Two o'clock in the morning, at the foot of the west peak of Shuya Mountain.
Ren Zhong appeared here wearing an exoskeleton armor equipped with radiation protection outer armor, radiation detectors and other special exploration equipment, and carrying Wen Lei's giant shield with a soil-breaking auger drill attached to it.
The entire set of second-hand equipment cost him a full 20,000 points.
Coincidentally, it was the "scrap" that Wang Zhaofu obtained from Yu Junren in Chenhui Mining Area.
Turn on the positioning device and dig down.
Half an hour later, Ren Zhong went 500 meters underground and discovered something unusual.
The drill bit struck a piece of synthetic high-strength alloy.
If he hadn't reacted quickly, the drill bit would have been damaged.
After turning on the metal detection scanner, Ren Zhong saw a spherical three-dimensional model with a radius of 35 meters after thirty seconds.
After a simple analysis, he found that it was a damaged circular metal pipe with a diameter of 10 meters when it was intact.
Following the remains of the pipeline and searching diagonally upwards for about fifty meters, he found a huge cavity that had been damaged due to lack of maintenance and partially collapsed.
There are two mechanical platforms in the cavity, and on the platforms are two shield boring machines that have been chewed full of holes by beasts.
The appearance of this shield boring machine is similar to that of the rock boring machine, but it is larger and has a top diameter of almost ten meters.
It can load more people and objects, but its material is much worse than that of the rock boring machine.
It is an inferior imitation of the volcanic rock boring machine made by the humans of the Source Star.
Obviously, the main function of these two machines is transportation, not digging new mines, so they complement each other perfectly when used here.
Although the shield boring machine was damaged at this time, the overall structure was still intact.
Ren Zhong cut a larger hole at the entrance of the hole gnawed by the beast and jumped in.
Its interior space is crowded and cramped and divided into three sections.
The front section is the cockpit, and the middle section is the cargo compartment.
The structure of the latter part is very strange.
On both sides of a passage that allows people to walk upright, steel frames are arranged into a tight rectangular grid. Each grid is about 2 meters long, 0.4 meters wide, and 0.3 meters high.
Although it has been chewed up a lot, it has not collapsed yet. It looks like a shelf.
Ren Zhong gestured.
He knows the function of this "shelf".
This is not a shelf, but a "human rack".
People can lie in it side by side, and the maximum number of people can be packed into a small space.
People being transported will be huddled on the shelves, unable to turn over.
Ren Zhong temporarily shut down the internal air circulation system and smelled the external air with his nose. There was a putrid smell, but there was no corpse in sight.
He returned to the cockpit.
Scattered under the cockpit seats were three pieces of work clothes that had been chewed up, but the human shape could still be seen.
The work clothes were stained with blood, but there was no trace of flesh or blood.
Ren Zhong searched around the cavity for a while and found another small door.
From the small door, there is a passage that has collapsed and is inaccessible, and there are doors one after another on both sides of the passage.
Ren Zhong speculated that this should be a dormitory area with a similar structure to the centralized sleeping cabin. Unfortunately, the damage was so complete that it was impossible to enter.
Afterwards, Ren Zhong left the middle cavity and continued to explore down the damaged pipe for nearly 500 meters.
He finally discovered the complete pipe structure.
Obviously, after completing the excavation of exotic minerals, Yang Bingzhong did not use high-yield bombs to completely destroy the underground factory.
He just killed everyone quietly, used less violent methods of demolition, and destroyed the top passage.
It seems that Yang Bingzhong was afraid that the direct detonation would cause too much noise, so that even if nothing happened, it would cause trouble. It would be better to just destroy the underground entrance.
Anyway, the real entrance is nearly 500 meters underground. If no one deliberately comes here to look for it, the possibility of accidental exposure is extremely low.
There are also a lot of ruin beasts here. After the exotic ore is excavated, the radiation continues to decrease, and the activity area of the underground ruin beasts will naturally expand downwards.
A few years later, "nature" will help him destroy his corpse and eliminate all traces, with only two or three inconspicuous mild earthquakes occurring at most.
By that time, all his goods had been sold, and his citizen level had already exceeded level five.
Even if some clues were discovered, there would only be some residual man-made metal at most.
No one could find conclusive evidence accusing him of privately digging for exotic minerals, and no one could do anything to him.
At this time, we have gone underground for nearly one kilometer, and the traces of the beast's activities have changed from more to less.
There are already faint readings in the radiation detector, but they are extremely weak.
