The twisted and deformed protective door was pushed open.
Chu Yanran entered the reporting hall.
Scenes from the past kept flashing here... Chu Yanran clenched her submachine gun and walked slowly down the steps in the middle of the reporting hall.
There were still many spectators "sitting" in the dimly lit reporting hall who had not "leaved".
They maintained their appearance in life, except that they no longer breathed, and their skin turned a cold blue.
…
"Parallel universe... I'm afraid I'm not going crazy. There's no such thing, don't you think?" Shen Mengyan, Chu Yanran's personal guard, complained during the intermission.
Yougege smiled slightly and did not express any opinion.
Chu Yanran felt that this was a bit too much.
"I feel that Professor Zeng's research direction is correct."
"oh?"
"If the multiverse really exists... I would really like to meet my other self."
"Wow...you are really fake! Don't you find it creepy?"
Chu Yanran shrugged: "I don't think so, I think I should be able to get along well with myself."
"Uh... okay..." Shen Mengyan curled her lips and put the cup away.
…
The rest room is empty.
But the cup is still there, and even... there is still some water left in the cup.
Walking further inside, Chu Yanran froze.
Because she saw Shen Mengyan still changing clothes in the dressing room next to the rest room...
"Well..." Chu Yanran covered her mouth, her eyes red.
…
"Sister, can I ask you a question?" Chu Yanran asked tentatively when Chu Yanran and You Gege were left alone.
Yougege was hugging her cat on the sofa and enjoying hot cocoa.
"Huh?" Yougege nodded.
"Uh, well... if you met another self, would you... also hate her?"
This is what I said...
Li Rang stopped when he reached the door. He looked quite curious.
Yougege thought for a while and then replied: "Maybe."
…
After moving Shen Mengya's body aside and putting it away, Chu Yanran found a white blanket and covered her with it.
Then Chu Yanran opened her locker. Inside the locker were a diary, a pistol, a military dagger and three photos.
The pistol was no longer needed, so Chu Yanran didn't touch it.
She carefully put the diary in her backpack, hung the military dagger on her waist, and then returned to the lounge with three photos.
Sit down in a familiar seat and line up these three photos.
The first photo is a group photo of Chu Yanran and Zhang Fengyu, with the sea in the background.
That was taken at the port when Chu Yanran first arrived in Antarctica.
The sea was not empty; on the contrary, it was crowded with warships flying various national flags.
These steel behemoths have never been crowded together unsuspectingly like in the photo...
…
"Brother, I'm going to Antarctica for a while. You take good care of grandpa."
"Antarctica? What are you doing there?"
"Well, I'm not too sure, but the organization has been decided and I'll leave this afternoon."
"Then I'll see you off."
"No, brother, don't you still have to accompany grandpa to physical therapy? I can just go with Brother Yu's car."
Already."
"Brother Yu? Zhang Fengyu?"
"Well, that's right."
"Holy crap! Why is it that kid again? Wait a minute, I'll call him and explain."
"Ouch! Brother~"
…
Chu Yanran never thought that after arriving in Antarctica... she would never be able to go back...
Move your eyes to the second photo.
The background was changed to the "door" on Tang Juan Lake, and the people in the photo also changed into three silhouettes, but Chu Yanran vaguely remembered them.
The one on the far left wearing a white protective suit is Guo Xingcai, the one in the middle is You Gege, and the one on the far right is Li Rang.
This was a souvenir that Chu Yanran secretly took before entering the underground base... It was originally going to be deleted, but Chu Yanran developed it and saved it.
…
"Let me introduce you, this is Ou Mengya."
"Hello."
"Hello……"
"She will appear in the public eye instead of you in the next six months. Then there will be no worries and you can conduct research with peace of mind."
"But……"
"No, Yanran, you should know the importance of this research to the organization and the country."
…
The protagonist of the last photo is Chu Yanran herself.
In the photo, Chu Yanran, who is wearing a birthday hat and making a wish on the birthday cake with her eyes closed, is not celebrating her own birthday...but the birthday of Ou Mengya who has sacrificed for thirty-five days...
At that time, Chu Yanran didn't know that Ou Mengya had sacrificed her life to ensure her safety.
Chu Yanran put the photos away, her heart feeling tight.
After packing up these personal belongings, Chu Yanran left the lounge, but when she returned to the reporting hall, she unexpectedly found a working control panel on the reporting podium.
