The First Stone
The painful lesson of Chiang Kai-shek's death is a good reference for me.
According to Sanyi, there are actually traces of Jiang's several state change nodes if you think about it carefully.
At first, he had a conflict with a mandrill and was bitten by it. He was injured from then on. But he remained normal during the process of complaining to the operator, exploring the waterless mine with other troublemakers, and returning to the ship to get equipment.
Just as he was about to enter the water for the second time, his body began to heat up.
When Jiang was arranged to take a break in the operating room of the drilling rig, he started to experience the water dripping problem. However, it did not seem serious at first, so he thought it was just a prank by someone.
When I was curious about the drilling machine, Da Jiang didn't come out to say hello to me, but he was able to operate the machine normally, which means he was still alive and well, at least he had the energy to do his work. But he was drowned not long after we left.
It seems that the changes in his body actually accelerated twice.
On the other hand, after I started to feel the dripping water, it seemed to spread from somewhere and exploded towards me little by little, until the hide-and-seek and amnesia incidents of our meeting occurred, and the dripping water stopped abruptly.
Let's look at the third situation besides us. It was the deputy and the guy who slipped and fell into the water and was cut in half. They were directly broken into two halves on their way back in the water.
Three similar yet different encounters, the speed and intensity of the mutation outbreak, to sum up, are probably related to two points.
First, whether you have just come into contact with or been close to a large amount of water, and whether you are still in the water at the moment; second, whether you have ever gone back and forth, leaving the area where you were originally located.
Perhaps the "dripping" itself has always been in a latent period, but when it encounters the impact of changes in these two factors, it will be triggered in advance to varying degrees.
The boss hesitated for a moment, thinking: "Then what do you think is the situation of Taizai?"
I had a toothache: "It should be the same as mine. But when I was dripping with water, besides the constant minor injuries, the biggest impact was that my clothes got wet and soaked repeatedly, and I had to change them all the time. And Taizai..."
Before he finished speaking, the boss's face looked a little ugly. He was now also "Xu Ranxing", and was obviously like me, recalling the human skin that was once mistaken for a tit.
“After listening to Sanyi’s story about the sudden rapid aging of the drilling rig coating, I was thinking about one thing.
Perhaps the reason why the black spots on Taizi's crushed skin spread and decayed so quickly was largely due to the accelerated damage caused by water.
Why did he insist on carrying a damaged piece of human skin with him, and stubbornly wanted to repair it even though he was terrified? Now that I have more complete information, I guess the skin may have deteriorated suddenly in a very short period of time, without any buffer time. "
"All of the human skin was soaked and damaged all at once, and he was already trapped in the small environment of the underground palace and couldn't leave, so he had no choice."
This old topic was a little scary for those of us present. For a moment, everyone shuddered and remained silent for two seconds.
The operator was also quite funny. He immediately said with a pale face:
"Anyway, I think I'm at most one-tenth of Xu Ranxing. This matter has nothing to do with me. Don't come to me in your nightmares at night. Just focus on these two ancestors."
The people around immediately followed suit, all telling God that whoever wanted to be "Xu Ranxing" could be him, and that they were most likely a fake and had not offended anyone.
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, thinking that it's hard to explain why you all are so scared that you look just like me.
But at this point, San Yi thought for a moment and said, "Then the third influencing factor is the recognition of one's own identity. This may also include whether the people around you clearly know who you are."
He paused and shook his head, perhaps thinking that this was not accurate, and changed his wording.
"In other words, it depends on whether that thing can catch you accurately."
"Your identification of yourself, others seeing you and identifying you, and the thing itself moving in the water looking for you... may all affect the speed at which it recognizes you and catches you."
"Like...hide and seek?"
I rubbed the goose bumps on my arms, but I had to admit that Sanyi's idea was very likely.
If we are compared to fish food scattered on the water surface, the unknown thing is a blind big fish.
It may take some energy for it to constantly float to the surface from deep water and then find us on the vast calm water.
I was somewhat encouraged as I finally found some clues among all the confusing things.
My curiosity returned, and I looked around:
"Isn't it said that the only thing here is stone quarrying? Who can show us how to mine?"
The boss smiled bitterly and said teasingly, "Everyone who sees it gets a share, and you are not left out. Didn't you just see the ore deposit once? You came back right away. But it's not easy to be a gold miner."
When he said this, he didn't know if it was an illusion, but Sanyi seemed to glance at the boss as if he had some surprised questions to ask.
I was stunned, wondering what the hell these two were arguing about. And this shabby place only had a mountain of knives, which was just like the sea of fire and oil pan I had seen before, and nothing else. What did he mean by coming back soon? He said it like a conveyor belt sushi.
Where did the mineral deposits come from?
Still wondering, San Yi said softly: "Shut up, it's coming."
