dragon raja

The Bronze City（3）

Yangtze River, China.

Late at night, the tugboat "Moniah" trembled in a storm in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. This was a rare rainstorm in autumn, and the Yangtze River was about to enter the dry season, but this sudden rainstorm raised the water level in the upper reaches of the reservoir by four meters in two nights. At this moment, no other ships could be seen on the water, only the lights of the tugboat Moniah were still flashing in the rain.

Captain Mance Rundstedt stood in front of the window of the wheelhouse. The wind howled like a devil, and the rain "smashed" the front window and then exploded like a heavy hammer. The ship was shaking, making people think that the whole world was shaking, but Captain Mance stood steadily and inhaled the cigar smoke deeply into his lungs. Smoking too much of this expensive cigar is like being drunk, but Captain Mance needed it. The strong cigar smoke shocked him instead. This was a critical moment. A captain should give his crew confidence with his calm image of smoking a cigar.

The sound of a baby crying could be heard faintly in the rear cabin. Captain Mance frowned his typical German eyebrows, which were as thin as a knife.

"Feed when it's time to feed! Play with him when it's time to play with him! I've said it many times, this is our job, it's very important! Don't any of you know how to take care of a child?" He turned around and shouted to the crew who were concentrating, "Who's going to check on that baby?"

"Professor, the current main members of the executive department are all unmarried. How do you expect us to learn how to take care of babies?" A girl sitting in front of the display screen said without raising her head. The light from the display screen illuminated her pretty face. She was about 23 or 24 years old, with red hair and a typical Latin beauty look. She was wearing a dark blue sailor's suit with a large lapel and looked like a trainee crew member.

"Call me Captain. I'm not a professor at Kassel College. I'm the captain of the Moniach. Damn it, I remembered that my 'Magic Mechanical Design Level 1' course should have started this week, and I'm still drifting on the Yangtze River in China." Mans sighed, "Okay, okay, since I'm the only married man, then I'll go take care of that dear baby. It seems that he can't escape. Selma, pay attention to their life tests. If there is anything unusual, reel in the line immediately!"

"I understand!" The Latin girl Selma answered calmly and forcefully.

"Captain, we have received a signal from the Three Gorges Waterway Rescue Agency. The storm will continue in the second half of the night, the wind will increase to level ten, and the rainfall will reach 200 mm. This is a rare rainstorm, which may be accompanied by thunderstorms. They are mobilizing helicopters to rescue us and suggest that we abandon ship." The third mate said after taking off his headphones.

"Reply to them and tell them that our tugboat has a deep draft and is stable enough to survive the rainstorm. There are several patients on board and it is not advisable to abandon the ship." Mans turned back at the hatch and said, "You don't have to worry. This is the Moniach. It's not a tugboat, it's a warship. A level 12 storm is no problem for it." He looked up at the dark sky outside and was silent for a while. He muttered to himself, "But this rainstorm reminds me of the Greenland Ice Sea 10 years ago. Every time I approach these mysterious things, I feel like a disaster is about to happen..."

He turned and entered the rear cabin. The people in the front cabin were staring at their respective screens and keeping quiet. All operations were swift and silent. The sound of two intertwined heartbeats echoed in the sound of the current interference in the headphones. On Selma's screen, in the heartbeat monitoring window, the rising and falling green dots indicated that the two young and strong hearts were still beating normally 50 meters below the water surface.

Ye Sheng turned on a strong flashlight. The beam of light from the xenon lamp could not penetrate far in the deep water. There was only a blue-gray light band, and the end was blurred in the water where tiny organisms floated. The slender figure of Aki Sakutoku floated not far from him. He could pull her with just a hand. This Japanese girl who grew up in the United States was his classmate at Kassel College. They practiced cooperation for five years before they entered the executive department together. They could read each other's heart with a look. But they never fell in love, which was forbidden according to convention.

