"These cavities should all be spaces for storing oil. After the oil is extracted, the strata lose support, so it’s only natural for collapses to occur," analyzed Candle Dragon.
"According to current standards, it’s strictly forbidden to conduct secondary exploitation of such strata..." Candle Dragon continued, "To recoup their losses, they really don’t care about the workers’ lives..."
"It might not necessarily be to recoup losses," Sun Hang shook his head.
"Is it because of that mysterious object?" Candle Dragon’s expression was serious, "After three years of excavation, haven’t they dug out that mysterious object yet?"
"Perhaps it’s difficult to excavate, or maybe..." Sun Hang muttered.
"Or maybe what?" Candle Dragon asked.
"I just have a vague suspicion, but I can’t clearly explain it. You could understand it as a feeling that’s more intuitive than expressible..." Sun Hang smiled self-deprecatingly, "Sigh, they say people beco what they most dislike. I really disliked the riddle-maker, never imagined I’d beco one myself one day."
"And it’s been less than an hour since you complained about that ascetic riddle-maker," Candle Dragon also laughed, and the previously tense atmosphere lightened up significantly.
"Back to the main topic, do you feel like sothing is missing in this mine?" Sun Hang asked.
"Missing what?"
"The aura of the mitic influence of the mysterious object..." Sun Hang looked around, "On the Gobi Desert, you can feel the residual aura of various mysterious objects everywhere, but here, it seems excessively ’clean.’
"Indeed," Candle Dragon nodded, "Even if the target mysterious object is deeply hidden, it shouldn’t leave no trace of its aura... Moreover, for the mysterious object to remotely control the actions of the ascetic, leaving no trace is absolutely impossible..."
"Nearby Nanhua Town, when was the most recent recorded disappearance?" Sun Hang asked.
"It’s already been a year," Candle Dragon glanced at his phone, "If the missing person has already t a tragic end, the mitic influence in their body should have completely dissipated by now, leaving little trace."
"Hmm..." Sun Hang nodded.
Once an infected person dies, the mitic influence in their body will contemplate dying, and faster than the demise of the influence is the mory information it carries.
Back on the Naless Island, Sun Hang had discovered that unless the mory stored in the deceased’s mitic influence is collected imdiately after the infected person’s death, it soon becos fragnted, the mory images blurred and distorted, even leading to so misleading, chaotic mories.
The elevator car kept descending, the surrounding light becoming increasingly dim, and the cavity volus on the pit walls began to enlarge — in so reinforced stratum cavities, traces of human habitation could even be seen.
"This is a complete underground coal mine," Sun Hang remarked, "If this were discovered, from the company’s president to the mine officials, each one would be imprisoned, wouldn’t they?"
"In those days, communication wasn’t very developed, and Nanhua Town’s location was isolated..." Candle Dragon hadn’t finished speaking when the car ca to a stop.
"Have we... arrived?" Xue Yue asked in a very soft voice, as if afraid that speaking too loudly would cause echoes within the stratum cavity.
"It should be."
The current depth was about two hundred ters, this level of cavity had been specially reinforced, with a large amount of steel and concrete filled into the fragile strata like they were free, the ground covered with embossed-patterned anti-slip steel plates, lifting up still faintly showing the warning yellow-and-black striped paint around the entrance.
A wooden board was mounted on the adjacent reinforced concrete wall, depicting a helted miner, and underneath it read in both Chinese and English "safety helts must be worn when entering and exiting the mine passage."
"If sothing happens here, wearing a helt wouldn’t help," Sun Hang said, but still molded a safety helt from liquid tal and placed it on Xue Yue’s small head.
Sun Hang looked downwards, the bottom of the pit was already clogged with a large amount of debris, over which a layer of concrete for reinforcent seed to have been poured, only now the concrete layer had broken apart, the various-sized concrete pieces becoming part of the debris layer.
"Looks like the elevator can only take us this far," Candle Dragon stepped out of the car, "To reach deeper into the mine, we’ll have to follow this shaft."
"Inside the shaft... there are... negative emotions..." Xue Yue clutched Sun Hang’s sleeve, trembling, "It’s approaching... I can feel it... very strongly!"
"Negative emotions? Human or mysterious object?" Sun Hang asked.
He could also feel a mitic aura of the mysterious object erging from the depth of the shaft – strangely, finding the mysterious object’s aura inside eased his anxiety quite a bit.
"I’m not sure," Xue Yue shook her head quickly.
"Candle Dragon, protect Xue Yue," Sun Hang handed Xue Yue to Candle Dragon then quickly rushed forward.
Soon, the source of the mysterious aura ca into Sun Hang’s view.
It was a human male, or more accurately, a human male infected and on the verge of complete transformation by the mysterious object.
He hadn’t yet turned into a mysterious entity or skeletal apparition, but his sanity had completely crumbled — according to Dubhe Tower’s handling standards, an out-of-control infected like this would be "neutralized."
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