Chapter 111, Day 111 of the Beginning [Two-in-One] - Not Yet Departed
Day 111 of the game [Two-in-One]
The submarine slowly approached the hydrothermal vent area on the seabed.
The gushing hot liquid in front of us resembles a waterfall, but unlike other waterfalls, it neither flows downwards due to gravity nor horizontally. Instead, it flows upwards, like a feather-like fork.
No wonder hydrothermal vents are often referred to as underwater industrial zones.
These gushing hydrothermal vents are like factory chimneys, and the area around the vents is also a rich and valuable "hydrothermal deposit" where a large amount of seabed mineral resources converge.
The manned submarine came to a stop on a rocky base near a flat, solid hot spring.
Further in, the space available for manned submarines is too small, and the surging airflow can easily affect the instability of the submarine. It is more suitable for small equipment such as single-person propulsion systems to move around.
Yin Yu and his group planned to exit the cabin here.
Meng Xiao activated the communication equipment inside the thruster: "Doulong is exiting the cabin, all frequency signals confirmed."
"Meng Xiao, confirmed."
"Yin Yu, confirmed."
"He Lianzhou, confirmed."
"You can exit the cabin now," Fang Bo said at the control panel of the salvage ship. He looked at the split screens displaying the views of the various propulsion systems and the unmanned submarine, and let out a soft breath. "I have your view now. Be careful."
"receive."
The underwater hangar doors of the Doulong slowly rose, and three single-person thrusters drove out of the Doulong's lower hangar in sequence.
Each single-person thruster contains eight light-emitting projectiles for understanding the seabed environment, as well as a biological sample collection robot for collecting and carrying geological samples such as seabed mud and minerals.
The thruster has a biological environment control system with constant temperature and pressure, which, although the space is very narrow, can at least alleviate all the discomfort of the driver in the deep sea and help him adapt to deep-sea operations more quickly.
"The operation after the underwater exit will be commanded by Yin Yu," Meng Xiao said over the radio.
She knew very well that she had not been on the front lines for too long, and that her judgment and ability to act in emergencies were not as good as Yin Yu's, who had always been on the front lines. The authority to lead the operation should be handed over to someone more capable.
Upon hearing the sound, Yin Yu glanced at Meng Xiao's thruster and got down.
He began, "The oxygen content inside the thruster can support a single person's survival needs on the seabed for up to 48 hours. You can see the red percentage number in the lower right corner of the control panel; that is the current remaining oxygen supply from the thruster."
Upon hearing this, He Lianzhou glanced at the bottom right corner, which showed 99%.
He felt as if Yin Yu was explaining this to him on purpose, and he smiled.
"During the operation, we must pay close attention to the remaining oxygen supply in the propulsion system to prevent oxygen leakage in case of accidents such as collisions. If the oxygen supply is found to be outside the normal range, we must immediately notify others and return to the submarine."
"Similarly, above the remaining oxygen level number, there is another green value, which represents the pressure balance inside the compartment. Once the value drops below 80, it indicates that there is damage to part of the propulsion system, and we must return to the submarine as soon as possible."
Yin Yu repeatedly emphasized the importance of paying close attention to several key data points inside the thruster, stating that for deep-sea operations, one can never be too cautious.
Even though they knew every button on the control panel by heart, Yin Yu still made it a habit to emphasize the precautions before each operation.
He Lianzhou was secretly pleased. See? It was all for his sake. He was the only one who didn't know the way. If he didn't tell Meng Xiao, he could tell him.
Three thrusters drove into the hot spring area.
They were surrounded by "chimneys" spewing smoke, which obstructed the thrusters' visibility.
The "smoke" ejected from hot springs with temperatures above 300 degrees Celsius is often black with extremely high sulfide content, billowing thick smoke as if magma might erupt from the chimney at any moment.
Those with temperatures between 100 and 300 degrees Celsius are mostly white, yet they also provide excellent coverage.
The color of these "smokes" is closely related to the temperature and the composition of nearby minerals. The seabed here is rich in minerals, which has led to the formation of all kinds of hot spring chimneys.
The "smoke" itself is seawater. Although the temperature of some of the hydrothermal vents can reach over 400 degrees Celsius, the seawater in this area does not vaporize due to the high temperature. Instead, it remains in a liquid state, forming such a unique hydrothermal vent.
As the three of them moved among the hot spring vents, the upward-flowing water became even more clearly visible in their line of sight.
The immense pressure deep in the ocean makes the water in the sea no longer liquid water in the ordinary sense, but a supercritical fluid.
The surrounding minerals blend into the fluid, giving this fluid greater buoyancy compared to other seawater. As a result, it neither evaporates nor flows downwards or horizontally like ordinary water, but instead creates a strange underwater scene of an upward-hanging "waterfall".
