Chapter 3: The Fragmented City
Xu Ran obtained the metal block of unknown origin for the first time, and after discovering that there was a folded fragment space hidden inside the metal block through the residual energy experiment on the metal block, he tried to explore it.
However, the energy in the metal block was insufficient at that time, and Xu Ran only went in for about thirty seconds, and at most he only walked around in a narrow space of about dozens of cubes, and then hurriedly picked up a wooden board and returned.
Now, the unidentified metal block is fully charged.
After Xu Ran entered that mysterious and strange space, the unstable space that was originally vaguely like a chaotic particle state had stabilized, but what appeared in front of him was a strange world.
The first impression that comes to the eye is desolation, dead silence.
As far as the eye can see, there is a vast plain, and you can vaguely see the dark whirlpool waterfall at the end, and the turbulence of space tearing the blue sky apart from the gray earth, like a crack in the world.
The sky was gray, and there were plenty of lead clouds and dust floating around, so the sun could not be seen.
There is light on the earth, and the visibility is similar to the moment before the sun rises on the earth, some of which are gray, and the temperature is also a little low, about about zero degrees Celsius.
Seeing a large amount of dust and lead clouds scattered in the sky, Xu Ran suspected that there were radioactive elements, and at first held his breath and did not dare to inhale.
When I gradually became brave enough to breathe, I was surprised to find that I could breathe normally, and there was no air pollution here.
Looking at the Great Plains, there are mountains, but there are no rivers and no forests and lakes.
The soil on the ground was leaden gray, and there were no plants or life growing, so Xu Ran squatted down and dug open the hard lump of soil, and found that there were not even any insect eggs or microorganisms.
Think about it, there is no water source in this fragmented space, and naturally it cannot give birth to life.
However, looking at the Great Plains, there are a large number of well-preserved buildings, indicating that there were traces of the existence of civilization.
About 100 meters away in front of Xu Ran, there was a village and town.
When you look closer, the architecture of this village and town is very similar to the modern architectural style of the earth.
In this well-fortified village, the streets are neat and clean.
Xu Ran entered the village and town, kept his vigilance, and after conducting some investigation of this village and town, he was surprised to find that this village and town was exactly the same style as the village and town on the earth.
Everything is still, as if time is also still.
Even if you don't go into those houses to search, only the carvings left on the walls and sculptures of some buildings can truly feed back the information of the remaining civilization in this different space.
The words and utensils used here, as well as the characteristics of civilization presented, seem to have been completely copied from the earth, indicating that there was once a human civilization.
But now that there is such a dead silence and the absence of any living creatures, it is impossible to imagine what kind of catastrophe the world has suffered that has led to the complete extinction of life.
Therefore, Xu Ran pushed open the door of an ordinary house and conducted an investigation after entering the house.
This is a standard family of three, everything in the house is in good condition, and it is maintained in a normal state of daily life, giving people the feeling that the family has not been out for long.
The unusual thing was that Xu Ran didn't find anything containing water in the house, and even the unsealed drinks or drinks on the kitchen cabinet were only empty bottles.
Next, Xu Ran went to search in many houses and buildings one after another, even some underground pipes, all of which were the same, and there was no substance containing water.
Xu Ran did a simple experiment.
After spitting on a smooth glass mirror, he quickly ducked to the side and stood on guard.
However, after observing it for a long time, it did not attract anything unusual or strange.
Here, it's really weird.
In order to understand what happened here, after Xu Ran found a human-powered bicycle, he began to ride in the direction of the great rift in the space of heaven and earth.
Of course, in the garages of some villages and towns, there are also cars or motorcycles, but there is no diesel gasoline, no engine oil, no refrigerant or lubricating oil and other liquids in the car, so naturally there is no way to use it.
Xu Ran started from the village and town, rode about three kilometers or so, and entered the area of a city.
Running straight from the center of the city, it is about six or seven kilometers out of the urban area, indicating that the scale of the city is not large, which is equivalent to the built-up area of a county seat.
After leaving the city, near the village and town about seven kilometers away, Xu Ran found the remains of a riverbed that dried up and became very shallow, at most one meter deep.
From the traces left on the riverbed, it can be inferred that the river was once more than 30 meters wide.
Riding nine kilometers in a straight line in the direction of the Great Fissure in Heaven and Earth, you will enter the mountainous range of a mountain.
