Qiu Shi didn't know what Xing Bi was feeling when he said this.
Xu Jie and Ji Sui have been his team members since the time of their ancestors. Together they have experienced prosperity, betrayal, endured infamy, and faced life and death.
And now, knowing that Xu Jie and Ji Sui are very likely still alive, choosing to give up is another choice for Xing Bi that may require him to bear painful consequences.
"Then hurry up." Although Qiu Shi's heart was in turmoil, he said nothing, "Tell me the plan."
"Go over the water," Xing Bi projected the simple topographic map sent by Song Heng onto the ground. "The three locations that Song Heng sent that are suspected to be accessible can be observed from the air. We can determine the order of attempts in the shortest possible time..."
Xing Bi glanced at them and said, "Bai Zhan and I... together with Qiu Shi, we will go down."
"I can swim, I can go down," said Deng Yeye.
"I still need you to observe from the water, and the immune person also needs you to coordinate," Xing Bi said, "You can't go down."
"The people I brought with me are for this purpose," Deng Yeye said. "If we have one more person to take on some risks, we will have a better chance of winning."
"Is Qiu Shi going down too?" Bai Zhan asked, "Isn't he able to swim?"
"I'm fine." said Qiu Shi.
Bai Zhan glanced at him and started to put on his umbrella.
"What are you looking at?" Qiu Shi asked, taking a respirator handed over by Xing Bi from the homeless speedboat, "You, a disabled person, can get down there."
"Who the hell is disabled?" Bai Zhan fixed the thrusters.
"The system is damaged," Qiu Shi said as he put on his parachute and picked up the thruster. "My leg was also injured."
"If you keep talking, the wound on my leg will become a scar." said Bai Zhan.
"Wow." said Qiu Shi.
"Holy shit?" said Bai Zhan.
"Let's go." Xing Bi said.
Four speedboats rushed out into the sea. Qiu Shi certainly had never used a paraglider, and Xing Bi had not taught him, probably because it was not difficult to operate.
A few seconds after the speedboat rushed out, the parachute on his back slowly rose up, and before Qiu Shi could get up and get ready, he was pulled into the air.
"Let go of the rope." Xing Bi's voice came from the headset.
It's not a group channel, so only he can hear it.
Qiu Shi slowly let go of the rope and rose higher into the sky with the help of the wind. He could see the white waves created by the four speedboats rushing across the sea at high speed.
This height is not as high as the previous hot air balloon, but the different shades of sea water under the feet look more nervous, as if an unknown abyss is ready to swallow everything that falls into it.
The speedboat sailed along the tunnel into the depths of the sea, with the sound of wind and waves rumbling in my ears.
Qiu Shi could vaguely see the outline of the underwater tunnel, as well as the section that had been collapsed by the explosion. It looked like that part had been filled with sea water. Not knowing the exact location of the explosion, he had no way of judging the condition of the people inside.
The fierce battle on the shore can now be seen more clearly, the flames of explosions, the smoke and dust brought by bullets when shooting, the roar of the vagrants...
Qiu Shi frowned and looked away, staring at the underwater building in front of him, not sure if it was an illusion or the outline of which could be seen.
A huge disc-shaped building lies quietly under the sea, so deep that the sunlight can hardly reach it. One can only judge its approximate position and shape by its color which is much lighter than the surrounding sea water.
"Don't get too close." Xing Bi said.
The speedboat distanced itself from the disc and began to circle around the outer circumference.
From the air, you can see that this tunnel leads directly to the disc, but the disc is connected to four tunnels. However, only this part and the tunnel from the entrance are closest to the water surface and can be seen from above. The rest of the parts slowly go down into the sea and disappear into the depths of the sea, making it impossible to see their direction.
At present, it seems that this is the only completed building in this area. It is very likely that 249 is hiding here. Otherwise, there is no need to guard the tunnel entrance and even wait for Xing Bi to enter the inspection area. Or, he cannot afford to take the risk of changes during the period before Xing Bi enters, and can only try to use Ji Sui and Xu Jie to drag Xing Bi to the explosion point.
