The patterns on the top of his head suddenly lit up.
The light didn't explode all at once, but rather crept outwards in concentric circles, as if awakened by something. Chen Hao's first reaction was to look up, his second was to curse.
Who turned on this light?
No one answered. Everyone stared at the ever-expanding band of pulsed light, and the star trails beneath their feet began to flash in sync with it, their rhythm perfectly synchronized with the vibrations emanating from the ground.
Carl took half a step back and bumped into the wall.
"Don't move!" Chen Hao shouted. "Everyone squat down and turn off the headlights."
The four men immediately lowered their bodies and turned off all the lights on their helmets. With the bright light gone, their vision actually became clearer. The visual afterimage caused by the flickering lights slowly faded, leaving only the regular alternation of light and shadow on the walls and the ground.
"Does this feel like we've stepped into a disco?" Chen Hao whispered. "Like the cheapest kind from the 80s."
Susan ignored him: "The frequency is stable at a twelve-second cycle, just like the previous changes in the patterns on the door."
"This shows that this place is a whole," Chen Hao said. "If one part moves, the whole thing moves."
Nana had already activated the scanning mode, her eyes glowing with a faint blue light. Her voice was steady: "The energy flow detected is vertically downwards, originating approximately 300 meters underground. A crystal network exists inside the wall, functioning similarly to a signal transmission system."
"So, the place we're standing on right now is actually a circuit board?"
"That's one way to understand it."
“That’s huge,” Carl muttered. “My house isn’t even worth a single floorboard of it.”
"Stop talking nonsense," Chen Hao said. "Next, we need to go over to that corner over there. Susan needs to take a sample. But we can't follow the original route. The ground makes noise, and if we step on the wrong step, we might wake up the whole system."
“I suggest sticking to the right side,” Nana said. “No energy nodes were detected on the right rock face, so it’s relatively safe.”
“Then let’s go to the right.” Chen Hao nodded. “Everyone, turn off auto-navigation and walk by feeling the walls with your hands. Don’t trust your eyes, just follow your hands.”
They lined up in a row, with Chen Hao bringing up the rear, moving one by one along the wall. The ground was still shimmering, the light shining upwards from their feet, casting distorted and swaying shadows on the dome above their heads, like a group of dancing ghosts.
Halfway there, Carl suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?" Chen Hao asked.
"I think I stepped on some bump."
As soon as he finished speaking, the entire ground suddenly lit up, a burst of blue light, as if a switch had been flipped. Immediately afterward, a deep hum came from underground, making the helmet tingle.
"Hold your breath!" Chen Hao roared.
The four people held their breath simultaneously, their ear pressure rising instantly, as if someone had shoved a fist into their ears. The sound lasted for three seconds, then slowly faded away.
"What did you do?" Susan turned around and glared at him.
"I only stepped on it!" Carl protested. "Who would have thought the floor was so sensitive!"
“Next time, raise your hand to vote before stepping,” Chen Hao said. “Listen up, everyone: walk slowly, with a three-second interval between each step, and don’t step on the same spot at once. Nana, you lead the way and control the pace.”
Nana took the lead, confirming with each step that there was no abnormal feedback from the ground. The others followed her movements, advancing mechanically like robots. Three seconds per step, no more, no less.
Finally, they reached the opposite wall. Susan immediately took out her non-contact sampling arm and began scanning the grooves. The lens slowly moved, recording the direction and depth of each scratch.
“These symbols…” she stared at the screen, “have a similar structure to the fragments on that plaque in the base. They’re not the same sentence, but the grammatical rules are similar.”
Can you translate this?
"Not now. There is a lack of corresponding text, and these symbols may be functional markers, not language."
“Functional labels are fine too,” Chen Hao said. “At least you’ll know which door to avoid touching.”
As they were talking, Karl's glove suddenly twitched.
"What happened?" He looked down. "The heating system turned off by itself."
“I have a problem here too,” Susan said. “The oxygen reading jumped a bit, but it’s back to normal now.”
Nana immediately brought up the status monitoring interface: "Energy fluctuations are causing localized electromagnetic interference, resulting in intermittent malfunctions in some modules of the diving suit. It is recommended to activate the backup power supply to avoid paralyzing the core system."
