"Let's split up."
Looking at the two forks in front of him, Lu Zhou said after thinking for a moment, "We will continue to move forward along the passage on the right. You … or take another person and explore along the road on the left. If it is a dead end, then go back from the front and continue along our road. We will meet up in front. "
"I'm afraid it will be difficult to do." Fan Tong said with a difficult expression, "The underground passage changes dynamically in a two-hour cycle. Even if we go back along the original road, we may not walk exactly the same way as when we came."
When this sentence was said, the members of the expedition team made a sound of surprise. Except for Wang Peng and Lu Zhou, whose expressions were still calm, everyone else's faces showed surprised expressions.
Aubrey couldn't help but say.
"… How is this possible? How can the path we took change? Could it be that this is haunted?"
Professor Vernal's face was also a little ugly. His tone was full of doubt.
"Even if it is violent tectonic movement … Two hours is too short."
"If we can't return the same way, then we will meet up in front." Lu Zhou looked ahead. "Since the final destination of all the roads is the same place, it is the same for us to meet at the opaque wall."
After taking a deep breath, Schulz stood up and looked at Lu Zhou.
"I will go with Professor Vernal. You and I are both collaborators on the ABC conjecture proof paper. If there is an accident … Someone has to be there."
Hearing the meaning of Schulz's words, Lu Zhou nodded in agreement.
"Then that's it. Schulz and Professor Vernal will be divided into group A, and the rest will be divided into group B. We will meet up in front. "
After distributing some supplies to the two, the group began to part ways and continued along the two completely different passages.
Although there was another option, which was to move forward and retreat together, Lu Zhou's expectation was not only to find the Holy Relic. On this basis, he hoped to be able to collect more secrets about the Martian civilization and the Holy Relic from this ruin.
With Professor Vernal's professional quality, it should not be difficult to complete this task.
Apart from that, just as Schulz had said, at least one of them had to reach the deepest part of the ruins.
If the other team met with an accident, at least they would have a second chance …
Continuing along the narrow tunnel, Schulz looked around with a flashlight. If he still had a glimmer of hope for finding traces of the Martian civilization before, then now this hope was almost zero.
They had been walking for almost an hour, but they had found nothing.
He felt that he and Professor Vernal were like two headless flies, wandering aimlessly in the ruins.
Finally, he couldn't help but ask.
"Are you sure there were traces of civilization here?"
Unlike Schulz, Professor Vernal's tone was full of certainty and even excitement.
"I'm very sure! The surrounding formation does not seem to be formed naturally. It is some kind of special steel mixed with rare metals. Under the long-term oxidation and mechanical fragmentation, a hematite vein containing rare metals was formed. You know, hematite is very brittle. "
"Brittle?"
"Yes, it's easy to produce debris when thrown on the ground or hit it …" Professor Vernal picked up the multifunctional shovel in his hand and fiercely chiseled it into the reddish-brown rock on the side, making a crisp sound.
Professor Vernal took two steps back from the recoil. He looked at Schultz and smiled.
"You saw it … My shovel could only leave a scratch on it. My hand was almost dislocated from the shock, let alone knocking off a piece of it."
Schulz frowned. He didn't quite understand what Professor Vernal wanted to say.
However, the latter did not confuse him for too long. After putting away the multifunctional shovel in his hand, he continued in a fascinated tone.
"This used to be a passage paved with alloy steel!
"It is at least three billion years old!
"For some reason, the Martians dived to the bottom of the sea and built this tunnel leading to the depths of the underground, which is the ruin we are now in. Whether it is the technology they used or their motives, they are so fascinating … Maybe it is for the Holy Relic? I'm getting more and more curious about what is at the end of this passage! "
Schulz opened his mouth. After a while, he gave an ambiguous evaluation.
"This sounds like a science fiction story."
Professor Vernal laughed and said, "People who study fossils and stones are good at making up stories, especially stories from tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of years ago. Three billion years … God … I've never seen such an ancient stratum. Even the stratum of Mount Roraima is only 300 million years old. If I want to study such an ancient stratum on Earth, I'm afraid I'll have to drain the Mariana Trench dry. If I can go back, if I can write these findings into a paper, I will definitely break the world record! "
Schulz's expression was not very good. He added a sentence in a corrective tone.
"We can definitely go back."
Vernal looked at the stiff expression on Schulz's face. He smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
"Don't worry, young mathematician, we can definitely go back … I'm just making an academic assumption. We archaeologists don't care about decades of life, please don't mind. "
"I don't mind, but I want to know, how long do we have to go?" Schulz glanced around and said, "Or, with your professional knowledge, is there any difference between the road we walked an hour ago and here?"
"The difference is that we are getting deeper and deeper. The rocks nearby tell me that three billion years ago, or even earlier, seawater flowed back here. Hundreds of millions of tons of seawater poured into this place, and the terrifying pressure tore apart all the man-made structures in this passage. It was not until hundreds of millions of years later that this area completely dried up, and the fruit was exposed to the surface, eroded by the wind and sand … Wait a minute. "
When Schultz heard this, he subconsciously stopped in his tracks.