"Enter the water from point A." Xing Bi said.
"Got it." said Qiu Shi.
"Got it." Bai Zhan's voice rang out.
"Okay." Deng Yeye said.
Qiu Shi bit the respirator tightly. The structure of this thing is very simple. There is only a pointer on it that you can't understand what it means. Deng Yeye said it shows how long you can still breathe. This one is full, so half an hour is no problem.
Compared with the equipment in Yuncheng, the various equipments of the wild Doomsday guys are very simple. Homemade and modified are the norm, and using them mostly depends on one's own luck.
Xing Bi, who was ahead, calculated the time in advance and jumped into the water from his parachute, followed by Deng Yeye.
"I'll finish it." said Bai Zhan.
"Yeah." Qiu Shi responded, loosened the buckle on his waist, and fell into the sea from the air.
This feeling was much more terrifying than falling into the river. When Qiu Shi just touched the sea surface, a wave came over and slapped him into the water.
Then he heard the dull sound of flowing water. When he looked around, he only saw the bubbles caused by his entry into the water. He couldn't even tell up, down, left, and right, and didn't dare to turn on the thrusters immediately.
Fortunately, this was not his first time "diving", and his breathing was not restricted, so he quickly controlled his body. Xing Bi appeared beside him, pulled his arm, pointed forward, and indicated that he should go that way.
Then Bai Zhan fell into the water beside them like a cannonball smoothly and heavily. It might be because he controlled the angle of entry into the water well, plus the weight of the biological body, he entered the water about two or three meters deeper than when Qiu Shi entered the water.
After the four people saw each other's positions clearly, they turned on the thrusters. Xing Bi and Bai Zhan went in front and behind, and Qiu Shi and Deng Yeye went on the left and right, and they dived towards the depths.
After getting into the water and approaching the disc-shaped building, Qiu Shi discovered that it was indeed a very standard disc. The bottom was not even flat, but a slope with an arc.
There was no light around, especially after entering the bottom of the disk.
Deng Yeye turned on a flashlight fixed on his shoulder, illuminating a small area of water in front of him. He could see that the water was both clear and turbid, with the refracted light flashing brightly from time to time, but all he could see in front of him were floating flocs, and a few meters away was darkness that even light could not penetrate.
Qiu Shi observed the movements around him, his peripheral vision fixed on Xing Bi's legs. In such an environment, if he moved to a place without light, he might lose his direction.
The entrance should be at the bottom of the disc, a door and an opening. Qiu Shi turned around and rushed forward to find more traces.
But just as he turned over, he felt a dark shadow not far to the right. Although it was dark outside the light, this shadow was obviously darker. His experience of collecting corpses at night allowed him to know that there was something over there without looking closely.
He was just about to turn around to adjust his body and take another look, but Xing Bi and Bai Zhan, who were swimming in front and behind him, had stopped, turned at the same time, raised their guns and fired in the direction of the black shadow.
Two bullets with white water chains shot towards the black shadow.
Qiu Shi followed the direction of the bullet and found that there was a smaller human-shaped shadow in front of the black shadow.
There was a guy there with some big black thing.
But the underwater resistance slowed down the speed of the bullet, and the figure over there actually tilted to the side, avoiding the bullet. Then the figure that was originally standing upright suddenly crouched down and rushed towards them.
The dark shadow behind him suddenly rushed closer.
Deng Yeye turned around, and after the light illuminated the sea water on their right, Qiu Shi saw two rows of huge white teeth.
Hold.
It's a fucking big shark!
Qiu Shi was so frightened that he almost cursed out the respirator in his mouth. He quickly turned towards Xing Bi and avoided the shark's attack route.
Deng Yeye also leaned towards Bai Zhan at the same time.
