Zhang Zian was on a floating boat, wearing headphones, closing his eyes, weakening the connection between his five senses and the outside world to the limit, and concentrating on listening to the sounds coming from the bottom of the sea. His whole body felt like it was slowly sinking to the bottom of the sea, surrounded by bottomless darkness. It also felt like he had returned to his mother's womb, his body floating in chaos.
The darkness made him more focused, and the beauty of the underwater hymn made him unable to feel the passage of time. However, when the strange sound came from beside him, his eyes opened involuntarily, and he returned to reality in a cold sweat. He was glad that he wasn't really in the dark bottom of the sea, so he didn't have to think about what kind of monster made the sound.
If an experienced underwater acoustic engineering teacher or graduate student was there, they could use two or more underwater pickups to determine the swimming speed and direction of the target through triangulation. It was said that experienced submarine listening system officers and soldiers could even identify the true body of hundreds of noisy targets in a short period of time. Zhang Zian didn't have such outstanding skills.
Zhang Zian didn't have such outstanding abilities. He could tell that it was a minke whale's song, because minke whales' voices were very distinctive, and he knew that there were minke whales nearby. If it were a whale that was relatively rare, he wouldn't have been able to tell right away.
He listened for a while, then heard sounds that seemed to belong to other whales, but it was too far away, so he couldn't distinguish it.
So he took off the headphones and hung them around his neck, then sank the underwater speaker into the water. He didn't sink as deep as the underwater pickup, because the line wasn't long enough.
He turned on the speaker and began to play Sihwa's song.
Every time it played for a few minutes, he would pause, put on his ears again, and listen to the sounds of the bottom of the sea. If he didn't pause, because the speaker was too close to the pickup, Sihwa's song would cover all other sounds, and he wouldn't be able to hear anything.
Yesterday, he had used Sihwa's song to appease the male minke whale, but unexpectedly, the song had attracted the giant whale. Today, he planned to do the same thing and see if he could attract the giant whale again.
This time, he was mentally prepared, so he wouldn't be attacked by the giant whale again.
Yesterday, the giant whale had surfaced without any warning, and he almost thought it was a submarine from some country. It must have swum over in one breath, and there was no trace of it on the surface of the water.
The giant whale was not easy to get along with. If it got close to a dangerous distance again, there would be no minke whales to save him today. It was a small matter for him to capsize and fall into the water, but if these valuable instruments fell into the water, he would have to pawn his pants.
However, he had the underwater pickup device. As long as the giant whale was within a certain range, he would be able to detect its arrival in advance and take countermeasures — escape.
For example, it was like a game of cat and mouse between a destroyer and a nuclear submarine, except that this destroyer was more cowardly.
This kind of thing was a test of patience. Think about the submarine sonar operators in war movies. They often sat on duty for half a day, listening to all kinds of sounds coming from their headphones, trying to find the enemy submarine's sonar operators before they found them. How much concentration did that require? As long as they were distracted for a moment, the entire submarine might be sunk by the enemy submarine.
Zhang Zian did not have that kind of patience and focus. Fortunately, he did not need to listen for too long.
After the third pause, a strange noise suddenly came from the monitoring headset. It was mixed in with the brief explosion of the minke whale. If he hadn't been concentrating, he might have missed it.
There seemed to be more than one minke whale nearby. Their voices were chaotic and noisy, similar to bargaining in a market. Zhang Zian had no idea what they were talking about. However, as soon as the strange noise appeared, the minke whale's voice suddenly became quiet, as if a class bell had rung. Then, the minke whale's voice burst out at a higher frequency, as if they were warning each other about something, such as that a wolf was coming.
It couldn't be helped. Although whales had a certain degree of intelligence, they were still stuck in the era where communication was basically based on roaring.
Zhang Zian pulled himself together and listened more attentively. He nervously wiped the sweat from his palms on his pants, took a deep breath, and glanced at the handle of the motor.
He could not be sure if the sound came from the giant whale or something else, so he could only continue to wait.
After about half a minute, the sound came again. It was closer than the last time, and he could hear it more clearly.
The target was swimming very fast. Accompanied by the rumbling echoes, it was like a huge object as fast as a train was approaching.
Zhang Zian could almost imagine a giant whale opening its mouth, swallowing all the small fish and prawns along the way, and then expelling seawater from its baleen.
On the contrary, the sound coming from the minke whales was weakening, and their numbers were also decreasing. It seemed like they were all moving away from the mysterious giant beast, not necessarily because they were afraid of it, but because it had eaten all the food nearby, leaving the other whales to starve.
The sound was getting closer and closer, like a periodically changing whistle. Sometimes it was loud, and sometimes it was soft. When it was loud, even his eardrums were vibrating, and when it was soft, he could barely hear it.
Zhang Zian frowned as he listened. What was making that sound? Was it the giant whale?
He looked at the LCD screen of the instrument. The instrument was automatically recording and drawing the waveform of the sound, but he did not have time to look at it in detail. The target was coming very fast. He was not sure if he had recorded a long enough sound sample, but he had to leave immediately. Otherwise, yesterday's scene might repeat itself.
He took off his headphones, quickly rolled up the optical fiber cable, and brought the underwater pickup up from the bottom of the sea. A 50-meter long optical fiber cable could not be made so quickly. As he rolled it up, he stared nervously at the calm surface of the sea, worried that a submarine-like body would suddenly appear somewhere.
The underwater pickup was finally pulled out of the water with a splash. There was still some dark green seaweed wrapped around it.
He put down the pickup and started the motor as fast as he could. He adjusted the bow of the boat to the direction of the land, turned the power to the highest, and the propeller started spinning at a high speed.
The assault boat sped towards the shore.
He was still not completely relieved. He looked back as he drove.
Poof!
Not even a minute after he left, a huge water column gushed out from where he had been, rose to the highest point, and then smashed into the water like a rainstorm.
The surface of the sea parted, and a huge body emerged from the surface.
Zhang Zian estimated that he had probably arrived at a safe area, so he slowed down the speed of the boat and picked up the binoculars to observe.
The giant whale swung its tail and swam on the surface of the sea for a while, as if there was no one else around. It did not seem to find anything that interested it. After a few breaths, it plunged into the water and disappeared again.
Zhang Zian finally let out a sigh of relief. First, it was because he had retreated safely today. Second, it was because he had confirmed that the source of the sound was the giant whale and not something else. It was not a wasted trip.
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