Fifteen minutes later, Ren Zhong cut a hole through which he could pass through the thick alloy pipe wall.
When the hot-melt incision cools, he will crawl in.
The traditional radar in the scanner is finally free of obstructions and can look straight down.
An extra-long passage extending down to the ground, more than ten kilometers long, appeared in his armor information modeling.
After activating the anti-gravity engine and the magnetic modules of the foot armor, Ren Zhong began to sprint downwards perpendicular to the horizontal plane.
After about eight kilometers, he stopped.
A horizontal branch appears next to the circular passage.
Ren Zhong looked at the gradually rising radiation index and decided to turn around and enter the branch line.
Walking forward about three hundred meters along the horizontal branch line, Ren Zhong saw an elliptical cylinder nearly a hundred meters long.
The elliptical cylinder space was filled with a lot of small and medium-sized equipment that had been destroyed by humans.
Ren Zhong stepped forward to examine them one by one, and began to speculate on their functions in his mind.
In the 21st century, Dr. Ren's top thesis was in the field of biology, but his ability in the environmental protection field was also not bad.
The biggest characteristic of those who study environmental protection is that they are familiar with everything. They need to know a little bit about every industry, but they don’t have to be proficient in everything.
Thanks to his degree and academic ability in environmental engineering, he has visited various types of enterprises on the spot.
Among them was a steel-making plant. He knew what the equipment in an ordinary steel-making plant looked like.
First, he used the armor auxiliary brain to perform restoration calculations, and the "life" appearance of these destroyed equipment was roughly outlined. Ren Zhong first felt that they were familiar, then he clapped his hands fiercely and said to himself, "This is a steel mill!"
Although the specific principles of the equipment are definitely different from those on Earth, due to similar functions, they are somewhat similar in form.
Ren Zhong also found several nameplates on the equipment wreckage.
He accurately identified three types of equipment, namely electric furnaces, ladles, and mold casting equipment.
The functions are similar, and the overall shape looks similar, but due to differences in materials and energy supply methods, the size of the equipment is very different.
These devices are very small on earth and theoretically impossible to use.
But here, it's clear that they matter.
In addition, there are some special equipment that I don't know about, and they are probably used for purification.
In short, this is an ultra-small mineral refining workshop.
Yang Bingzhong's private mining project is indeed not only mining, but also includes small-scale rough processing.
Ren Zhong walked around the workshop and felt a little surprised.
He saw no bodies or human clothing.
Until he reached the end of the workshop, he found a door.
Pushing open the door, there is a hemispherical space with a diameter of about twenty meters in front of it.
A solid dome forms the upper part of the hemispheric space.
There is no alloy structure under the hemispheric space, it looks like black soil.
Ren Zhong jumped down.
His combat boots stepped on the ground, sinking a little deeper.
The ground looked soft and black water was seeping out.
A strong putrid odor began to fill his nostrils, and Ren Zhong silently closed the armor's external air circulation and switched to internal circulation.
Turning on the analyzer, Ren Zhong knew what these were.
Various incompletely burned broken braids.
He found the place where the body was dumped.
right here.
At least 100,000 people from Xinghuo Town are buried here.
Ruin beasts like to feed on humans and also like metals.
To the wild people, the beast is both a prey and a hunter.
But for Yang Bingzhong, the beast is the best accomplice.
Thanks to the help of the ruin beasts in destroying corpses and traces, this place will never be full.
It's a pity that Xumon has no interest in clothes and other things.
Over the years, although there are no corpses piled up here, the clothes and other personal belongings of the hard workers have been piled up as relics.
Yang Bingzhong chose to burn it regularly.
God knows how huge and on what principle he has built an air circulation system here.
Ren Zhongyou walked on the black ashes, and then used the mechanical arm installed on the armor to dig up some ground.
From top to bottom, the braid in the ashes shows differences in age.
The incompletely burned pieces of clothing at the bottom were at least ten years old. Although they were not completely burned, they had been degraded to pieces by microorganisms and were broken into powder the moment they were dug out.
As for the top one, although it is damaged, the remaining pieces look new.
Ren Zhong walked slowly without saying a word.
He tried hard to control his mood.
After a long time, he made a new decision.
Considering that family members of the team members might appear here, such as Wen Lei's missing parents, Yu Jin's father, Ou Youning's mother, etc., he decided to search carefully to see if he could find some relevant relics.
Then when the time is right, he can give these to the team members, and everyone will have something to rely on.
