And in the process of approaching the metal sphere,

Yang Meng also found that

Those dormitory-like cabins are also appearing more and more frequently.

The living conditions are becoming extremely deplorable at a rate that is visible to the naked eye.

……

In the dark spiral corridor,

The lights on the rover kept sweeping around the passage,

Provides a view of the camera unit on the rover.

"The passage looks clean, and no other type of equipment is in sight, is this a personnel passage?"

It was at this moment that

Under the scanning of the light,

Yang Meng found that in this corridor, there were also corpses,

And from the direction in which the body fell,

When they were alive, they seemed to be moving away from the center of the metal sphere.

Looking in the direction where the corpse was, the road ahead was blocked by a metal door.

The bodies were lying in front of the metal door.

Yang Meng adjusted the position of the camera and aimed it at one of the corpses,

He found that the corpses were still a little different from the ones in the dormitory before.

One of the biggest differences is the clothing above,

The corpse in the dormitory is a gray one-piece rubber leather coat of that kind,

The corpses that fell in front of the metal door were wearing orange onesies.

And some of the corpses seem to have some thickening of the knees.

"So it should be a few different professions!"

The faces of the corpses were unrecognizable, except for clothing.

After collecting some biological samples from the corpses, the rover came to the metal door.

Begin to scan the metal door.

This metal door doesn't have any electronic display screen.

There's no way it looks like it turns on automatically,

Even if it's an auto-open mode,

With the situation in the air pressure chamber in front, I'm afraid it can't be used,

After inspection by the rover, this door can only be opened manually.

the way it opens,

It's the disc structure in the middle.

At this time, the rover stretched out a metal mechanical arm,

I started to turn the disc structure little by little, and the whole process was very slow.

Fortunately, the locking structure here does not fall off like an air pressure chamber, but is an effective unlocking process.

"What's in there?

Was it the culprit behind these people's deaths, or was it something else?"

Yang Meng looked at the screen, waiting for the metal door to open.

"It's going to open!"

Yang Meng didn't know how many turns the disc in the middle had turned.

But in this dark corridor,

As a surging red light appeared on the crack in the metal door, the rover stopped rotating the disk.

Soon, a dark red circular cabin appeared on the screen,

And Yang Meng noticed at a glance,

There was a dark black thing in the middle of the chamber.

This thing is in the middle of the cabin,

It seems to be some kind of device, and it seems to be some kind of irregular object.

He took a cursory glance and saw that there didn't seem to be any other corpses in sight.

"Xiao Yin, move forward cautiously"

"Understood!"

The rover slowly came to the center of the metal sphere.

When the searchlight hits it,

Yang Meng realized that the thing in the center was not black, but a dark green.

"What is this?"

The little light beside Yang Meng saw this thing, and it was the end

Yu couldn't help but ask,

Hearing Xiaoguang's question, Yang Meng shook his head gently, indicating that he didn't know,

Although he couldn't be sure what it was,

But thinking of the case of the metal ball,

There were still some speculations in his mind,

"Is it a power plant, or an energy device?"

Thinking of this, he recalled the internal structure of the metal sphere that had been determined by the previous shock detection.

"Xiao Yin retrieves the structure diagram!"

"Understood!"

Looking at the data map called up by Xiao Yin,

By contrasting the structures, he found that both of his guesses might be wrong.

The structure diagram shows that the outer wall of the metal sphere is composed of two layers.

And after seeing the way this metal ball moves,

It can be inferred that the outer layer is in motion, while the inner layer remains in a state of equilibrium and rest.

In this way, the "people" in it can live normally,

Instead of being churned into lakes as if living in a mixing machine.

"According to the structural diagram, the power plant and energy equipment should be close to the outer wall!"

"If the passage I came to is a personnel passage!"

"Then the other spirals should lead to the equipment area!"

Yang Meng turned the camera device,

Several other closed metal doors were found in the circular space.

After seeing these metal doors, Yang Meng was not in a hurry to explore the other passages.