Before I could react, I heard a ding sound from somewhere. A very clear and ethereal sound exploded very close to me, which made me feel creepy.
Everyone knelt down almost in tacit agreement, and slowly pushed themselves into the depths of the stone forest in silence.
The dug escalator and steps were at the very edge of the stone forest. I think Jiang picked a spot at random at the time, and he was too lazy to dig the soil among the many sharp stone pillars that could hurt people.
But this is a bit exciting for us now.
A few guys just gently grasped the chain and were about to let me in. Almost right next to my ear, there were a few more tinkling sounds, and something extremely rough and cold slid across my shoulder.
Even though I was in warm water, I could still feel an extreme chill and dampness spreading around me.
The corpse, Sanyi said it was a very large corpse. Which part of the body was it that brushed against me now?
The thought flashed through my mind, and the dinging sound suddenly stopped.
But this time in the silence, my scalp tightened and all the hairs on my body stood up.
I'm sure it didn't leave this time, it just stopped suddenly. What is it going to do?
Since I couldn't see that thing, I didn't dare to move at all, nor did I dare to look at the other people who were still pulling my arms. Sweat broke out on my forehead, and rolling in the oxygen mask made me feel my chin was wet.
After a while, the bell rang again, but the bell was still there without moving.
This time I even held my breath, but all the little bells suddenly started shaking, and bursts of ethereal tinkling sounds hit my eardrums like a rainstorm. I felt dizzy and my chest began to feel stuffy.
The faint odor of death enveloped me from head to toe, and began to boil and become pungent.
Then, I heard the sound of chopsticks breaking again today, but strangely, the sound seemed to come from my body.
Click.
My chest seemed to sink a little.
The pain came last. My mind went blank. I opened my mouth, but a mouthful of blood foamed out. The oxygen mask was splattered with light red. Then there were continuous clicking sounds, mixed with continuous and pleasant dinging sounds. I was a little dazed and subconsciously lowered my head to look.
At this moment, a hand suddenly reached out from the side, pressed my wrist, and quickly moved up to press on my palm.
The force used this time was very strong. I don't know which meridian of mine was pinched, but I felt the pain and my hand loosened. The man then took advantage of the situation and flipped my palm upwards, making a supporting motion.
At that moment, I suddenly understood what he meant. I completely forgot about the pain in my body and focused all my attention on my open palms.
A sense of strangeness flashed through my mind, and something rough gently touched the palm of my hand.
I started to get goose bumps all over and tried to control my physiological reactions, but to no avail. Finally, my palms felt slightly sinking, as if something had been put down.
"Ding-ling..." This was almost an auditory hallucination. The long-lasting tinnitus and echo mixed together. I felt the people around me began to carefully let go of me, and backed away, crawling back to the depths of the iron chains.
I don't know how long it took before the faint strange smell in my nose slowly dissipated. This time there was no sound of any bells. The thing seemed to have left silently without leaving any signs that could be used to make any judgment.
I stood there frozen, looking as if I were dead.
The strong discomfort seemed to keep urging me to look down and see what the "stone" was. I was sweating coldly, but I still had a clear mind and whispered, "Sanyi, help me."
The incoordination caused by fear was very bad. Sanyi let go of my hand, took out a black vomit bag from his diving waist bag, and covered my cramped hand.
I forced a smile and said, "Damn it, if I don't do something, I'm going to turn into chicken feet." As he spoke, he suddenly exerted force and pried open my clenched hands.
The vomit bag shook, and I subconsciously pulled my hand out, only to see him tightly holding the bag's opening and tying it up. I didn't see clearly what was inside, and Sanyi didn't seem to want me to know more, so he took the bag away. But at that glance, I still felt as if there was some dark liquid seeping out from inside, and it moved as if it was alive.
"Don't ask. Don't think."
It was rare for this dead man's face to show obvious emotions. He stared at me for several times with a frown on his face.
I wanted to laugh a little, but I felt a little miserable and embarrassed.
Because my wild imagination had made me ask almost immediately: "Did it pick something off my body?"
It's strange. They kept talking about quarrying stones, but they never said they were quarrying people like Monkey King. They can't dig out the stone monkey's heart from me. At most, they can dig out two small stones caused by drinking too much Coke.
There is no way, people can't control themselves except in association. If you tell someone not to imagine a red rabbit, the bloody rabbit in that person's mind will probably be kicking and screaming like crazy.
I smiled at him and turned to look at the boss in the chains with a complicated expression.
"I'm sorry." I said, looking down and realizing that most of my chest had collapsed completely, empty as if something was missing. "I'm so bad, it seems I'm not Xu Ranxing. I'm sorry to disappoint you."
"...Don't talk." Someone seemed to say softly. "It's okay."
I shook my head, and my mouth and nose were filled with a fishy smell. I felt sleepy all of a sudden. A deeper silence than before spread over me. Everything was quiet.
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