This kind of operating panel powered by liquid superconducting batteries was used by everyone in the entire underground base at that time, so it shouldn't be that unusual.
But now that the underground base has been reduced to an abandoned place comparable to a cemetery, it is a bit strange that there is still a working operation panel here.
Chu Yanran walked over curiously, picked it up and took a look. What was circulating on it was actually the integrated log of Zeng Yijie's report on "Liji Life".
This diary is not unfamiliar to Chu Yanran, because she witnessed the whole process, but she can't remember what happened after the report that day...
…
"All the corpses have bloody fingerprints on them, and they are quite dense. This can basically be considered as traces of contact between some unknown life form and humans." Zeng Yijie explained the photos one by one.
During this process, because it was difficult to accept the impact of these autopsy photos, Yougege stayed in the lounge and did not go out. However, she did not choose to leave early, but only listened to Zeng Yijie's explanation.
Guo Xingcai stayed with her and took care of her.
"But these are just conjectures. No matter how unscientific the blood fingerprints appear and there are no real observation records, we still don't have enough evidence to prove that they exist." Zeng Yijie paused and turned to the next photo.
The photo was sent back by American District personnel trapped in ancient ruins beneath Lake Vostok.
It can be seen from the photos that the personnel in the American area still did not get rid of the entanglement of those things after being "teleported" to the ruins. On the contrary, they were like adventurers awakening monsters, encountering more and more obstacles as the exploration continued to deepen.
More and more strange events
.
The most unforgettable of these strange incidents is the anatomy of a dead team member who had no visible injuries on the surface, but whose internal organs were all frozen and shattered by ultra-low temperature.
This team member was originally a Ranger, and later joined the US District Defense Section of the Department of National Security after screening and assessment. Although he is not a formal researcher, his sensitivity to danger is far beyond ordinary people.
But even so...he was still "killed" in his sleep.
After the renamed team member died, other team members discovered the footprints of those "things" nearby, and after anatomy of the dead team member, they found... All the organs in his body had been frozen into powder by ultra-low temperature, and there were still incomplete black marks on his spine.
handprints...
"Currently our rescue team has stopped working because all the trapped people have died... But another exploration team that took over the rescue work opened the first 'passage' to this ancient ruins yesterday morning, below
What you see will be top-secret video data that will be released to the public for the first time, so I hope you are mentally prepared."
The passage Zeng Yijie mentioned is actually just an exploration hole with a diameter of less than 3cm, but with the help of this exploration hole, the National Security Department has been able to lower specially improved exploration equipment similar to a gastroscope into the ruins.
Although the true size of the ruins cannot yet be determined, exploration equipment has successfully found the sacrificed American personnel.
The image data mainly contains their state after death.
But what is even more disturbing and terrifying is...
All team members maintained a certain fixed posture and expression when they died. Even the team member whose organs had been crushed by ultra-low temperature and who had obviously died remained intact in the team.
So... who is the one who sent the information back to the base headquarters?!
The report hall once again fell into a commotion, and many people were close to emotional collapse.
Faced with this situation, Ji Jiangyun picked up the microphone again and said: "Quiet!!!!!!!"
…
Chu Yanran, who broke free from the memories, was now covered with cold sweat on her forehead.
She looked at the frozen "audiences" sitting bustling under the stage. They seemed to be waiting for a report to begin, but before the report began, they were frozen in this scene forever.
"Snapped!"
"Who!?" Chu Yanran immediately raised her gun and turned to the direction of the sound, and simultaneously turned on the infrared spectrometer on the exoskeleton.
There were scattered lights flashing in the field of vision, and the darkness was empty, as if there was nothing.
But Chu Yanran suddenly felt her scalp numb, and waves of strange and inexplicable chills appeared on her shoulders.
Here they come!
And right behind Chu Yanran!
…
"I know it is difficult for everyone to accept this fact, but so far, the images returned by our exploration equipment are indeed very different from the images returned by personnel in the United States that we have seen before. In order to determine this
The discrepancy is real. We deliberately made a wireless transmitter similar to the communication device carried by the missing American area personnel, and put it into the ruins, and then... we got a terrible truth..."
When it comes to this, there is no need for Zeng Yijie to continue talking, most of them have already been guessed...
"We did not receive any signal from this wireless transmitter...that is to say...there was a problem with the signal from the 'American Zone' we received before." Zeng Yijie looked solemn and slid the operating panel to
Pictures of all three "doors" are pushed to the front desk for display to everyone.