Just when he was about to ask what happened, Professor Vernal took two steps forward, squatted at the foot of the rock wall, and grabbed a handful of sand in his hand.
"What did you find?"
Schultz was confused by his reaction. He stood behind him and looked at the handful of sand in his hand, but he didn't see anything out of the ordinary.
"The sand here is new …" Professor Vernal looked around and said, "At least it's much newer than what we saw just now."
Schultz furrowed his brow.
"Is there a problem?"
"There's a big problem … How was this sand moved here?" Professor Vernal's pupils were full of disbelief. "It's like the sand that fell in an hourglass finally appeared on the sand pile … Do you understand what I mean?"
"The sand that fell first appeared on the sand pile …" Schulz frowned deeply. "How is this possible?"
"But the sand in my hand is."
Vernal stood up and carefully put the sand into the sample bag he carried with him. With a surprised expression on his face, he took out a sticky note and stuck it on the side of the sample bag.
Then, he compared the depth value on the wrist-mounted computer and scribbled down the approximate depth position on the sticky note with a marker.
"There are two possibilities. Either we lost our way and just passed by here, or a section of the tunnel on the surface was moved in front of us."
Schulz: "It sounds like a dream."
"I think so too, but …"
Before Professor Vernal finished speaking, a strong tremor suddenly came from all directions. Caught off guard, the two almost lost their footing and were knocked to the ground by this sudden earthquake.
Gravel continued to fall from the top of the cave, smashing the helmets of the two people.
Schulz stood up from the ground and looked back with difficulty. His pupils suddenly shrank. He saw that the tunnel they had walked through before was closing in the middle in a strange manner.
This was different from a normal mine collapse.
The rock wall that was closing at a constant speed seemed to be pulled by some unknown force. It didn't give people the slightest feeling that a rock should have.
It was like a wriggling esophagus …
It was like it was alive!
"Earthquake!" Schulz yelled in the communication channel. He grabbed Vernal, who was lying on the ground, and said, "Get up! Let's get out of here. "
Professor Vernal's face was full of horror, and his original expression was no longer there.
"Damn it! This is more than a thousand meters underground, where can we escape to?!
"No matter where we go, at least it's better than standing here and waiting to die! We can only move forward! Quick, run! "
Finally, the fear of death overcame the despair of nature.
Perhaps he was awakened by Schulz's roar. Professor Vernal used all his strength to get up from the ground. He threw the multi-purpose shovel in his hand at the rock wall that was closing quickly behind him and ran forward without looking back.
In the face of danger, the two of them erupted with extraordinary courage and strength, barely dodging the sandstorm and the rocks that crashed into each other behind them.
Almost sticking to the closed wall, the two of them rolled into an empty stone cave.
Vernal got up from the ground, panting while shaking off the rubble on his body. He cursed.
"Damn it … I thought I was going to die this time. German, are you okay? "
Schulz also got up from the ground. He raised his hand with difficulty. Although he looked as embarrassed as Vernal, fortunately, he was fine.
"I'm here, sh * t … What did you just call me?"
"Dear Germanic mathematician! Sorry, I didn't mean to … I was just a little excited because I survived. "
Vernal grabbed Schulz's right hand and pulled him up from the ground.
The two of them leaned against the wall. Their faces were filled with the joy of surviving a calamity, but they were still in a state of shock.
"It's not good to stay here for a long time … No one knows if what just happened will happen again. Damn it, it's been two hours." Professor Vernal took a deep breath and checked the oxygen reserve. He then looked at Schulz and said, "Let's continue. My intuition tells me that it shouldn't be far — Wait, what is that?"
Professor Vernal suddenly stopped speaking.
He stared at the open space in front of him, completely forgetting what he wanted to say.
Schulz noticed his expression. He followed his gaze with a strange expression and looked in front of the two of them. However, almost at the same time, the expression on his face also froze.
It was a shovel.
If he remembered correctly, it was clearly the one that Professor Vernal had thrown backward earlier.
Professor Vernal knelt on the ground. He stretched out his trembling hand and picked up the familiar multi-purpose shovel from the ground. His face was full of disbelief and shock.
"This, this … I just dropped it."
Schulz gulped and spoke with a trembling voice.
"It appeared in front of us."
The two exchanged glances silently.
Through the dusty masks, they could see the bewildered expressions on each other's faces.
"Do we still have to go forward?"
"We can only go forward."
There was no way out.
It had been two hours since they went deep into hell, and the distribution of the underground tunnels had completely changed. Whether it was the exit or the end of the maze, they had to keep moving forward if they wanted to live!
The two continued to walk forward.
About ten minutes had passed.
Just as they passed through a narrow door-shaped structure, the scenery in front of them suddenly opened up.
Facing everything in front of them, the two of them were stunned at the same time.
Professor Vernal's eyes were filled with disbelief. It took a while for Professor Vernal to squeeze a word from between his lips.
"Jesus …"
This is …
This is unbelievable!
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