I was about to read the survey report of the Canglong again, when suddenly a few photos fell out.

The photo was taken by the Canglong at the bottom of the sea, a few hundred meters underwater, it was a completely dark and lightless world, and the Canglong must have been affected by the mirage at that time, and the lighting equipment was intermittent, resulting in poor imaging results in the photo. Many of the photos are either black or overexposed, and it is completely unclear what is illuminated.

After flipping through the two, there is finally a fairly clear one. The camera of the Soryu should have been placed on the bow of the ship, and at the moment of shooting, the searchlight on the top of the submarine was sweeping to the left front of the submarine.

The bottom of the sea is not a calm world, with the same undercurrents swelling, dense sediment rising from the bottom of the sea, making visibility extremely low. Even with the power of the searchlight, the scene from two meters away is nothing more than a shadow. But the searchlight may have been hit by the current, or the submarine hit something on the seabed, and the beam of light shook violently, and this photo happened to be taken in the shaking. In the upper left corner of the entire photograph is the afterimage of a pillar of light, which is overexposed, turning yellow to white in that part, forming a strong contrast with the dark shadows elsewhere.

But if you look closely at the overexposed area, you can vaguely tell the difference in depth and particle density, as if there is something hidden inside. Could it be that something went wrong with the development of the photograph, projecting the shadows in the darkroom onto the photographic paper? I quickly picked up the photograph and shone it into the sunset that was sinking to the west, the sun was no longer shining, and there were some mottled leaves, but this did not affect the pale yellow light that gradually appeared a familiar outline.

More than half of the originally tall hull sank to the seabed, the bow of the ship was slightly upturned, and the two gantry cranes in the middle of the hull were still straight, but the boom on one side was broken from it and hung down weakly. The tower bridge toppled over, and the hatch was lifted outward, as if some huge thing had broken out of its shell, and it seemed to have been pierced by something. Everything is desolate and mournful, and the smell of death permeates everywhere. But even after all the faces, I still know what the shadow is.

It's long since sunk under the thousand-foot cold snap, and it's always been there.

After a few of us were discharged from the hospital, Cao Team and Xiao Lei disappeared without a trace, and I returned to the small courtyard of Hufang Bridge, and my neighbor Aunt Zhang told me that during the days when I was hospitalized, a young man looked for me several times, and left a letter before I could wait.

This is a unique letter, the first page of the letter does not have a word, just a few simple lines sketched with charcoal. The pen is vigorous, the lines are expressive, and the painting is a scene I am familiar with, the empty sea, a capsized boat, five silhouettes, sitting or standing, lying or lying, like a silent sacrifice, and like a lost survivor after a storm.

There is nothing unusual about the content of the letter, the first page is Ding Jian's greetings to a few of us, and his gratitude for our care on the research ship, and then he mentions that he wants to discuss the topic of religion and philosophy with me again, and he benefited a lot from the conversation on the day he was adrift at sea. It's a pity that I came twice and learned that we were sick and hospitalized, but I couldn't inquire about the location of the hospital and couldn't visit, which was very regrettable.

Ding Jian himself happened to meet a wealthy businessman who liked his creations very much, not only bought a few works at a high price, but also provided a generous sponsorship and invited him to study in the United Kingdom. This is a rare opportunity, and Ding Jian came back from the South China Sea, he was deeply troubled by migraines, and often couldn't sleep at night, which seriously affected his creation, and he also wanted to take advantage of this study tour to go to the hospital in the UK for careful examination and treatment, this letter is a farewell.

But at the beginning of the next page, there is an obvious Ding Jian style, there is no logic, where to think, where to write, it seems to be idle talk, but inadvertently there are always some judgments that point directly to people's hearts. The content of the letter is still an extension of the topic of heaven and hell between him and me on the capsized speedboat, but it is more of a reflection of my own.

He believes that heaven and hell, including our real world, are actually different cross-sections of time as Professor Lu said. But far more than three, but thirty, three hundred, or even infinitely many. Under normal circumstances, these time cross-sections do not intersect, but at a specific time and place, as long as certain conditions are met, any time cross-section may intersect with our world, during this period, some people are trapped in the time cross-section, although in the real world there is only a short moment, but in that time cross-section it looks like a century, many people are tortured, suicide, and can struggle out, also see that experience as a journey to hell.

And the picture of the mirage we see, why Professor Lu tried everything to find it, is also because it is not our real world, but another scene of time cross-section.

As for heaven, it must also exist, and that is in a completely different cross-section of time, where the rock is petrified and the sand accumulates into the sea, and the vicissitudes of the sea. In the meantime, for a hundred years and thousands of years, man passed through here, heaven and man were one, and they had insight into all things, and naturally had a unique vision, and there must be the so-called heaven. If this is the case under the Bodhi tree, it is like this in front of the shadow wall.

At the end of the letter, there is another painting, small but unusually delicate: in the mist that floats gently on the surface of the sea, the shadow of the Eastern Star is slowly fading.

To be honest, I have always had a strong interest in the mirage incident, and even with that unbearable experience, I still did not give up, but for some reason, after reading Ding Jian's letter, my mind for verification faded.