The single-person thruster was enough to allow Yin Yu and his group to get extremely close to this unique ecosystem.
Under the built-in lights of the thruster, Yin Yu could even see that the outer wall of the hot spring vent, spewing boiling water, was covered with hairy worms, which almost completely covered the "chimney" that was at least eight meters high beside Yin Yu.
Their bodies are curled up in the rocky tubes filled with secretions, which are a striking white, while the parts protruding from their bodies are thin, red and white spots.
These brightly colored creatures became a vibrant embellishment to this deep, black water.
Yin Yu carefully avoided disturbing the worms.
Here, worms aren't the only main characters; scattered near the rocky base are enormous red clams, crabs moving through the mud, and swarms of small shrimp.
Such a scene is a rare sight, even for professional underwater workers.
Yin Yu and his group slowly traversed this unparalleled underwater ecosystem. The diverse underwater landforms and prominent "chimney forests" resembled a lost underwater city, both spectacular and unique.
"Dragon Fighter, be alert! Dragon Fighter, be alert!" Fang Bo's voice came through the radio.
"A faint signal from Qianlong-1 has been detected 300 meters ahead of you." There was a hint of surprise in Fang Bo's voice.
They searched and detected Qianlong-1 for a long time but couldn't get any signal. But now, the signal has suddenly come back.
Upon hearing this, Yin Yu responded promptly: "Dragon Fighter received, will proceed to investigate now."
He was driving the thrusters at the very front.
Ten meters is not a long distance, but when Yin Yu drove the thruster to the location indicated by Fang Bo, he did not see any trace of the Qianlong-1.
Even with the strongest and furthest beams from all three thrusters, nothing was detected.
"Is Qianlong-1 still in this location?" Yin Yu asked Fang Bo.
Fang Bo, also puzzled, repeatedly checked the digital location transmitted back by the signal. Seeing this, he said, "It should be here. The error range is definitely no more than thirty meters."
That was the area within sight, but neither Yin Yu nor Meng Xiao saw the red Qianlong-1.
He Lianzhou said, "Look over there, that looks like a slope."
As he spoke, he operated the thruster to move nearly twenty meters to the right and then stopped.
Although the thrusters don't provide enough visibility to see that far, for He Lianzhou, visual ability isn't the only criterion for judgment.
Yin Yu and Meng Xiao also moved to He Lianzhou's side, and sure enough, there was a downward seabed slope.
The downward slope only allows visibility to a distance of about ten meters; beyond that, it becomes a blind spot.
Yin Yu contacted Fang Bo: "Fang Bo, is the signal coming from here?"
“Yes, it’s in the signal strength too, it’s down there?” Fang Bo took a deep breath. “Be careful.”
Yin Yu responded.
He looked at the slope in front of him. Although the propeller's light transmission was only about ten meters, the slope in front of him gave him the illusion of a bottomless abyss.
"Prepare to descend," Yin Yu announced, taking a deep breath.
The single-person thruster silently plunged into the pitch-black abyss. Yin Yu looked at the depth display on the control panel: 8752 meters, 8800 meters, 8859 meters.
At an altitude of 8,932 meters, Yin Yu suddenly stopped the other two thrusters.
"We've made a discovery," he said in a deep voice.
Seeing this, He Lianzhou came to Yin Yu's side.
Not far below Yin Yu, within the beam of the thruster, was the wreckage of what was clearly a submarine, but its hull was not red.
“This is a UN submarine.” Meng Xiao’s expression changed slightly upon seeing this, and he said in a deep voice, “I remember receiving a distress signal from the UN at the beginning of last year. Our country also organized and dispatched a salvage team, but we found nothing.”
"It's a UN submarine!?" Fang Bo was stunned for a moment. "Didn't you see Qianlong-1?"
"Not for now," Yin Yu replied, continuing to slowly move forward.
After sailing only a few meters, another submarine wreckage appeared in the beam of light. This time, the American flag on it was clearly visible, looking as if it were brand new.
"There's more?!" Fang Bo stared in surprise, taking a deep breath.
It's already strange enough that two submarines sank in the same sea area, enough for scientific experts to study what's special about the seabed topography and ocean currents. Now, there's another one.
Seeing this, Yin Yu stopped moving forward little by little and instead launched a light bullet directly into the distant sea.
The ignited light bombs were enough to illuminate a large area of the sea, and the brightness could be maintained for nearly ten minutes.
When the light flare went off, Yin Yu and his group almost forgot to speak for a moment, and Fang Bo's loud gasp came through the radio.
Before my eyes, there were rows and rows of submarines of all kinds piled up here, numbering at least a dozen or twenty!
In addition to submarines, there are also underwater metal detectors and underwater sonar instruments.
