It wasn't until the new sprouts of Kaichun spit out green that Zeng Qian came to the small courtyard with the Cao team, and revealed some follow-up stories of Chengjialing in casual chatting.

When Zeng Qian entered the test building at the No. 17 wellhead, there were already four groups and more than 100 experts, almost all of whom were elites in biology, geology, chemistry, and pathology from all over the country. There is very little intersection between the four groups of experts, and even if they are acquaintances, they only nod their heads in acknowledgment, but they are busy with their own responsibilities.

When Cao Qian, the person in the leading group, left, she didn't know which department she belonged to, but it was obvious that the management was extremely strict, and the epidemic prevention level was also the highest level. Every day, all research records are kept on file, and researchers have never entered the tunnel. In less than a month, the laboratory building was full of the most cutting-edge test equipment in various disciplines, and many of the equipment Zeng Qian had only heard of but had never seen before, which showed the importance of the high-level to research.

Zeng Qian learned more or less about what happened in the pits and wells in the previous phone call with me, and her main job was to sample and test the liquid extracted from the coal essence jade water bladder, observe and record the life characteristics in it, and compare and classify it with the known life on earth.

Extracting the liquid from the coal essence jade water urladder was the work of another team, and Zeng Qian did not know how to do it. However, it is clear that these specimens lack the vitality they should have, and seem to be dormant, but when a certain amount of liquid comes together, life becomes active, and can form all kinds of wonderful shapes, which seem to be the way they communicate with humans, of course, the greater the amount of liquid gathering, the more complex the pattern is displayed.

Later, some of the members of the research team with her began to hallucinate, and in an unconscious state, they mixed liquids isolated in different containers. Zeng Qian realized the possible danger, and when she found the leader of the leadership group to communicate, an accident happened. Their lab was engulfed in fire for no apparent reason, and four scientists were killed.

When Zeng Qian arrived, she observed a gaseous source of heat in the thermal imager, which disappeared into the vents of the laboratory at great speed, and of course, all her research results were quickly sealed by the leading group, and she and the remaining team members were sent back to Beijing after signing a confidentiality agreement.

Just the day before Zeng Qian returned to Beijing, a fire broke out in the laboratory again, this time it seemed that the team responsible for separating the liquid in the water bladder was in charge, and Zeng Qian did not know how many people were killed.

When we talked about the life in the water urch, Zeng Qian put forward a wonderful hypothesis, we saw that the light spots in the water urchin should be the most basic form of this life, somewhat similar to cells, and the cells enclosed in the water urchin are in a dormant state, once the water urchin is opened and exposed to the external environment, the cells begin to be active, and at the same time, the cells begin to fuse to form a more complex life form.

I still agree with Zeng Qian's inference, but I think that no matter how the cells are combined, there must always be a brain and a set of nervous systems to transmit information, otherwise how can we see such a complex pattern composed of light points?

And Team Cao firmly believes that the tree under the cliff is the brain of these beings, but I vaguely feel that the brain should be deeper in the stratum, and those strange trees are just the neural links of the living body.

About a year later, Director Qi unexpectedly sent me a package, which contained the coal essence and jade water urchin that was given to him by the head of the mine back then. In the letter sent with him, he told me that although he could no longer enter the Chengjialing mine, he had traveled all over the nearby hills and valleys in the past year, and in the dilapidated Dongyang Village, he found a badly damaged stone tablet in the backyard of the ancient house, but he still vaguely recognized it as the inscription when the mansion was completed.

On the stele, Director Qi found the words of Dingzhou Ren, reminiscent of Ren Shi'an's account of the earth fire and the Taoist priest of Longgang in the Ming Dynasty, and Director Qi suspected that the old house in the deserted village was probably the former residence of Ren. What surprised him even more was that there were a lot of dried fruit cakes next to the stone tablet, and someone should have come to worship not long ago.

The descendants of the Ren family did not leave Guangling, or even Chengjialing, and Director Qi's feeling became stronger and stronger. In the following weeks, he soaked in the pile of old papers in the Museum of Culture and History, searched for tea and dinner, and determined that the Ren family had completely disappeared from the written records after the Japanese army occupied Guangling in 38.

Maybe they had to go incognito to keep some secrets, maybe they left their homes because of the war, or more likely, they were all destroyed by the war. Half a century has passed, and those in the know are probably gone. After the clues were interrupted, Curator Qi gradually forgot the story of the Ren family.

Until a month ago, Director Qi accidentally received a batch of old files transferred from Chengjialing Mine, and accidentally saw several personal information of mine leaders in it, among which on the one of Dai Mine Chief, Director Qi saw that in the biological mother column, Dai Mine Manager wrote Ren Meifen's name.

Liu Xiaowu I met once later, but strangely, it was at Zhoucheng's psychological clinic. Liu Xiaowubi was obviously thinner when he went down the well, and his spirit was also very impaired, and he wore a pair of sunglasses in broad daylight, if he hadn't called my name first, I really wouldn't have recognized him.

At his repeated requests, we found a small restaurant nearby and drank some wine, and he repeatedly thanked me for being on the edge of the cliff and fighting for my life to hold on to the safety rope.

I waved my hand at him, but I was concerned about how he ran to Zhoucheng's psychological clinic.

Liu Xiaowu didn't hide anything from me. He was rescued by us at the bottom of the mine, and because he was only slightly injured, he rested for the night, and the next day he went down the cliff in the mine again with his equipment.