About a year later, I came across a painting in a gallery facing outward, almost the entire picture was covered in black and dark brown, smeared with a thick layer of oil paint, and it looked almost a centimeter thick, which was extremely oppressive. Only in the lower right corner of the picture, some figure-like images are outlined with thin yellow lines, some kneeling, some reclining, some raising their hands in worship, and some walking in circles, about to exhaustion. With a few brushstrokes, the shape and movement of the characters are very accurate and expressive, and this alone can show the painter's perfect skills.

But I am very familiar with the composition, color, and expression of this painting, and I really can't imagine anyone else who can paint such a work except Ding Jian. If you look closely, there is a small label at the bottom of the painting, which reads "Ding Jian, Hell Series Oil Paintings: Looking Back at the Deep Sea, 2002".

I talked to the owner of the gallery for a while, and he told me that Ding Jian is currently recognized as the star of hope for Chinese contemporary art in the industry, but his paintings are too dark and depressing, and ordinary people really can't accept it. In addition, Ding Jian's paintings seem simple, the time to conceive and paint is super long, and few works enter the market in a year, so the popularity is not high.

It is said that Ding Jian has painted more than 20 copies of this series, but for some reason, last month, it was taken away by a mysterious buyer, who is said to have not only had a lot of money, but also has a deep relationship between politics and business. The boss just went to Hainan to play for half a month, and his own one didn't show up, otherwise eighty percent would have been accepted. If I really like it, the boss is willing to go out at a low price and make a friend. In and out of the words, I regret that I rubbed shoulders with that wealthy businessman.

Hearing this, I couldn't help but be curious, and asked him, the circle of collectors is not large, so there are even fewer collectors with strength and vision, how can you not find the boss, and just send the painting to it?

The boss sighed and said with a wry smile, this wealthy businessman is not a person in the circle at all, his whereabouts are secretive, he doesn't distinguish the authenticity of a painting at all, he will be swept away at a glance, and he does not ask to see the painter himself, in short, it is not a routine in the circle at all, and no one knew it before, it seems to have fallen out of thin air, and now where can he find it? However, it is rumored in the circle, and the background of buying a painting is very unusual, I am afraid that this painting will be taken away and will never appear on the market again. See, the painter himself will not appear.

This was the last time I came into contact with information related to Ding Jian, there were no phone calls, no letters, and even the people around me stopped mentioning it. Sometimes I even think that if someone told me that there was no such person as Ding Jian in this world, and that he was just a fictional character in my own brain when I was trapped in the South China Sea, I would probably believe it.

It wasn't until a few months later, when Cao had drunk too much, that I guessed something from his drinking. He told me that when we were hospitalized in the western suburbs, Ding Jian was sent to Hainan for a new round of treatment and examination, but Ding Jian had serious amnesia, and many things could not be awakened even through hypnosis, which made the relevant departments very nervous, and a group of cranial nerve experts were dispatched from all over the country, but then what happened, he did not know, and after being discharged from the hospital, he was required to hand over all the materials, including the sketches I brought back. In short, this matter is no longer relevant to us.

During this period, Huansheng looked for me twice and told me that Lu Binglin was also missing, he was on leave from school, there was no one at home, and his mobile phone was down. But Lu Binglin has been alone for a long time, and no one cared at first, but when Hainan broke up, Huansheng and Lu Binglin made an appointment to go to the desert to see the ruins of the test site. Later, I finally learned from a mirage that when Lu Binglin came back from the South China Sea, he was locked up at home and began to write a book, which seems to be a science fiction book, called "The Prophecy of the South China Sea". Halfway through the book, he suffered from severe amnesia and sleepwalking, and later, almost everyone didn't know him, and he would fall into a state of sleepwalking during the day, and he walked to the street in a daze, because of this, almost caused two or three traffic accidents, and in desperation, the school sent him to the hospital.

On the third day after he entered the hospital, he was mysteriously transferred to the hospital, and the hospital didn't know where the person was sent, and everyone was tight-lipped. And his manuscript has since disappeared, and no one knows what it prophesied. Therefore, Huansheng guessed that Lu Binglin must have been sent to the hospital where Ding Jian was treated, and maybe they stayed together at this time.

That's all there was to the mirage, but I knew that what I knew was only the tip of the iceberg of a huge story, and I admit that the trip to the South China Sea also brought me serious after-effects, such as having an equally boring dream for a long time: the sun was shining on the rippling sea, and a small glass bottle was lazily drifting, and inside it seemed to be a yellowed cigarette box paper, with no words or pictures, but a dense collection of numbers, dense numbers......

(If someone says that it is like coming to the three bodhisattvas.) Subodhi. There is no Dharma Buddha attaining the three bodhisattvas. Subodhi. If you come to get the anuttara sambodhi. So there is nothing in the truth. That's why all dharmas are dharmas. Subodhi. All the Dharma Speakers. That is, not all dharmas. Hence the name of all laws. Subodhi. For example, the human body grows up. Subodhi words. World-honored. For example, if a human body grows up, it is not a large body. It's a big body. --Diamond Sutra)