It is imperative to understand the role of the only object in the center of this sphere.

When Yang Meng thought about these questions in his heart,

Xiao Yin is already operating the rover,

Some preliminary detection of this object in the sphere,

The first step is to construct a three-dimensional image.

It is obvious from the three-dimensional image that this is an irregular object, close to the shape of a pebble.

After identifying the object,

The rover began to detect its material composition.

After spectral analysis,

A list of material composition appeared in front of Yang Meng,

Looking at the composition of the elements above, Yang Meng's expression was one again:

"It's ...... Stones!"

"Wait, this element makes ......."

Seeing the data on the list of elements, Yang Meng had an inexplicable familiarity,

He seemed to have seen it there,

"Xiao Yin, retrieve the composition data of the wake pebbles!"

"Retrieval completed, do you want to check?"

"Yes!"

Soon, Yang Meng compared the two kinds of data,

found that the above data is surprisingly consistent,

Even if the wear and tear data caused by the flow of water is in a range,

The few differences are in shape and color.

"So, what's the point of placing such a stone in the middle of the metal sphere?"

"And what is the purpose of launching that stone in the direction of the Earth?"

At this time, many questions came to Yang Meng's heart,

In order to be sure of something,

He asked Xiaoguang to determine the internal structure of the stone.

Sure enough, as he had guessed, the stone was also solid,

"But what is this stone for a metal orb? It can't be ballast!"

Yang Meng adjusted the camera device and carefully observed the spherical space where the stone was located again.

This space can be said to be very clean.

In addition to this irregular pebble,

Hardly anything else is visible.

Just when Yang Meng was about to give up looking for something,

A searchlight stumbled across the ground,

A faint but not very conspicuous reflection flickered through the lens,

"Xiao Yin, reverse the camera!"

"Understood!"

Then the flicker appeared again,

"Rewind again!"

"Stop!"

"Xiao Yin, let's take a look at what the flickering area is on the ground?"

"Understood!"

Xiao Yin operated the mechanical car to the position pointed out by Yang Meng,

It's a flat metal platform,

Located underneath irregular pebbles,

As the searchlight swept over the metal platform, some bright spots of reflected light appeared,

"Xiao Yin, probe these highlights!"

"Understood!"

"After preliminary analysis, these bright spots may have been caused by a long period of friction!"

Hearing Xiao Yin's voice,

Yang Meng didn't react, but looked at the shape of the bright spot and fell into deep thought.

"What's wrong, is there anything wrong with this area?"

Xiaoguang on the side noticed the change in Yang Meng's expression, and asked with a flash:

"Xiaoguang, what is your spiritual support?"

"Spiritual support?"

Xiao Guang flickered and showed a puzzled mood, and it was a little unable to understand Yang Meng's words.

has been with Xiaoguang for so long, and in some simple daily words, Yang Meng can already communicate with Xiaoguang,

Saying.. Edition. 】

But some special words still have to be translated by Xiao Yin before they can be understood by Xiao Guang.

But even if there is Xiao Yin to assist in translation,

This kind of thing that touches the core of the cultural spirit,

There is still a huge gap between these two civilizations that have never been in contact with each other.

Therefore, after listening to the various translations, Xiaoguang flickered as if thinking about how to answer this question.

And Yang Meng looked at the marks on the floor, and extremely complicated emotions appeared in his heart.

"It's a mark from a long time of rubbing your knees!"

When I first thought of this possibility,

Yang Meng still couldn't believe that this was the polish of the metal floor with his knees.

But looking at the rows of bright traces of the ovals all towards the stone in the center of the sphere,

He inexplicably thought of the prayers in the temple,

With this in mind, he asked Xiao Yin to analyze the marks according to the friction of his knees.

After Xiao Yin's model analysis, these traces of friction on the ground are indeed related to human knees.

Coming to such a conclusion, and looking at the stone in the center of the sphere, a thought uncontrollably appeared in his heart:

"Are they kneeling down to this stone?"