Wait, all sorts of missing metal instruments, big and small, that can go down to two or three thousand meters or even deeper into the seabed, can be found here.
"What the hell is this dump?? Could it be that the ocean currents have brought all these missing vehicles here?" Fang Bo asked in surprise.
“We haven’t felt any strong ocean currents or undercurrents here, so that doesn’t seem to be the reason,” Meng Xiao said.
They piloted the thrusters, carefully and slowly passing by the rows of sunken submarines before them, some clearly models from the last century, while others were quite new.
"Isn't this the 'Alvin' deep-sea submersible that went missing in the 1970s?" Fang Bo said with his sharp eyes.
This deep-sea submersible once carried the first expedition team to discover hydrothermal vents on the seabed.
In the three years following their initial discovery, they organized several more underwater exploration operations.
During their final, highly anticipated deep-sea dive to the 10,000-meter abyss, an unforeseen accident occurred, and both crew members in the submersible never reappeared.
And now, after half a century, it has reappeared on the screen.
As the thruster carefully passed by the ancient submersible, it was clear that there were obvious dents all over the submersible's body. The most obvious part was the head of the submersible, which looked like it had been twisted into a pretzel, despite being made of extremely heavy and thick iron.
Upon seeing this, Yin Yu's pupils constricted slightly, and he pursed his lips, warning in a low voice, "Pay attention to your surroundings. Fang Bo, monitor the ambient temperature readings. Notify us immediately if there are any changes."
"Received." Although Fang Bo didn't understand Yin Yu's request, he still agreed without hesitation.
Yin Yu and his team eventually found the Qianlong No. 1 at the top of the "landfill".
"Target spotted," Yin Yu said. "Approaching the target now."
"Received. There's a forced restart device on the left tail of Qianlong-1. Try restarting and recovering it," Fang Bo said.
The Qianlong-1 cost nearly 10 billion yuan and took two whole years to build. There are only four such ships in the entire Guanshan area. The loss of just one ship was enough to make the maintenance and engineering departments so heartbroken that they could not sleep for half a month.
Yin Yu responded, saying that being able to retrieve the Qianlong No. 1 was already more valuable than its actual value for this dive.
"You two stay here and keep watch on the surroundings," Yin Yu said to Meng Xiao and He Lianzhou.
"Be careful," Meng Xiao said in a low voice.
Yin Yu piloted the thrusters to the tail of Qianlong-1 and successfully located the forced restart device that Fang Bo had mentioned.
After activation, the light bands around the Qianlong-1 slowly lit up one by one, and the bright red hull stood out even more vividly against the monotonous color of the deep sea.
Yin Yu breathed a sigh of relief: "Qianlong No. 1 has been activated and restarted, you can take over now."
"Received! Operation response signal detected!" Fang Bo responded excitedly. "Great! It seems the damage isn't too serious."
Yin Yu responded and was about to back away when he suddenly noticed that the color of the hull on one side of the Qianlong No. 1 was a bit strange, appearing somewhat dull, but it was about the same as before it was restarted.
He paused, just as he sensed something was wrong, when the unusual color suddenly vanished in the blink of an eye, as if he had just been seeing things.
"Captain Yin, we've detected a localized temperature change near you." Remembering Yin Yu's earlier instructions, Fang Bo immediately noticed the change in the underwater monitoring data. Looking at the pattern on the underwater thermal image, he hesitated, puzzled, and said, "It looks like a..."
He couldn't describe it; it was somewhat like a large, tattered, leaky net.
Upon hearing this, Yin Yu's pupils constricted slightly, and the thrusters accelerated backward. At the same time, Meng Xiao shouted, "Giant octopus!"
"Hmm, now that you mention it, it might look a bit like that? How did Director Meng know?" Fang Bo was still studying the thermal image when he subconsciously looked up at the main screen.
Immediately, in Yin Yu's field of vision, two enormous eyes, almost as tall as Yin Yu's thrusters, suddenly opened in front of them, with a small yellow vertical pupil in the gray-blue pupil.
Meng Xiao felt a chill run down his spine upon seeing this. This giant octopus was much larger than the one they had encountered on the nameless island years ago!
It was like a small mountain, slowly moving, with countless submarine wreckage rolling down behind it.
The operations department had just connected with Qianlong-1 and was now frantically trying to evacuate it.
Fang Bo couldn't help but gasp.
From this perspective, it looks as if the wreckage of these submarines is being embraced by this unknown, enormous creature.
This is its underwater nest.
These "giant moving metals" are "toys" it has collected over the years, which it keeps like a dragon.
Clearly, their restarting of Qianlong-1 had alerted it.
Fang Bo then understood why Yin Yu had asked him to monitor the nearby temperature changes.