“Then let’s cut it,” Chen Hao said. “Shut down all non-essential equipment temporarily to save power.”
Nana operated the devices on all four of them for a few moments, and they switched to emergency mode. The communication channel was quiet for a moment, and there was some static when they reconnected, but it was still usable.
"What about the time?" Chen Hao asked.
"Twenty-eight minutes," Nana replied.
“Impossible.” Chen Hao frowned. “It feels like more than forty minutes have passed. That stretch of road just now felt like a year.”
“I also think it’s been a bit long,” Carl agreed. “Is the timer in the helmet broken?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Nana said. “The local time anchor is stable. The perceived time extension you’re experiencing is likely a cognitive bias influenced by the environment.”
"Does that mean...our brains are being slowed down by this place?"
"Possibly."
“That’s a real rip-off,” Carl said. “I thought I’d just gotten slow.”
“You weren’t fast to begin with,” Chen Hao said. “But now’s not the time to talk about that. Everyone should check their equipment and make sure it’s still usable. Next step, let’s move inside.”
He looked into the depths of the passage. It was dark there; he couldn't see anything. But in the few seconds of their silence, a knocking sound came from afar.
Thump, thump, thump.
Three strokes, pause, then three more strokes.
It was neither fast nor slow, like someone was knocking on a wall with a stone.
"Who's there?" Chen Hao asked in a low voice.
There was no response. Only a faint static noise could be heard on the channel.
"Not one of ours?" Susan asked.
“Neither,” Chen Hao shook his head. “We haven’t been separated since we came in.”
“Could it be the ruins themselves?” Karl said. “That buzzing sound was also a sound; maybe this place can make its own noise.”
“But that’s vibration,” Susan said. “This is a clear, rhythmic tapping, it’s different.”
Nana has already brought up the sound wave analysis interface: "The frequency is concentrated in the low frequency band, and the propagation medium is a rock structure. The source direction cannot be accurately located, but the distance is estimated to be more than fifty meters."
“That’s deeper inside,” Chen Hao said. “It doesn’t sound like a mechanism being activated.”
He listened to two more rounds of tapping. Three taps, a pause, then three more. Like some kind of signal.
"Shall we go take a look?" Carl asked.
“No,” Chen Hao said. “The situation is unclear, the equipment is unstable, and even our sense of time is messed up. Our mission is to gather information, not to be scouts.”
"But what if this is a distress signal?"
“If someone had really been trapped here for 80 million years, they would have turned to ashes by now,” Chen Hao said. “Don’t scare yourself.”
He turned and patted Susan on the shoulder: "Have you collected the data?"
"All collected."
"Then let's prepare for the next step. Rest for five minutes, adjust your breathing, and wait until your senses are stable before proceeding."
The four sat down on the spot, their backs against the wall. Chen Hao closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. The oxygen circulation system emitted a slight hissing sound, as if reminding him that he was still alive.
Five minutes later, he opened his eyes.
"Is everything ready?"
He nodded.
"Let's go then. Remember, walk slowly, stay close to the wall, and don't touch anything. If anyone makes a symphony of footsteps again, I'll make them write a 3,000-word self-criticism when they get back."
They rose and moved towards the other end of the passage. The lights were dimmed, illuminating only a three-meter radius ahead. The flashes on the ground continued, but the rhythm remained unchanged, as if acknowledging that they had passed some kind of test.
The passage gradually narrowed, and the walls became smoother, as if they had been melted by high temperatures and then cooled. A faint blue mist began to drift into the air, seeping from the cracks in the ground, making a faint crackling sound when it touched the surface of the diving suit.
“It’s an ionized gas,” Nana said. “The concentration is very low, so it won’t harm people, but it might affect electronic devices.”
"Then don't overwork the equipment," Chen Hao said. "Try to operate it manually as much as possible."
They continued forward. After walking for about ten minutes, a fork in the road appeared ahead.
The passage on the left slopes downwards, ending in darkness; the passage on the right extends straight, with grooves in the wall resembling interfaces.
"Which way?" Susan asked.
Before Chen Hao could speak, the knocking sound started again.
This time it's even closer.
Thump, thump, thump.
Three taps, then a pause.
Three times.
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