The idea came up to him and made him feel ridiculous,

But when you think about it,

In the human world, those things that kneel and pray are nothing more than mud and stone sculptures, rotten wood and rotten nails.

If aliens descend on Earth and see humans kneeling down to the material made of stones, it would be strange.

"What matters is not the material composition of the object of worship, but the meaning it represents!"

It was precisely because of this that he asked Xiaoguang what their spiritual support was.

As a being with consciousness,

Whether it is a human being who exists as a living body, or a small light that exists as an energy body,

The drive of consciousness is needed to avoid self-extinction.

In short, you have to do something meaningful to live.

Whether it's for money, or fame, or for the spirit of a god of nothingness, or even just to win a few games,

These thoughts that are blended into the consciousness,

It is the driving source of the behavior of living individuals, befriending the powerful, carrying out social activities, or praying in temples, and staying up all night.

If you lose your mental drive,

It is also easy to fall into depression, or a state of misanthropy, which eventually leads to self-destruction.

The previous rover detected that the accommodation environment was extremely harsh.

In a small space, there will be more than a dozen human beings.

This environment also reflects that the other living conditions of these people may be very bad.

If these people don't have a sense of self, like machines, then it's nothing.

But if it's their brain structure that can produce autonomous consciousness,

Even if it is brainwashed to become like a robot,

But only if there is an independent consciousness, in the face of harsh living conditions, some sparks will burst out one day.

Looking at the kneeling marks on the ground and the stone in the center, Yang Meng fell silent.

At this time, Xiaoguang on the side finally responded to Yang Meng's previous question:

"I should have told us before that our spirit rests on the stars."

Yang Meng thought about it carefully, when he was out of the virtual environment built by Xiaoguang, he had indeed heard Xiaoguang say something like this,

It's just forgotten because of the long time it was,

After listening to Xiaoguang's answer, Yang Meng shook his head gently, and he was not entangled in these questions, and the rover did not stay in the circular space.

start probing along other spiral channels,

With the experience of the first channel detection, the subsequent detection process is very fast.

Time passes little by little,

The rover probed several spiral passages one by one,

Upon detection, there were no living life forms within the metal sphere.

As we have seen through the oscillation detector before,

Several other passages lead to different equipment areas,

Within these device areas,

Yang Meng found some drives and energy systems,

After testing and analysis, it was found that the entire metal ball needs to be charged and operated like an electric vehicle.

In the process of inspecting the powertrain,

Yang Meng also let Xiao Yin try whether he could start the metal ball.

But unfortunately, several methods have been tried, but they have not been able to restore the energy system to normal.

After Xiao Yin's analysis,

It may be that the battery pack has some problems because it has been empty for a long time,

Replacement and maintenance are required.

Faced with such a situation, Yang Meng could only give up some ideas,

The rover that Xiao Yin was operating returned to the previous can opener.

The probe began to prepare to return to the spacecraft,

Before leaving the metal ball,

Yang Meng intimately closed the inner door of the air pressure chamber and confirmed that the metal ball would not leak.

Only then did the can opener break away from the metal sphere, preparing to leave the ocean and return to the ship from the direction of the night hemisphere.

Ten minutes later, the probe left the ocean and headed for space.

At this time on the spaceship,

Yang Meng is also sorting out the harvest of this period of time with Xiao Yin, preparing for further exploration in the future.

Exploring the metal sphere has given a lot of important clues,

He determined that the humanoids there were most likely humans.

The internal structure and operation mode of the metal ball are also determined.

Even, a stone similar to the wake pebbles was found, and those people were still kneeling down and worshipping the stones,

And Yang Meng felt a pity that he still didn't figure out the cause of these people's deaths.

However, the probe will then send back biological samples taken from these people.

When you get back on the ship, you might be able to analyze something with the various equipment on the ship.

And after sorting out these harvests,

Yang Meng still couldn't help but sigh:

"Still haven't found anyone alive!"