The seabed soon disappeared into darkness. The two men turned off the searchlight and turned on the passive sonar in time. In order to adjust the contrast between inside and outside, the system also reduced the brightness of the operating panel and visor.
The marine debris was still settling down, and its own falling speed was very slow, but when the relative speed of the two people floating up was taken into account, those tiny particles turned into a violent blizzard.
Jiang Ling could determine her direction of movement by the reflective particles that occasionally flashed across her vision. It was a strange feeling, similar to looking back from a car. Fear of the unknown destination and the sense of security in the back seat coexisted in her mind, the two emotions intertwined, making it difficult for her to distract herself with conversation.
The two men, one in front and one behind, continued to ascend at a steady pace. Political Commissar Xiao noticed the atmosphere was a bit cold, so he turned on the communication module and began to mutter to himself, "Do you think we are particularly like explorers from the Age of Exploration? Riding a ship very similar to the Nautilus, overcoming difficulties and dangers, and risking our lives and the lives of dozens of brothers for a legendary treasure?"
He didn't intend for Jiang Ling to reply. After raising the question, he immediately continued with his own thoughts: "Do you think the ocean has its own consciousness? No matter how human technology develops, it will always reveal its mysterious side... The ocean is full of legends, and sometimes I also hope that those legends are real, like Atlantis. Have you heard of it?"
"You still believe this? I thought you were a staunch materialist." Jiang Ling couldn't help but complain.
"Alright! Of course I'm a fucking materialist." He sighed. "Why can't you follow my train of thought? Don't you know? If that thing is real, I hope it's fake; if that thing is fake, I hope it's real. Atlantis doesn't exist, so I hope it exists, but if it really does exist, I hope I haven't encountered it. Of course, it can't exist, it's logically impossible!"
Jiang Ling was confused by him. She rolled her eyes while hiding in the exoskeleton, then snorted and motioned him to continue.
"There are three main legends about Atlantis: the lost civilization, alien visitors, and the portal to another world. The most widespread is the so-called lost civilization," Political Commissar Xiao said as he pondered. "From a communications perspective, the more doubts an event has, the more eye-catching it is. Just like those teeth and bones we found earlier, things without a beginning or an end are most likely to capture people's imagination."
"Of course, I'm just giving an example. They're actually fundamentally different," he quickly added, a point that was consistent with his usual rational thinking. "At least for our hypothesis about teeth, we have both theory and physical evidence to support it. But there are only a few references to Atlantis in the literature... What era did Plato live in? He lived over 2,500 years ago. Could he really have found prehistoric data from 12,000 years ago? Even our Country Z has a mere 5,000 years of traceable history."
"So, you think he's just bragging?" Jiang Ling suddenly understood this guy's thoughts. Her thoughts expanded, and then she came up with an interesting idea. "Hey, what do you think? Could it be that ancient Greece had been communicating with a certain Celestial Empire from a very early time, and then some people, through cultural shock, saw that Eastern country, sparked a kind of convert frenzy among them, and became spiritual Z people? But because the land distance was too great, most of them could not actually come to the East, so in order to feel superior, they invented a country geographically located on the edge of their worldview, and then desperately imagined what they would see and hear there?"
"This...this explanation is quite interesting." After listening to Jiang Ling's fantasy comedy, Political Commissar Xiao immediately analyzed her statement rationally and found that her logic was self-consistent.
Two thousand five hundred years ago, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, feudal hierarchies had already begun to take shape. Compared to the backward systems of ancient Greece, this was clearly far more advanced and consistent with the information about Atlantis found by Western scholars. The ten kings likely correspond to the ten great kingdoms of a certain historical period. The circular city structure may be related to the advanced mathematics of the time.
Could it be that Plato is a guide?
He considered his words carefully and asked, "So what do you think the teeth issue will be like?"
"Well, let me think... By the way, have you seen a scorpionfish? It's the mutant officially called a poisonous porpoise. I remember it used to be very common north of the metropolitan area."
"You mean the spikes? Then how do you explain those parallel lines? Can the growth lines follow such a pattern?" Political Commissar Xiao had obviously seen those monsters before.
"I don't know, but in the story you told, there were at least three types of mutants. There's no doubt about that, right?" Jiang Ling answered in an affirmative tone.
"That's true, there are two known animals. The squid is very large and likes to stay on the seabed; the steelhead shark is about the same length as a human, and its mouth is very similar to that of a lamprey, and looks very ugly. Oh, I almost forgot, they seem to be prey of storm whales. It's just that those big whales don't have this kind of teeth..." Political Commissar Xiao said thoughtfully.
"It's not a whale tooth, it could be a whale bone. Stop, we're here!"
Jiang Ling interrupted his story. Above their heads, a dark shadow several dozen meters long blocked their path. The water around the shadow was green, but slightly brighter than when Jiang Ling and the others jumped in.
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com