nana turned off the projector and turned to the other two: "Please provide the environmental data."
Susan opened her notebook and spread it on the table: "The entire island has a ring-shaped topography, with volcanic remnants in the central area and soil rich in iron and manganese oxides. The vegetation is mainly composed of salt-tolerant species, but three unusual green belts have been discovered, suggesting the presence of underground water sources."
She pulled out several hand-drawn diagrams: "These are the distributions of the sampling points I marked. The red circles are high-trophic areas, and the blue lines are the direction of water flow."
Carl took a stone out of his pocket and placed it in the center of the table.
“This one,” he said, “has a grayish-white surface and a metallic sheen inside. It’s very hard; even a small chip off can scratch a steel knife.”
He then took out a sketch: "I discovered a mineral outcrop on the eastern hillside, about twenty meters long, with an unknown depth. This is a schematic diagram of its direction."
"Your drawing is actually quite decent." Chen Hao leaned closer to take a look. "It's better than the assignments I handed in for elementary school art class."
"Don't interrupt." Susan tapped the table. "This information needs to be integrated into the report; it can't just be described verbally."
“I know.” Chen Hao sat up straight. “So I’m here to summarize the most outrageous thing that happened this time.”
He cleared his throat: "On the first day at sea, we encountered a storm and the ship almost capsized; after finally reaching the shore, we discovered a cave system on the island, filled with those glowing vines; we went in to find refuge, only to run into a family gathering of land crabs; when we came out, we were hit by an earthquake and almost got smashed into a meat pie by rolling rocks."
“You even fell asleep in the middle,” Carl said.
“That was a tactical rest.” Chen Hao glared at him. “Anyway, we came back alive, brought back some things, and figured out that the place wasn’t a dead zone, but a living island with an ecosystem.”
“And it wasn’t formed in a short period of time,” Susan continued. “The soil layer has accumulated for at least several hundred years, and some plants are over one hundred and twenty years old.”
"In other words," Chen Hao shrugged, "that place should have been discovered long ago, but no one mentioned it."
No one responded.
The air went still for a second.
“Maybe it was mentioned,” Nana suddenly said, “but the record was lost.”
“Or it was deleted,” Carl said in a low voice.
Chen Hao glanced at him, neither smiling nor refuting.
Susan closed her notebook, her fingers lingering on the edge of the cover. She looked up at Nana: "Could you export all the data? Including video, audio, and sensor recordings?"
“It’s already syncing,” Nana nodded. “The full backup will be completed in forty minutes.”
“I want to watch the cave scene again,” Susan said. “There’s a detail I don’t remember clearly—when those vines were glowing, was the frequency somewhat regular?”
“Like a heartbeat,” Carl said suddenly.
All three of them turned to look at him at the same time.
"Didn't you notice?" he said. "It's flashing, not randomly. There are intervals, about once every two seconds."
Nana immediately pulled up the video. The image zoomed in, focusing on the vine leaves.
The lights came on.
Extinguished.
It lights up again.
Timestamp display: Interval 1.98 seconds, error not exceeding 0.03.
“This isn’t a physiological reaction,” Susan said slowly. “It’s a signal.”
"Who gave it to whom?" Chen Hao asked.
No one answered.
Nana's camera panned slightly, sweeping across everyone's faces.
She was about to store the data in an encrypted partition.
At this moment, the main control panel's notification sound came on.
"External storage device access".
Everyone was taken aback.
“We didn’t plug in any devices,” Susan said.
Nana quickly retrieved the interface logs.
A record is being broken:
[Receiving... Progress 7%]
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