Ren returned to the center of the hemispheric space, turned on the improved scanner on the armor, and raised it to the highest power.
Multiple instruments such as electromagnetic scanning, ultrasonic scanning, low-power X-ray scanning, etc. repeatedly scanned this space.
First, a rough outline of the stereoscopic projection is formed, and then the accuracy is continuously improved.
After a full two hours, his armored brain finally built a complete model based on the information it continuously collected.
Objects of various materials are stacked together, making the model look colorful and almost indistinguishable to the naked eye.
"Eliminate cotton and linen."
Most of the items in the model are missing.
"Eliminate..."
Less than half.
"Remove active organic matter."
There is only a small part missing from the model, which should be underground insects and the like.
Dots of objects are suspended.
Now, the model looks like a hollow galaxy.
"Focus on objects with regular shapes and artificially cut corners."
Some stars in the Milky Way galaxy light up.
Ren Zhong began to rummage like a real garbage man.
An hour later, he piled up a half-person-high pile of objects in the corner of the hemispheric space.
In the pile of objects are some plastic ornaments, unburned paper, broken resin glasses, rubber shoes...
Turning on the searchlight, Ren Zhong lowered his head and looked at the half-burnt square piece of paper in his hand, falling into silence.
This is a yellowed photo.
The photos are not buried on the bottom floor, but on the top floor.
Next to it is a set of standard radiation-proof clothing that looks much more upscale than other clothing.
The radiation protection suit is very new, with no trace of microbial degradation, and the unburned parts still smell clean and tidy.
This photo was originally supposed to appear in a pocket watch, paired with Wen Lei's pocket watch.
But now, the metal pocket watch must have been swallowed by the beast, leaving only the photo.
In the photo, a little girl is smiling brightly.
She has bronze skin and white teeth.
There is also half a strong arm beside the girl.
She is Wen Lei's childhood friend Ai Jiashan.
According to legend, she achieved a class leap because she was adopted by a senior citizen ten years ago.
She is also the only deserter in Spark Town who has become a citizen in the past ten years.
Wen Lei once said that he didn't know what Ai Jiashan's talent was.
But Ren Zhong got the answer.
She must also be a smart girl with some talent in the field of mining or smelting.
She should be an upper-middle-level manager here.
She lived in the dormitory area of the middle cavity for ten years and was murdered not long ago.
Ren Zhong sighed and put the photos into the storage box.
Obviously, Ai Jiashan is both a victim and an accomplice in this massacre, even if that was not her intention.
Let's go back and find a suitable opportunity to tell Wen Lei the bad news.
It's just that Ren Zhong lied to Wen Lei again, saying that he had dealt with Ai Jiashan in the Internet world.
He probably still needs to patch up this lie.
Ren Zhong searched for a long time.
Unfortunately, he could not find any other relics related to the team members.
Maybe, but he really couldn't tell.
But he found a complete five-inch photo of the two of them in the inner pocket of a high-end uniform.
The owner of the uniform died at exactly the same time as Ai Jia Shan, from the same batch.
In the photo, a man and a woman are standing side by side, smiling very sweetly.
Ren Zhong recognized this woman as Tang Shuying.
However, Tang Shuying in the photo looks younger than she is now, and it should have been taken when she was in her twenties.
Ren Zhong put the photo in his arms and returned to the ground.
He didn't go to the mining area at the bottom.
Although the ore there has been excavated, there must still be radiation left.
Although his radiation-proof external armor has excellent performance, the radiation from foreign minerals is not a trivial matter.
Ren Zhong was not sure whether it would be dangerous for him to venture down rashly.
After seeing this, it is enough to confirm the authenticity of the whole thing and to draw out the complete context.
…
Day 49, morning.
Ren Zhong was leading a team hunting when Ma Xiaoling sent him a message.
"There's something new."
Ren Zhong: "What?"
Ma Xiaoling: "According to the original plan, I should quarrel with you this evening, right?"
"Yes. After today's quarrel, I will go to Manager Ju's villa to sleep. When we go hunting tomorrow, you will block the door and beat me again."
Ma Xiaoling: "But just now, a marginalized person in my guard who I don't take seriously came to me mysteriously and sent me an information package. He also reminded me that you are not a good match."
Yes, I know roughly what is in the package without asking.
It must be "solid evidence" that Yang Bingzhong's spy has been secretly following and photographing him for "playing with women" these past few days.
Yang Bingzhong took the initiative.
Ma Xiaoling was speechless about this thief, but the heavy responsibility was expected.