This time he went down to a depth of more than 200 meters, and the space in the lower part of the cave was obviously much more open than the above, because he brought a concentrating light, he found that the diameter of this cave was more than 500 meters, and it might be more appropriate to call it a sinkhole.

Not only did he see the huge glowing tree from before, but he was also surprised to find that the tree was not the only individual in the cave, the further down he went, the more such trees there were, similar in appearance, but much larger in size than the one above. If it weren't for the fact that these glowing trees were attached to the cave walls, Liu Xiaowu really thought that he was in an endless forest.

After going down more than two hundred meters, the temperature rose rapidly, Liu Xiaowu had difficulty breathing, and began to be seriously dehydrated, the most terrible thing was that he had hallucinations, he felt that on the trunk of the tree on the cave wall, countless eyes were born, staring at him all the time, that gaze was full of indifference and contempt, and no matter where Liu Xiaowu moved, those eyes followed him tightly, never leaving.

After going up to the ground, Liu Xiaowu collapsed severely, but he couldn't calm himself down, as if those eyes followed him back to the ground. It took three days of insomnia for him to gradually come out of his inner fear, and it was only a week later that his strength was restored.

Liu Xiaowu knew that Team Cao escorted me back to Beijing, and when he saw that I was unconscious, he had to hide his gratitude in his heart first. Two days later, the new command team was stationed in the Chengjialing mine, and because he knew the situation best, the department asked Liu Xiaowu to stay behind and cooperate with the new team to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the cliff in the mine. After that, Liu Xiaowu went down the cliff twice, although he was more well-equipped and had a slow back, but he only went down to more than 500 meters.

Although the protective suit is resistant to high temperatures and also carries an oxygen cylinder, after 500 meters, the sanity will still be slowly lost. It was a strange feeling, and when it came to this, Liu Xiaowu would unconsciously twitch his fingers, as if his body was in an extremely tense state.

Liu Xiaowu felt that his consciousness was being replaced by another unfamiliar consciousness. That consciousness was cold and real, and after it entered Liu Xiaowu's brain, it examined Liu Xiaowu's body in an extremely indifferent attitude, so that soon his self-consciousness became blurred, but his body naturally accepted that foreign consciousness.

Under the control of that consciousness, Liu Xiaowu saw the vast magma layer at the bottom of the cave like a vast ocean, and in the magma, from time to time, huge bubbles bubbled up, and the bubbles burst on the surface of the tumbling magma, but countless tiny points of light emerged from inside, like moths like catkins, slowly spiraling and flying, and with the continuous increase in number, and finally merged into a tornado-like pillar of light.

At this time, Liu Xiaowu's brain seemed to be unable to withstand the powerful load brought by another consciousness, and began to tear up in sharp pain, and the experts who went down with Liu Xiaowu were all occupied by an unfamiliar consciousness and saw roughly the same illusion.

Then, those terrifying eyes reappeared in Liu Xiaowu's consciousness, and he didn't dare to stay there any longer, and used his last strength to signal his return. Although there were no casualties on the two expeditions, the participants' minds were severely damaged, and the command center had to suspend the expedition.

Liu Xiaowu left Chengjialing a week later, but for cave exploration, he had a great psychological barrier, and about a month later, at the suggestion of Cao's team, he went to Zhoucheng's psychological clinic for systematic treatment. By the time we met, those eyes, big and small, still appeared in his dreams.

What Liu Xiaowu saw in the hallucinations was surprisingly consistent with mine, but it didn't surprise me, we have been searching for the brains of unknown beings, looking for the true source of those consciousnesses, and conversely, for those consciousnesses, which are probably also exploring the mysteries of the human mind.

A year later, I took a plane to Xi'an on a business trip, the plane took off from the capital airport, and after flying west for more than half an hour, I sat by the window, I felt a little sleepy, leaned on the seat and just took a nap, and suddenly the strange consciousness in the Chengjialing mine reappeared in the brain, boiling magma, light points breaking out of the cocoon from the magma, a huge forest composed of countless light points, and flashing vines winding up on the stone wall.

I'm a spirit, could it be that we flew over Chengjialing at this time? When this thought appeared, I also woke up. I subconsciously looked out of the window to see that our plane was flying above a thick cloud, which was so thick that the sunlight could not penetrate at all, and it was reflected to the surface of the cloud, giving the cloud a thick layer of gold.

Above the clouds, I was surprised to find that there were many clouds and mist forming a vine-like shape, slowly rising from the clouds, I don't know if it was the illusion caused by the reflection of sunlight, I seemed to see countless flickering points of light, in the distance at the intersection of the clouds and the sky, an inky cloud wall was forming.

The plane was violently turbulent again, and the sweet voice of the flight attendant came from the cabin radio: "Passengers, the plane will encounter some turbulence when it encounters air currents during the ascent, please sit in your seats, fasten your seat belts, and we will suspend the cabin service ......" (End of "Earth Fire")

(Subodhi.) Thou shalt not say that what is to be done is to be remembered. I should have something to say. Don't be a thought. Why. If a man has a saying. That is, slandering the Buddha. I can't understand what I'm saying. Subodhi. Speaker. There is nothing to say. It's a saying. At that time, Hui ordered Bodhi to speak to the White Buddha. World-honored. There are quite a few sentient beings. in the future life. Hearing and saying is the law. Born of faith no. Buddha's words. Subodhi. He is not a sentient being. It's not non-sentient beings. Why. Subodhi. All beings, all beings. For example, non-sentient beings. It's a sentient being. --Diamond Sutra)