harleyscars Chapter 213 The Source of Technology
Chapter 213 The Source of Technology
Three days later, a Gulfstream aircraft was parked on a private tarmac at Hangzhou Airport.
Zhao Wenbo arranged the entire itinerary. A private plane flew directly from Hangzhou to Korla, then they transferred to desert off-road vehicles and drove along the oil exploration highway into the heart of the desert. Zuo Cheng only brought that small dark gray box and a bottle of water. Yu Ying had asked him where he was going before he left, and he said, "To see something someone left behind." She didn't ask any further questions.
After leaving Korla, the vegetation on both sides of the road gradually thinned out, from poplar forests to shrubs, and then only sand. Zhao Wenbo sat in the passenger seat, holding a hand-drawn map. It was drawn by Chen Xinghe. The pencil lines were somewhat blurred from repeated rubbing, but every route was still clear.
The driver, arranged by Zhao Wenbo, was a local in his fifties who had been driving desert trucks for thirty years. He glanced at the map and said, "I've driven this road before. That abandoned drilling platform ahead was closed ten years ago."
Zhao Wenbo said, "We're not going to the drilling platform. We're going down beneath it."
The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror but didn't ask any more questions.
The desert highway ended at a fork in the road. There were no signs at the fork, only a rusty iron post with half a faded red cloth clinging to it. The driver stopped the car and said, "There's no road ahead; you'll have to walk." Zuo Cheng and Zhao Wenbo got out of the car and carried their gear. The driver stayed in the car to wait.
The sand dunes weren't high, but they were dense. One after another, they resembled frozen waves on the sea. Zhao Wenbo walked ahead, holding Chen Xinghe's map, stopping occasionally to compare the terrain. After walking for about forty minutes, an abandoned drilling platform appeared ahead. The iron frame had rusted into a dark brown, the wellhead cover was still there, but the lock had rotted away.
Zhao Wenbo opened the manhole cover; it was pitch black inside. He turned on his headlamp and was the first to climb down. Zuo Cheng followed behind.
The shaft was about twenty meters deep, with steel cables fixed to the walls. It wobbled a bit when you stepped on it, but it was very stable, as if someone had maintained it. At the bottom was a horizontal passage with concrete walls and an emergency light every few meters, but only two of them were still lit. At the end of the passage was a metal door.
There were no markings on the door, only a small indentation about the size of a palm. Zhao Wenbo pressed his hand against it. The door opened.
Behind the door was a longer passageway. But the walls of this passageway were no longer concrete. They were some kind of light gray alloy, smooth as a mirror. Zuo Cheng reached out and touched it; it was cold, but not the coldness of metal. It was an indescribable feeling, like touching something breathing.
Zhao Wenbo said, "When Teacher Chen first saw this wall, he wanted to take a sample with a drill. Three drill bits broke, and there wasn't even a mark on the wall."
At the end of the passage was an even larger door. The doorframe was covered with symbols. Not words, not patterns, but neatly arranged groups of indentations, like some kind of code. Zuo Cheng recognized these symbols. They were exactly the same as those on Chen Xinghe's rubbings.
The door was ajar. Zhao Wenbo squeezed in sideways, with Zuo Cheng following behind.
Then he stood in a space he had never imagined before.
It's not just big. It's the kind of enormous size that completely overwhelms one's senses.
The light in the corridor illuminated only a limited area, yet the boundaries of the space stretched far beyond the reach of the eye. Breathing echoed subtly within the space, spreading out in layers. The air was clean and odorless. The temperature remained constant.
The walls were glowing. Not from lamplight, but from the walls themselves emitting a pale blue fluorescent light. Exactly the same as in Chen Xinghe's photos. Zuo Cheng turned off his headlamp. The outline of the entire space slowly emerged in the blue light. The dome was very high, so high that the darkness after the light faded hung like a thin mist overhead. The curvature of the floor was very subtle, but it was definitely curved, like standing on the inner wall of a giant sphere.
There is a pedestal in the very center of the space.
The pedestal was translucent, made of the same material as the wall. Something floated inside. It was very small, about the size of a fingernail, and glowed. The color wasn't blue, but a warm light between gold and white. It flashed every three seconds.
Zuo Cheng stared at the point of light. The color and the pulsating rhythm were exactly the same as the pulsating point of light in the center of the technology tree in his mind.
The instant his gaze locked onto that point of light, a feeling he had never experienced before surged into his mind. It wasn't sound, nor image, but a stream of information directly affecting his consciousness. The system panel automatically popped open, without his intervention. The waveform of dimensional perception fluctuated violently, with three numbers simultaneously soaring. Brain-computer interface jumped from 87 to 93, commercial aerospace from 74 to 88, and biotechnology from 63 to 81.
Then new text appears on the panel.
Dimensional perception breakthrough, resonance threshold unlocked. Analysis module unlocked.
A scene flashed before Zuo Cheng's eyes. It wasn't his own memory. It was a starry sky. Countless galaxies, countless stars. Then the scene zoomed in rapidly, traversing nebulae, traversing darkness, finally stopping above a blue-green planet. He recognized that planet. Earth. Earth four billion years ago. The oceans were purple, the atmosphere was orange-yellow, and countless meteorite fragments floated in space.
A point of light flew in from outside the frame, passed through the atmosphere, and landed where the Taklamakan Desert is now. The moment it landed, the point of light solidified into a seed.
Then the video cut out.
Zuo Cheng opened his eyes. Zhao Wenbo stood beside him, looking at him nervously. "You stood there for three minutes straight without moving."
Zuo Cheng asked, "Three minutes?"
Zhao Wenbo nodded. "What did you see?"
Zuo Cheng didn't answer. He walked to the pedestal and, through the translucent material, looked at the tiny, fingernail-sized point of light inside. He already knew what it was. A seed planted by a super-civilization four billion years ago. Without weapons, without a fleet, only a complete technological legacy, embedded deep within the planet's crust, waiting for life to evolve to the point where it could comprehend it.
It is not waiting for humans. Humans are merely a vessel. It is waiting for any intelligent life capable of completing seven knowledge transfers.
Zhao Wenbo said, "Every time Teacher Chen stands here, he says one sentence." Then he repeated that sentence.
"After four billion years, we've finally arrived."
Zuo Cheng stared at the point of light for a long time. Then he raised his hand, his fingertips pointing at the pulsating seed through the translucent pedestal. On the system panel, the resonance intensity of dimensional perception was still rising. The seventh leaf of the eighth branch began to glow. The seventh leaf was precisely where the brain-computer interface and consciousness upload were located. In that instant, he understood. The seed wasn't just waiting for seven branches; it was waiting for someone who could connect those branches.
It's not seven separate technical fields. It's a complete tree.
He withdrew his hand and said to Zhao Wenbo, "Let's go. It's time to go back."
Zhao Wenbo was taken aback. "You're not taking it with you?"
Zuo Cheng looked at the pulsating seed and said, "No need to take it. It's always been there. It's been there from the moment I lay on the operating table."
He turned and headed for the exit. The blue fluorescent light overhead illuminated his retreating figure. Zhao Wenbo followed behind him, glancing back at the point of light in the pedestal before leaving. The seed, the size of a fingernail, was still pulsating quietly. Once every three seconds. Just like it had been for the past four billion years.