His behavioral logic is really easy to predict.
A superficial person who only relies on the routines in rigid textbooks to pretend to be sophisticated is destined to have this stupid ending.
Yang Bingzhong can deal with the former Ma Dafu with just this method.
The reason why Ma Dafu lost was because he had a bottom line.
After he personally stepped down and lowered Fatty Ma's bottom line, Yang Bingzhong became a chicken and a dog.
Ma Xiaoling asked: "What should we do now?"
"Now that Yang Bingzhong has taken action, we will go along with his wishes. It's better to choose a different day than to hit the sun. When I come back from hunting today, you block me in front of the town gate, publicly tear your face, and take action directly!"
Ma Xiaoling frowned: "Ah? Is it so sudden? I haven't even had time to practice the show myself!"
Ren Zhong: "..."
After coughing twice, he added: "Do you know what stupid people who think they are smart are most likely to be fooled?"
"What?"
"If the situation was brought about by himself, then he would be convinced and minimize his vigilance, because he would have the illusion that everything is under control. Yang Bingzhong is so smart that he can only see things, so we can just go with the flow and be done.
.”
Ma Xiaoling: "I've been too busy these past two days. I only practiced the literary drama of arguing with you, not the fighting drama. I originally planned to practice sparring with you in virtual reality, but I'm afraid that I won't be able to mobilize my emotions by then.
It’s in place, but it sounds too fake. I don’t have confidence.”
Ren Zhong: "Uh... wait, I'll think of a way."
He had to make up a story that was enough to inspire the actress's experiential acting skills.
He considered whether to say like he did last time, that he had been lying and had no intention of saving the Sparkling Desolate Man, and was teasing Mada Fu and her the whole time.
But after thinking about it, he decided to forget it. The smell was too strong and he was afraid that Ma Xiaoling wouldn't be able to bear it.
He didn't want to break Lao Ma's heart twice in a row, so he chose a less serious story.
After a while, Ren Zhong asked: "You know I have the habit of walking at night, right?"
"I know, what's wrong? This habit of yours is quite unhealthy. I wanted to advise you, but I just forgot."
"Actually, I went into your room while you were sleeping at night, stripped you naked, and touched you, but you didn't know anything."
"Impossible! Aren't you training with me in virtual reality? Then you have to turn on hypnosis, because you can't get up."
Ren Zhong: "Have you forgotten? I didn't train during the first two days we lived together."
Ma Xiaoling began to grind his teeth, "What!"
"You have a really good figure. It's tight and elastic."
"It's a heavy responsibility! I'll kill you!"
"Are the emotions in place?"
"It's in place! It's in place! Just wait to die!"
Snapped!
Ma Xiaoling hung up the communication.
Ren Zhong snorted and opened his eyes, his face stiff.
Chen Hanyu, who let him sleep in with his pillow on his thigh, lowered his head and asked, "What's wrong?"
Ren Zhong swallowed his saliva, looked across the two mountain peaks, and looked at Chen Hanyu's face.
"No...nothing."
He thought to himself, would it be too good?
He tried to call Ma Xiaoling through his watch again, but was blocked.
Ah this.
I'm just trying to help you cheer up.
Why did you take it seriously?
Besides, as you said before, just make your belly bigger.
I'm just giving you an example. Isn't it very different from yours? Why are you so angry?
"Chen Hanyu, let me ask you a question. For a woman who believes in true love, what does a man hate most about her?"
Chen Hanyu thought for a long time, "Maybe he did something inappropriate to her secretly after she used the hypnotic function of the watch to fall asleep. After all, for us Yuanxing people, night is taboo. This is similar to killing someone at night.
Already."
Ren Zhong: "..."
Finished.
Captain Ma's emotions may be too much.
He quickly sent another message to Madafu.
"Lao Ma, I just told a lie to your precious daughter. I originally wanted to help her mobilize her emotions to prepare for acting, but it turns out that I went too far. Lao Ma, please remember to pull back..."
"It's a heavy responsibility... I trust you. You can't joke about anything you joke about. She will believe it!"
"What should we do?"
Ma Dafu: "What are your current parameters?"
"The carrying power is 239.49 kilowatts, what's wrong?"
Ma Dafu: "Well, using the authority of the mayor, I can only remotely control her power to the lowest level of the third-level mecha warrior, which is 300 kilowatts."
Ren Zhong: "So?"
"So you guys just fight like this. It just fits her mentality of being furious but knowing her true feelings for you and not wanting to kill you."
