0149 Chapter 4: The End of the Ordinary (Section 20)
The "last time" Zhen Cheng looked through Anbis's phone, he had seen photos of the actual storage location of the [Antiquities Zero] folder outside the public exhibition hall of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
At that time, she once suspected that the museum chose to display this seemingly worthless antiquities in the form of a replica because it had been tried to steal many times, or because the museum knew its true value.
After "waking up" this time, in order to temporarily paralyze Scarry and the Oracle Order, she called the Metropolitan Museum under a false identity to inquire about relevant conjectures.
The other party expressed great surprise at the details of the situation she knew, and at the same time denied her two conjectures.
As for the real reason for them to do this, the museum is tight-lipped. I am afraid that only by disclosing their identities or going there in person can we find out.
It's just that Zhen Cheng is running against time on this trip. Once she arrives in the metropolis, her whereabouts will be exposed, and she doesn't have time to chat at the museum where the original "Antiquities Zero" has been lent.
The museum may be able to provide her with some archaeological information from that time, but it may not necessarily include the parts of the murals that she wants to see that are not included in the photos.
Judging from the results, she made the right choice to go directly to the original site of the ruins.
After ruling out the two hypotheses that had been rejected by the museum, Zhen Cheng realized that there seemed to be a third possibility.
That is because the acquisition process of this thing was so bizarre and terrifying that the museum at the time had to prepare for a rainy day with the attitude of preferring to believe it existed.
This is not a group of primitive people's tombs, but the archaeological team that unearthed the fragments of [Antique Zero], and their entire army was annihilated in this desolate Gobi.
When Navis used a more professional eye to determine the age of these mummies and bones, Zhen Cheng, as a great detective at the same level, noticed more details.
Those are all details that are undisguised in front of you, but usually impossible to notice.
For example, given how developed and stable North America was in the middle of the last century, how could these bones be abandoned in the wilderness and left to dry and turn into sand?
You know, they are not hidden tomb robbers or poachers, but a professional archaeological team registered in the museum.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has preserved the detailed coordinates of the ruins, as well as the archaeological team's scheduled schedule.
It was after finding this information from Anbisi's mobile phone that Zhen Cheng had the opportunity to visit in person.
Another example is the national highway that the group of them rented a car to drive on after landing. When that road passed through the desolate Gobi, it made a big bend that can be seen on the map.
This caused them to leave the road and cross-country in the desert for more than an hour before reaching the rock group indicated by the coordinates.
When she saw the map, Zhen Cheng originally thought that the road was built in this way to avoid the subsidence of sand, or to go around a remote village in the Gobi. However, the vast and solid Gobi and the tributaries of the river at the destination denied her conjecture.
The entire national highway that traverses the east and west coasts just makes a big bend of tens of kilometers for no reason. Ordinary people traveling by car will never go such a long distance into the desert without a specific destination.
This road was built decades ago, as if it was deliberately intended to create difficulties for Zhen Cheng's planned itinerary.
Even the imaginary enemy in Zhen Cheng's mind, the "fate" that could distort reality and cause her to die from a shot that shouldn't have hit her, is unlikely to have such foresight and foresight. There are too many variables in the past few decades.
Or is it deliberately avoiding something?
"Remain vigilant and always prepared to deal with attacks and emergencies."
Zhen Cheng's reminder was incoherent, but Ai Luogensi and the two Savant warriors were already on guard. They didn't expect Zhen Cheng to consider so many connections, but there was some strange power at the scene that made them act like that.
A top-notch warrior's instincts and instincts run down his spine, and he is on full alert.
As for Zhen Cheng, she thought of two possibilities.
Obviously, an "accident" decades ago led to the annihilation of the archaeological team. What is strange is that no matter what happened here, it actually scared the then tribal alliance government and even the Scarry family.
retreat!
They did not continue to investigate and control the anomalies here, or even come to collect the bodies. Instead, they even stayed away from road construction...
The first possibility that Zhen Cheng thought of was that some secret organization had caused an extraordinary disaster in this place that could not be handled. The level of danger was such that even the Scarry family was discouraged, or they thought it was not worth the cost to solve the problem.
It is not that similar things have never happened. There was once a medium-sized mysterious organization called the Society of the Past, which mastered some of the methods of incomplete sublimation. They provoked the Severant family and were pursued and beaten until they were almost completely destroyed.
As a result, when Severnte attacked his main altar, those madmen actually used some means to bring about a divine surrender.
The outcome of the matter is very vague in the records of Zhen's intelligence department. Zhen Cheng only has a general understanding that the entire Severant regiment that participated in the encirclement and suppression was wiped out in an instant, with the associated losses of all innocent mortals within a dozen kilometers, as well as the afterlife.
Meet all his followers except the strong ones who have already embarked on the path of sublimation.
That incident occurred in a remote area of the African continent, and it did not have a big impact due to Severnte's blockade. But everyone in the circle was shocked and inexplicable.
Even the Zhen's Intelligence Department has no detailed record of the final outcome. Presumably, the two parties reached some kind of compromise, because this group called the Society of the Past is still preaching on a small scale on the African continent.
Considering the mysterious history of [Antique Zero] and the miraculous power displayed in the Styx Project; Zhen Cheng feels that as long as the right method is found, any secret organization with the corresponding knowledge reserves wants to do something here
To a similar extent, I'm afraid it won't be too difficult.
Among them, the Apostle Organization, which once had its claws covering the whole world and was able to compete with the three major families; and the enemy Oracle Order, which has recently been mixed with [Antique Zero] and themselves, are the first among them.
As for the second possibility, it seems to be more dangerous. That is a paradox.
These things are unreasonable and subvert all common sense and rules. They do not require energy to maintain, they appear and disappear very willfully, and are almost traceless.
The worst thing is that in most cases, humans cannot find any way to eliminate these weird phenomena that disrupt the order of the real world.
Zhen Cheng once experienced paradoxes in a hidden space. It was a phenomenon called "They", which seemed to have a certain subjective consciousness and could distort and splice space in unimaginable ways within certain incomprehensible rules.
There she saw that the rest of the people were all as described in the documents. They had severe dizziness, nausea and other physiological reactions when facing things affected by the shadow.
Interestingly, she herself didn't seem to feel the same way.