The shark passed through the middle of the four of them. Xing Bi and Bai Zhan attacked from both sides at the same time. They splashed water and rushed to the shark. Xing Bi pulled out a long knife and stabbed it into the shark's neck.
That should be the neck.
For Qiu Shi, who has never seen a shark and has never seen the world, he calls that part the neck.
Bai Zhan must have stabbed the same spot, and two streams of black liquid flowed out from both sides of the shark's body.
Qiu Shi also drew his knife, ready to attack the figure below.
Before they could get close, the man suddenly tilted his head back and flipped his whole body backwards, doing a standard backflip in the water. At the same time, the shark that was stabbed by Xing Bi and the others suddenly leaned upwards, pulling Xing Bi and Bai Zhan who were still hanging on it, and flipped over as well.
The figure below rotated its body again, and the shark also rotated again, throwing Xing Bi and Bai Zhan away from its body along with the knife that was stuck in its body.
The water flow caused by the two rotations was so powerful that Qiu Shi and Deng Yeye were thrown several meters into the water.
Looking at the amazingly synchronized movements of the shark and the figure below, Qiu Shi reacted.
This is the secondary biochemical body with diving ability that was sent here that year.
It is no longer known what the original job was, but at this moment, the secondary biochemical body in front of him is the controller of this symbiotic shark.
Perhaps because of the unknown and unfamiliar environment of the seabed, the shark and its controller in front of him looked more bizarre and terrifying than the wolves and bears in Zheng Ting’s camp before.
Xing Bi made an exchange gesture to him.
Qiu Shi understood what he meant. He drew his knife, kicked the water hard, and rushed towards the shark.
He was very unhappy about not having any leverage. The little power he had to move forward and backward relying on the thrusters was really frustrating compared to the explosive force of pushing off on land.
What was even more disadvantageous was the speed. When the shark turned its head and pounced at him with its mouth wide open, Qiu Shi couldn't attack, even his retreat and dodge were slow and elegant.
He only retreated less than a meter when the shark's two rows of teeth were already in front of him.
Hold.
He couldn't even find the angle to attack, so he could only kick the shark's nose or upper lip.
Deng Yeye grabbed the shark's dorsal fin, rushed up from behind it, and stabbed it into the top of its head with a knife.
Qiu Shi took advantage of this opportunity and imitated the movements of the second-level biochemical body. He suddenly did a front flip, flipped above the shark, and stabbed a knife into its head.
The shark's body stiffened for a moment, and then began to struggle.
But it soon stopped, as if frozen in the water.
The secondary biochemical body below had been killed by Xing Bi and Bai Zhan, and was also hanging quietly in the sea.
Qiu Shi pulled out his knife and kicked the shark's head. It slowly sank down. The water flow brought it and the biological body together. They slowly rotated together and continued to sink deeper into the darkness.
Qiu Shi breathed a sigh of relief. Without thinking too much, he sorted out his equipment and checked his respirator.
Xing Bi swam to his side and looked at the reading on his respirator.
Fifteen minutes left.
It was probably because they had consumed too much energy just now, or this thing was inaccurate, or it was leaking. It was definitely less than fifteen minutes from the time they entered the water.
Xing Bi patted him on the shoulder and turned around to continue looking for the entrance.
The men soon found a square opening below that looked like a door.
But the opening was not damaged, nor was there any sign that it could be opened from the outside. Xing Bi quickly felt around the edge of the opening and gestured to go to point B.
Point B is not far from Point A. If they don’t go into Point B and want to go to Point C, Qiu Shi and Deng Yeye will probably have to change their respirators.
When looking at the map, Qiu Shi didn't feel how far the distance was. Only when he moved under the disc did he realize how big the distance was from one point to another.
After the previous experience with the shark, Qiu Shi felt that even the relatively short distance from A to B became so long.
When approaching point B, Xing Bi pointed downwards.
Qiu Shi looked down, but couldn't see anything in the darkness. Deng Yeye adjusted the light source and shone it downwards.