Both of them are good at deep diving. When diving, they rely on oxygen tanks and a layer of diving suits made of nanomaterials to withstand the water pressure of more than ten atmospheres, and rely on a cable to maintain contact with the human world. The world in deep water is so lonely that people doubt their own existence. If the companions who carry out the mission have emotional factors, it may lead to uncontrollable results.

They have reached the bottom of the water. The violent storms on the surface of the water have been filtered by the tens of meters thick water layer, leaving only gentle waves. As long as the oxygen supply is sufficient, the storm will not affect the diving operation. The Moniah chose this time specially, otherwise the busy Yangtze River waterway would be full of ships and the operation would be easily exposed.

Ye Sheng stepped gently on the bottom of the water. Before it was flooded, it was probably a mountainous area. It was all stone surface, without aquatic plants. The stones were smoothed by the water and difficult to stand on. Ye Sheng popped out the steel claws from his flippers, stood steadily on the rock, and reached out to feel in the mud and sand floating on the bottom. He showed Yaji what he touched, a piece of pottery with ancient patterns.

Yaji floated over and took the piece of pottery to examine it: "It has a history of at least a thousand years, and it was before the Shu culture was swallowed up by the Central Plains culture."

Their conversation in the water was very clear through the intercom in the helmet.

Ye Sheng looked around and said, "It was probably an ancient tomb buried in the mountain for thousands of years. It was overturned when the Three Gorges were flooded, and the burial objects were scattered everywhere."

Aki silently agreed with his opinion. Not far ahead, a rotten blue-black coffin was half-sunk in the water. The coffin had been opened, and the surface was covered with a layer of moss-like organisms.

"Although we have used new oxygen supply equipment, there is not much time left. Could this be the location indicated on the map?" Aki looked around. It was pitch black and nothing could be seen with the naked eye.

"Norma, we need a structural map of the underwater." Ye Sheng called up the sonar map on his helmet. Sound waves are far more effective in water than human eyes.

"Understood, I need about 20 seconds to scan." The CPU in the United States responded immediately. Their transatlantic conversation directly used the satellite channel. Soon, a three-dimensional sonar map outlined by dark green contour lines appeared on Ye Sheng and Yaji's helmet screens.

"Although we can't see it," Ye Sheng pointed, "there are mountains in the northeast and southeast. The one above the water is Baidi Mountain, and the one under the water is Chijia Mountain, forming a 'gate' structure. Across the way is the original Caotang River, passing through a valley. According to Chinese Feng Shui, this is where the mountain dragon and the water dragon meet, gathering yin and yang energy. This is a good place for burial, and it is also the location marked on the map, but we have to find the entrance."

"Even if Dragon King Norton built the entrance to his hideout in the open, the entrance has been covered by loose soil several meters deep over thousands of years. We need to take soil samples to determine the possible location." Aki smiled gently, "So, to save time, I'll trouble you, please."

"I feel so tired every time that I almost pass out." Ye Sheng complained, "I need a fixed point."

"I am your fixed point all along." Yaji swam behind him, and the steel claws popped out from the flippers, tightly holding the demonstration, and his hands were wrapped around Ye Sheng's waist from behind, "Are you ready?"

This has been the method they have been working together. When Ye Shengdong was swimming with his extraordinary power of words, he was as fragile as a baby and might even lose consciousness and fall. This was dangerous underwater and he could be carried away by the current at any time. If the cable got entangled again, his life would be in danger.

So every time he was about to use his "snake" power, Aki would hug him like this.

Ye Sheng slowly clenched his fists and closed his eyes. Those cunning and dangerous snakes flowed in his mind, and their scales glowed with a cold and hard green light.

"Moniah, get ready and activate the electromagnetic shielding of equipment and instruments." Ye Sheng said.

"Moniah received. Your life condition is normal. Your brain wave frequency is rising sharply. You can activate the word of 'Snake'. The electromagnetic shielding is activated."

Selma's voice came from the headphones.

