I didn't understand the meaning of the image in front of me for a while, but the points of light had quickly changed their position, and in the blink of an eye, they were combined into a new image.

It seemed to be a dark forest, except that the trees were shockingly tall, and strangely enough, they didn't have a single leaf, and their branches all stretched vertically upwards, looking more like some kind of giant vine.

The branches of these plants (if we can call them plants) are all translucent, and the branches are full of flowing points of light, flickering and flickering, but very slowly, and when the points of light extend to the top of the branches, they begin to beat and rotate rapidly, and finally turn into a burning flame, which looks like a strangely shaped lampstand, but when all the branches are burning, the picture is spectacular.

After the flame burned, the point of light did not disappear, but slowly fluttered from mid-air, becoming brighter, and after flying for a while, it slowly descended and fell into the dirt, where the point of light reunited and became a shining seed, which took root and sprouted into a new vine.

Are these images of creatures growing and multiplying underground? What are the low, conical creatures in the vine forest? What are the round, spherical dots of light rolling around on the branches of the vines? What are the serpentine creatures in the soil that devour the seeds of the vines?

It seemed like a complete ecosystem, but unfortunately, my mind had begun to stagnate, it became difficult to breathe, my vision began to blur, and the light in front of me gradually dimmed, and I seemed to sink into the darkness of the abyss.

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself lying in a clean hospital room, and the sunlight was pouring in through the glass window, making people feel extremely warm.

Turning my head, Team Cao's familiar face was next to me, blinking at me, looking full of interest. It's just that the hair is all shaved off and covered with white gauze, which looks a little funny.

"Everybody's out?" I struggled to sit up, and I could already feel a pain in my legs, and the slightest movement of my lower back would make me miserable.

"Chang, you are the most seriously injured, you have a fractured right leg bone, a dislocated ankle joint, a fractured bone in your left leg, and a contusion in your lumbar disc, I guess you have to lie here for a month. Everyone else is fine, you can rest assured that you can recuperate. ”

"Where is this? Guangling County?"

Team Cao smiled, "Beijing, pull you back to Beijing." Don't you think the sunshine is very kind?"

"What about the case of Chengjialing?" I hurriedly asked again, everything that happened in the mine before was returning to my memory one by one.

"Chang, there is a special department to take over, and the special case department has to stand aside, you understand, otherwise how can I have the time to accompany you?"

"Tell me, I just remember that I passed out on the cliff, and then what?"

"Later, Sun Ping and Xiaoduan pulled the rope and didn't dare to let go, they couldn't drag you, I had no choice but to carry Liu Xiaowu up slowly, fortunately, Liu Xiaowu was strong, and it didn't take long for him to wake up and tie himself to a raised stone, and I climbed back on it. ”

"When I went up, you were covered in a layer of mucus all over your body, like lying in a translucent ball, and if it weren't for the chemical hazmat suit, I thought you wouldn't be able to save it. ”

"After that, we got Liu Xiaowu up again, and we didn't dare to carry you out, for fear that the mucus would burn, or Sun Ping was bold, and he stuck on the mucus and slowly attracted the mucus to himself, so I had a chance to get you out of the chemical protective suit, and when Sun Ping took off the chemical protective suit, the fire was already burning, but fortunately he took it off quickly, but he was burned in the third degree, and he was lying in the ward next to you. ”

"The result is not bad, only Lao Qin died in the flames of our people who entered the cave, and only one of the people from Dai Mine Chief came out, Dr. Chen. ”

I let out a long sigh and turned my head to ask him, "Team Cao, I've been in a coma for so long, you must have given me medicine, right?

Team Cao nodded, "That's right, tranquilizers, antibiotics are not used less, we don't know if you are contaminated, we are all the same, we have done epidemic prevention and isolation treatment, now I see that you have no inflammation at all, and you are blessed with a great life." But Dai Mine Chief and they should all be buried in the fire, the mine has been checked inside and out, and there is no trace of it, unless they all jump off the cliff. ”

"Where does the abyss under that cliff lead?And what is that liquid??" All of a sudden, a lot of doubts rushed into my brain, and my head began to hurt again.

"Chang, you just woke up with so many problems, it's not good for your body, I'd rather act as if it hadn't happened now. ”

"Come on, aren't we the kind of people who lack curiosity? It's not that you're bound by secrecy again, and you can't just say it. I waved my hand at him, annoyed, interrupting Team Cao's untenable statement.

Team Cao smiled at me, too much gauze on his head for me to see his true expression.