As the light slowly fell into the depths, Qiu Shi felt startled.
In the sea diagonally below them, there were more than a dozen huge iron cages hanging quietly, with air bags hanging on the four corners and iron chains hanging from the bottom.
The iron cages were covered with water plants and various snail shells. It looked like they had been here for at least a few decades. Judging from the shape of the air bags, there should have been more iron cages before, and they sank after the air bags were damaged.
As for the remaining dozen or so intact iron cages, the doors of the top few cages were open, while those at the bottom were all closed. You could see that there were still five or six sharks trapped inside, the same as the ones that had just attacked them.
Qiu Shi's hands and feet felt cold as he watched. The sea water was already chilling to the bone, and now it was so cold that it made his spine stiff.
However, the surroundings were very quiet and no other biological organisms were found. They did not seem to disturb the sharks when passing over them.
Deng Yeye quickly turned away the light and the iron cage returned to darkness.
After crossing the iron cage and swimming forward about ten meters, Qiu Shi felt his hands were numb from the cold. Deng Yeye was also moving her fingers beside him. Xing Bi stopped, turned over and looked up.
Qiu Shi followed and saw an upward square passage. From their angle, it looked like a ventilation shaft, and was estimated to be nearly thirty meters long.
Deng Yeye shone the light on the wall of the well. There were many traces of metal nails and hooks on it, as if a staircase or something else had been hung there before.
The entire ventilation shaft was submerged in sea water. If their respirators were not enough, there would be no space for them to breathe.
But this should be a place that can be entered. A cross-shaped object can be vaguely seen on the top, which looks like a smaller version of the handle under the Cloud City laboratory.
Xing Bi made a gesture to Bai Zhan. Qiu Shi didn't understand it, but he could roughly guess that it meant that he would go up and Bai Zhan would assist him.
Bai Zhan took out a coil of steel wire from a small bag tied around his waist.
As expected of a biochemical being who has been with the vagrants for more than a hundred years, he carries with him the vagrants' special weapons.
Bai Zhan buckled one end of the steel wire onto Xing Bi's belt. Xing Bi glanced at Qiu Shi and pointed upwards. Qiu Shi nodded, wanting to express his concern for safety, but he couldn't find any gesture to express himself. With the respirator in his mouth, he couldn't even move his lips.
Xing Bi smiled and put his hand on his face.
Bai Zhan quickly turned his head and gave them the middle finger.
Xing Bi smiled, raised the thrusters, and entered the ventilation shaft.
Bai Zhan slowly lengthened the steel wire so that the ventilation shaft could accommodate one and a half people. The space for movement was too small. If any emergency occurred, they could pull Xing Bi out by pulling the steel wire.
Qiu Shi raised his head, stepped lightly on the water, and watched Xing Bi rise little by little. Finally, he reached the top of the well and began to try to open the door.
Bai Zhan had already tightened the extra wire and wrapped it around his arm. He put one leg on the edge of the entrance, ready to pull Xing Bi down at any time.
Qiu Shi glanced at the reading on his respirator and saw that there were only five minutes left.
There are countless sounds in the sea water. It is not as quiet as he imagined. In addition to the sound of flowing water, there are all kinds of strange whistling sounds, gurgling sounds, the gurgling sound of water sliding through the ears, and the sound of tinnitus caused by the eardrums being pressed by water. However, he still heard a dull and distant sound of metal squeezing coming from above.
At the same time, the ventilation shaft was no longer dark, and a beam of white light shone down.
Bai Zhan kicked the edge of the entrance hard, and the moment the door opened, he pulled Xing Bi down almost two meters. After making sure that there was nothing unusual above, he returned to the entrance and loosened the wire.
Xing Bi climbed up the opening above and entered the inside of the disc. After more than ten seconds, he pulled the steel wire.