Ye Sheng closed his eyes, stretched out his hand into the darkness in front of him, slowly opened his mouth, and the sound he made was full of echoes, like a chant or a chant. There is no one in the world who can truly understand this language anymore. This is a dead language - Dragon Script.

The snakes deep in his mind were freed. They flowed along Ye Sheng's limbs and bones, and finally surged out and disappeared into the entire water.

At this moment, the Moniah detected a strong bioelectric current, which erupted at a certain point underwater and flowed with the water.

Word Spirit Snake

Ye Sheng first encountered these "snakes" during his 3E exam. They lived deep in his mind, hibernators, and Ye Sheng's words would wake them up.

They will temporarily leave Ye Sheng's body to explore the surroundings. From a scientific point of view, they explain it as a kind of bioelectric current. In the dragons' understanding, they are subdued slaves, and only insulators can stop them. At this moment, Ye Sheng is under a depth of 50 meters. The huge body of water greatly enhances this ability. A radius of five kilometers is under Ye Sheng's surveillance, surpassing the sonar system controlled by Norma.

Ye Sheng's consciousness instantly penetrated every c***k under the water, going down, down. Ye Sheng suddenly opened his eyes, and Yan Di was flowing with a faint golden light. He observed the world with the eyes of a "snake", going deeper and deeper into the bottomless darkness. In his eyes, the world was made up of countless tiny pipes, which were connected, intersected, separated, and extended infinitely. His "snake" passed through the pipes, but wherever it went, there was fog, thick fog. This was a desperate, gray world.

Yaji felt Ye Sheng's body trembling slightly. This was when he was weakest. His heart rate dropped rapidly to only 30 beats per minute, and his blood temperature was slowly dropping. Through the mask, the small light in the helmet illuminated Ye Sheng's ashen face. Only his disturbing light golden pupils were shining. Yaji hugged Ye Sheng tightly, trying to let him feel her body temperature. This was not the first time she had experienced this. Now Ye Sheng was as fragile as the child in her arms and needed her protection.

"Captain, the waterway rescue agency informed us that there may be a magnitude 5 underwater earthquake!" the third mate said loudly, "They insisted on sending a rescue helicopter to us. Maybe they realized that something is wrong here."

Mance Rundtet walked quickly into the front cabin, approached Selma, and stared at Ye Sheng's heartbeat test. "It's meaningless to refuse again. Inform them that we have leukemia patients on board and ask them to bring plasma."

"Leukemia patient?"

"Delay time, it will take some time to prepare the plasma, so they can arrive later. I have a feeling that we are getting close, very close... very close!" Mans whispered, Ye Sheng's heart rate has dropped to a few times per minute.

Ye Sheng's body shook violently, the light gold in his pupils disappeared, his heart rate quickly recovered, his blood became warm again, and those "snakes" returned to his mind to sleep again, leaving only one, which was still moving downwards, drilling through the darkness and seeing the light!

"Any results?" Aki asked.

"Right under our feet, about 100 meters away, I felt a huge metal presence, where the 'snake' swam very fast. Only metal bodies can conduct electricity so well."

"100 meters below?" Yaji was stunned. "There are rocks below. We can't drill through 100 meters of rocks, and Dragon King Norton can't place his underground palace inside."

"We have to give up temporarily. We need to drill core rocks for analysis." Ye Sheng said. At this time, he felt an unsettling shaking coming from the water around him. Aki also felt it. The shaking came from the rock where she stood. The entire bottom of the water was shaking, and the dust raised from the bottom of the water completely blocked her vision.

"The earthquake has begun... Damn it, an earthquake at this time!" On the Moniach, Mans knew clearly what was happening underwater from the sonar map. He turned around and shouted to the first mate, "Reel in the line, reel in the line, pull them up!"

The hull shook slightly, and Mans's face changed. He vaguely heard a breaking sound coming from the sound of wind and rain. The nanomaterial lifeline broke, and they lost contact with Ye Sheng Yaji.