"I'll tell you about the current situation, it's still not in violation, the Chengjialing mine is completely closed, and a closed laboratory is being built at the mouth of the No. 17 mine in the past two days, and a large number of experts may be rushing there. There is Zeng Qian inside, the two of us are really fateful, as soon as I came out, she was about to go in, but unfortunately she couldn't help but make her own decisions. ”

"The day after we came up, Liu Xiaowu took people down the cliff again, he was fully equipped this time, and we didn't need to go down to save him, when we withdrew, he told me that they had gone down close to five hundred meters, the temperature below was almost 100 degrees, and the earth's crust was violently active, it was estimated that it was not far from the magma layer, he speculated that the lava below seemed to be periodically upwell, and the crystals on the cliff stone wall should be left by lava activity。 ”

Saying this, Team Cao rolled over and got out of the hospital bed, came to my side, took out a photo from the pocket of the hospital gown, and put it in front of me. "This was taken by Liu Xiaowu at the bottom of the cliff before the withdrawal, and I also saw it when I went down, and when you were in a coma, you kept talking about this thing, I don't understand, you didn't go down the cliff, how do you know that this thing exists?"

I laboriously picked up the picture and looked at it carefully. The photo was apparently taken under the cliff, the light was dim, and the exposure time was a little long, so that the picture was a little blurry. In the middle of the picture, there is a large tree that glows with a faint orange light, a large tree composed of countless points of light, and it is these points of light, these points of light, the slow movement of these points of light, that form the roots, trunks, and branches, which are exactly the same as the scene I saw on the cliff, in the slime that wrapped me tightly, the tree with branches and no leaves.

"What exactly is this tree? Liu Xiaowu, have they made any progress? I have always had a question, what Mine Chief Dai is digging in the mine may not be coal jade, coal jade will not be so transparent, the two are just a little similar in appearance. "I handed the photo back to Team Cao.

Team Cao stretched and leaned on the hospital bed again.

"Your suspicions are right, the hardness and transmittance of the ore in the No. 17 mine are much higher than those of ordinary coal jade, but the chemical composition and structure are similar. This point has been demonstrated by geology and mineralogy experts, and it is estimated that the formation temperature is higher, the pressure is greater, and the crystals are more beautiful. That's why Chengjialing's coal jade is sought after by so many foreign buyers, right?"

"Now it seems that the flowing luminous matter in this tree should be the same as the thing in the coal spirit jade water urch, that is, the thing that got you, but what it is, I can't say it now, but at least it is certain that it is some kind of life, a life with a certain amount of wisdom. In addition, this luminous substance seems to be very sensitive to temperature, and when the temperature falls below 40 degrees, it will begin to vaporize and burn, which should be the root cause of the spontaneous combustion of miners. ”

"But this luminous object is unlike any other life form we know. It is impossible to produce more results in the short term, but these luminous objects are of great significance to the country, because a small amount of them can release a huge amount of energy. Well, Chengjialing is now a military restricted area, and the nature of the luminous matter itself determines that it is impossible for it to survive on the surface, there is no danger of spreading pollution, and we don't need to worry about the rest. ”

When Team Cao said this, the sun had disappeared into the continuous western mountains, and I looked at the gradually darkening sky, but my heart was still difficult to calm down.

On the surface of the earth, life is actually very fragile, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, meteorites, solar storms, glaciers, and now there are spontaneous destruction of human beings, in the history of the evolution of life, every accidental event is enough to stagnate or even extinct the evolution of life, so compared with the life cycle of the entire earth, it is only a short moment, although we are the lucky ones of the species, but we still dare not say how advanced the evolution is.

But the underground world is completely different, maybe hundreds of millions of years, billions of years have never changed, and there are no devastating disasters on the surface, if there is really life adapted to the underground world, then they have survived far longer than human imagination, and their evolution has never stopped, with the current vision of human beings to evaluate these unknown life, perhaps it will make a sad mistake.

The worrisome man may not be a wise man, but his thinking is ahead of his time.

That year, I spent almost the entire winter in my hospital bed, watched a few snowfalls, listened to the half-moon wind, and witnessed the reversal of morning and dusk that was later called smog, but at that time it was still regarded as a sandstorm that did not dissipate easily.

It wasn't until after the Spring Festival that I returned to the courtyard of Hufang Bridge. Team Cao, Xiao Duan, and Xiao Lei often came to visit in the courtyard, but everyone didn't mention the matter of Chengjialing, as if the experience in Chengjialing was buried in the deepest part of my memory with the days when I was in a coma.

It's just that in an unintentional chat, Xiao Lei talked about that when we were transferred to Guangling County Hospital that day, the Provincial Criminal Police Brigade arrested the Guangdong middleman at the Guangling Hotel, and it is not clear what happened in the trial.

Later, I interrogated Team Cao once, and he just shook his head and told me that there was discipline, and I couldn't say much, but Dr. Chen's account in the tunnel should have been true.

(Therefore, they are fearless in life and death; they are not afraid of all honors and disgraces; they are not light and unlearned, and they are like Buddhas; they are troubled, so that they are far away from happiness, and they do not think they are precious; they are not happy, but they are happy. In meditation, such as thinking about hell, in life and death, contemplating such a garden, seeing those who come to seek, thinking for the good teacher, giving up all that you have, having all wisdom, seeing the person who destroys the vows, thinking about saving them, all paramitas, thinking about your parents, thinking about the way of virtue, thinking about your dependents. --Vimala Sutra)