Bai Zhan nodded at Deng Yeye, and Deng Yeye grabbed the steel wire and entered the ventilation shaft. Qiu Shi followed behind her, pulling the steel wire and holding on to the wall of the shaft to move upward.
Xing Bi pulled Deng Yeye up, then reached out and grabbed Qiu Shi's hand.
To be honest, until this moment, Qiu Shi, who had never come into contact with water before, suddenly felt the fear that the sea water brought him. He grabbed Xing Bi's hand very tightly.
When Xing Bi pulled him out of the water, the bright white light around him and the instantly quiet environment made Qiu Shi breathe a sigh of relief.
"I'm almost suffocating," Deng Yeye whispered, "It's a bit scary."
"I thought you weren't afraid." Qiu Shi wiped the water off his face and spat lightly, his mouth feeling salty, bitter and astringent.
"How is that possible?" Deng Yeye said, "I've never dived for such a long time. I feel like I'm going to die down there."
Only after Bai Zhan came up did Qiu Shi breathe a sigh of relief and look around.
They were standing in a pool with a speedboat next to it. This was a place to dock the boat. The entire space was a dock, and there was a room full of tools on the side.
"This is a dock," Xing Bi said, "and it's also the outer layer of the main building."
"There is a way." Deng Yeye said.
"It's locked." Xing Bi said.
"Can it be blown up?" Bai Zhan walked out of the pool. The space around him was very spacious. Apart from the tools for repairing the ship, there seemed to be nothing else.
"If it can't be opened..." Xing Bi bent down and looked at the lock on the door, "This is not a sensor password lock. This lock must have been replaced."
"Then we can pry it open." Bai Zhan turned and walked towards the tool area.
They didn't have much time. Even if they wanted to blow it up, they could only blow it up. Their only goal was to find 249's position before 249 discovered their entry and took defensive measures.
The unfinished and damaged building is an advantage for them, as many of the more stringent security measures may be ineffective or not activated.
Bai Zhan found two crowbars from the tool area and threw one to Xing Bi.
"Pry it open?" Deng Yeye asked.
"What else?" Bai Zhan said.
"I thought that biochemical organisms would have some unique ways to deal with such crises, which would be more powerful than humans," said Deng Yeye.
"We are infinitely close to humans." Xing Bi said as he put the crowbar against the door.
But the gap in the door was so narrow that the crowbar couldn't get in.
Qiu Shi kicked the crowbar, and it went in a little bit.
"This door is of really good quality." Qiu Shi frowned.
"That biochemical body is coming." Xing Bi said.
Bai Zhan also kicked the crowbar, and this time the crowbar got stuck in the crack of the door.
"See," Bo Zhan said, "we are stronger than humans."
"My eyes have been opened." Deng Yeye said.
After the two crowbars were inserted into the gap of the door, Bai Zhan and Xing Bi each took one and pushed hard with the crowbars. The door lock opened with a muffled "bang".
The four men stepped back at the same time, raised their guns and aimed at the slowly opening door.
There is a corridor outside the door. When the door opens, the sensor lights in the corridor light up one by one.
There was no one outside and no sound was heard. There were no other doors on either side of the corridor, only a half-open fire door at the end.
Xing Bi walked out slowly, Qiu Shi and Deng Yeye followed behind him. When Bai Zhan came out, he put the crowbar against the door. Even if the door could not be locked, it would be easier to escape if it was left open.
The corridor was very quiet, and only the footsteps of four people could be heard.
But as they approached the fire door, they heard a fifth footstep coming from the other side of the door.
The footsteps were very calm, neither lighter nor slower, as if in a state of complete relaxation.
"The sound of footsteps..." Bai Zhan lowered his voice with doubt.
"Yes..." Xing Bi seemed a little confused.
The fire door was pushed open.
When Qiu Shi saw the face that appeared from behind the door, he suddenly felt a sense of fear: "Zheng Ting?"
The author has something to say:
Continue tomorrow\\^O^/.