Xu Ran did not cross the mountains and mountains, he detoured to some flat places.
As soon as you reach the area of the Great Rift in Heaven and Earth, you will feel that you will have difficulty breathing, and the lead clouds and dust there will be so thick and dense that you can feel it when you reach out.
Further on, there is a bit of suffocation, and there are villages and towns that are in ruins.
Xu Ran saw that there was still a few kilometers away from the great rift between heaven and earth, but he still gave up his plan to continue his in-depth adventure and exploration.
However, if you look closely at the great rift between heaven and earth, you will find that the crack shrouded in the pitch-black vortex has no end in sight, as if it goes straight to the universe, and its edge is covered with extremely large dense lead clouds and dust, just like a unique atmosphere formed after the collapse of heaven and earth, which protects the debris space here.
After that, Xu Ran took a moment and returned to the city he had passed by in a straight line.
He didn't calculate the total area of this fragmented space, but standing on a high place, looking at the four directions of east, west, north and south, except for the north, the kind of great rift between heaven and earth could be found everywhere, and the place he went to explore before was relatively the closest direction.
In other words, the shape of this fragmented world is a geographical feature in the form of a flat ellipse, which is very similar to the shape of the metal block of unknown origin obtained by Xu Ran.
Without thinking so much about it for the time being, Xu Ran explored the urban area and found some buildings of functional institutions such as governments, hospitals, enterprises, factories, and schools.
Outside the building, all the open parts of the building were lead ash floors, and there was nothing else, but some of the facilities and related equipment inside the building frame were still intact, and some places were in a mess, indicating that there was still a little bit of a situation in the past.
Xu Ran randomly selected a building and searched inside, but found a large number of banknotes, different types and styles, which should be from different countries.
But what made him depressed was that the vast majority of those banknotes, regardless of the pattern and color style, were not available in the reality of the earth where Xu Ran was located, and they could not be brought back to the earth for use at all.
Because, all banknotes are printed and issued in 2030, and they will be used back to the earth, and they will not be treated as neurotics?
However, there are no problems with gold jewelry.
When Xu Ran discovered luxury goods such as gold jewelry, the whole person almost burned with excitement.
He couldn't help but be excited.
Because all the resources of the entire city were open to him alone, if he could bring them back to Earth, the wealth that could be created would be unimaginably astronomical.
However, after a moment of excitement in his heart, Xu Ran forced himself to calm down.
The resources in this fragmented world are now readily available, and they are up for him to continue to explore and discover in the future.
But whether there is any potential danger here, how this fragmented alien space was formed, and what kind of disasters have occurred here that led to the extinction of living beings, this is what Xu Ran wants to figure out.
At least he had to figure out that the issue date printed on the coin was 2030, so could it show whether the scientific and technological achievements of this fragmented world were really about 20 years ahead of the current earth technology.
Therefore, Xu Ran continued to look for clues related to him.
Soon, Xu Ran found something again in the search.
To his surprise, he found calendars in many houses, whether they were wall calendars, desk calendars, or mechanical clocks that stood still in time, paper tables with dates filled in by hand, all frozen in 2037.
What happened at this time in the fragmented world?
With such doubts, Xu Ran rummaged through some paper text information printed out at the time of the disaster, even if it was a so-called confidential document, but found nothing.
Continuing to search, Xu Ran found a large number of electronic products in this fragmented space city, all of which could not be turned on, and it was estimated that there was no electricity.
He picked a few of them that are representative of daily life, such as smartphones, smart watches, digital cameras, digital video cameras, etc.
After disassembling them separately for inspection, it was found that the inside of these electronic products was intact, but I didn't know if they could be turned on and used after being brought back to the earth and charged.
In addition, Xu Ran also wanted to experiment whether other types of things could be brought back to the earth, or whether the objects on the earth could be brought into this debris space.
So he selected some other items that are representative in various industries and fields, and a few memory cards for surveillance video, and put them in a handbag for testing after returning to the earth world.
After making some preparations, Xu Ran took out the metal block of unknown origin, and found that the metal block actually appeared in the form of a solid entity in this fragmented space, which was a bit unexpected to him.
So, Xu Ran opened the door of the space, stepped in directly with a large bag on his back, and after turning into a burst of illusory particles, he disappeared into the fragmented city of another space.