When an octopus's skin color changes with its environment, its body temperature changes slightly. When it remains still, its body temperature will approach the temperature of the seawater.
"Captain Yin, you guessed it all along?!" Fang Bo breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Yin Yu had already created a safe distance between himself and the octopus.
However, the thought that Yin Yu had been prepared and anticipated this made Fang Bo's voice change slightly when he asked the question.
Knowing that such a giant sea monster might exist there, how could they still dare to gamble on restarting Qianlong No. 1? What kind of mentality does that take?
Yin Yu ignored Fang Bo. Even though he had enough distance between them, he simply turned around and immediately ordered the others to retreat quickly.
"Run!"
The launched light blast suddenly went out the very next second after Yin Yu finished speaking, plunging the field of vision into darkness, leaving only the light strips of the submarine and its propulsion system scattering in the pitch-black sea.
Fang Bo frowned when he saw the light suddenly disappear. The light bullet, which could burn for at least ten minutes in the water, suddenly went out. The only possibility was that it had been attacked or swallowed by the giant octopus.
After all, deep-sea creatures are extremely sensitive to heat and light.
While the giant octopus was attacking the light projectile, Yin Yu and his two companions turned around and quickly rushed out of the sloping path they had just entered.
The hydrothermal vents, adorned with fluorescent spots on the outside, were now in sight, seemingly a completely different world from the pitch-black depths of the seabed nest we had just passed.
However, before Meng Xiao could even catch his breath, a huge, chaotic ocean current behind them suddenly scattered them apart.
They saw the giant octopus, as large as a moving mountain, contracting its funnel-shaped tentacles, rushing straight towards them with rapid movements.
Upon seeing this, Yin Yu's pupils contracted sharply, and he immediately ordered, "Fang Bo! Qianlong II and III, immediately provide cover for our return to the manned submarine!"
"Received, Captain Yin!"
Fang Bo immediately directed two unmanned submarines to launch underwater missiles around the giant octopus to harass and intervene.
However, giant octopuses are very fast, not only in terms of movement speed, but also in the coordination of their tentacles for grasping.
As soon as the missile was launched, it was wrapped around the giant octopus by its long tentacles before it even got close.
The first missile exploded between its tentacles, but only severed one of the distal tentacles, causing it to spray out thick black ink. Apart from that, its speed was not affected in the slightest.
As for the remaining missiles that followed closely behind, it knew the danger of them, and once it caught them, it threw them away to open waters at a distance, never letting them get close again.
The single-person thruster was still too slow. Even with the intervention of Qianlong II and III, the giant octopus continued to drive them away, even consciously forcing them to change course and move further and further away from the submarine.
Upon seeing this, Yin Yu frowned and quickly said, "Fang Bo, take remote control of the Doulong. Wait for my signal, then provide maximum firepower support."
The Qianlong II and III are unmanned submarines primarily designed for underwater exploration, and their firepower is far inferior to that of the Doulong.
Fang Bo immediately replied, "Understood, Captain Yin!"
"This is your only chance to sprint. Return to the submarine at full power. Do not stop no matter what happens," Yin Yu commanded sternly.
Even if the single-person thruster uses full-power propulsion, it is still a drop in the ocean compared to the giant octopus's mobility. However, the gap in the attack created by the Dragon Fighter providing cover for them is their only chance at the moment.
Meng Xiao just didn't understand. Even if the Doulong's firepower could buy them some breathing room to move, wouldn't the giant octopus's attention still be drawn to the Doulong? In the end, wouldn't it still be them?
Unless something else can attract its attention.
Meng Xiao didn't understand what Yin Yu was thinking, but she didn't have time to ask her for details. In this operation, she had already given Yin Yu full authority.
"Now! Fang Bo!"
"receive!"
The Doulong's maximum firepower suppression was far superior to that of the Qianlong II and III's underwater missiles. For a moment, the giant octopus indeed panicked and twisted its thick, long tentacles in an attempt to resist.
Upon seeing this, Meng Xiao was overjoyed and immediately set off at full power towards the Doulong.
However, not long after, it charged towards the hail of bullets without hesitation. Meng Xiao's pupils constricted slightly, and he gritted his teeth, continuing to move towards the submarine without hesitation.
The next second, beams of burning light suddenly shot towards the surface of the water, illuminating the entire seabed as if it were daytime.
The intense light caused the giant octopus to instinctively chase and attack. Seeing this, Meng Xiao felt relieved, but then heard Yin Yu urgently say, "Quick, get into the hangar!"
Just a second before the light blasts were completely extinguished, the three thrusters finally rushed into the manned submarine's elevator bay, and the bay door quickly closed.
"Fang Bo! We're in!" Yin Yu said quickly. "Return at full speed immediately!"
Before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted by a violent shaking.
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