It started when a bloody rain was about to fall.

Meanwhile, outside the tent, the metal frame of the drilling rig emitted a faint, mournful clanging in the wind.

The sound was like the lingering echo of some ancient instrument, trembling and reverberating in the wind before finally dissipating into the boundless sound of the pine trees.

As geologists, Shi Linglong and her colleagues adhere to the scientific creed—believing only in facts that are observable, measurable, and verifiable.

But as geologists, they also have a deeper understanding and appreciation of the vast, boundless, and mysterious power of nature than most people.

Because they talk to the rocks every day and deal with the memories of the earth.

They understood better than anyone else that what humanity knows is but a drop in the ocean, and what humanity can explain is but the tip of the iceberg.

Scattered reports of anomalies from around the world are now appearing in Qin Lan's mind like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle:

Unidentified colossal remains in the Norwegian fjords—what creature's remains are they? Why does its skeletal structure not match any known species?

The Amazon rainforest's bizarre cycle of life and death—overnight, all the plants in the entire forest wither, only to be reborn within three days. What kind of power is that?

An unknown heat source that continues to intensify beneath the Antarctic ice sheet—where does that heat come from? What changes are taking place in the world beneath the ice?

A regular yet unfamiliar array of sound waves deep in the Pacific Ocean—who emitted that frequency, rhythm, and intensity? What message is it trying to convey?

These fragments are isolated from each other, scattered all over the world, and recorded, discussed, and puzzled by different institutions and different people.

But they—

It vaguely points to the same heavy, gathering cloud that is enveloping the entire world.

"Sister Linglong."

After thinking about these unusual phenomena around the world, Qin Lan broke the silence. Her voice was slightly hoarse, with a slight tremor that she herself was unaware of.

The sunlight on her fair face had dimmed, replaced by a heavier emotion.

"If... if some 'major upheaval' really happens, like in your dream... what can we... ordinary people do?"

At this moment, Shi Linglong, who was still holding the tablet computer in her left hand, did not respond immediately.

She lowered her eyes.

Long eyelashes cast two tranquil, crescent-shaped shadows beneath the eyelids.

The arc of shadow was so deep and dark, it seemed to hold all the questions, all the fears, and all the anxieties.

Then Shi Linglong turned her attention to the heavy rock core sample that she had been squatting on the ground examining earlier.

Sample cross-section —

A dark red, fine line, barely visible in the dim camplight, seemed to come alive, undulating and flickering faintly.

Like a capillary beneath the skin of a sleeping behemoth, pulsating slightly in a nightmare.

At this moment, Shi Linglong's gazing posture was as serene as the ancient Wangshi (望石) standing atop the mountain.

All the breathtaking beauty was completely restrained and subsided at this moment, transforming into an absolute focus and solemnity, almost like a deity listening to a believer's prayer.

All sounds inside and outside the tent—the wind, human voices, the faint ticking of instrument indicator lights—faded away like the receding tide.

time--

Under her gaze, everything seemed to become viscous and slow.

"Record."

Shi Linglong shifted her gaze from the rock core sample on the ground before speaking, handing the tablet computer she was holding in her left hand back to Qin Lan beside her.

The sound was deeper than the rocks deep in Mount Tai, yet it carried the clear, resonant echo of jade striking jade.

"Continue monitoring and record every data point that deviates from the baseline, no matter how small or incredible it may be."

Then Shi Linglong paused and continued.

"If nature tries to speak, if the earth tries to warn—"

She looked up and met Qin Lan's gaze.

What rekindled in those eyes was an unwavering determination.

"So, as those who listen to the pulse of the earth, our primary responsibility is not to panic or speculate, but to exhaust all means to understand its language and decipher its codes, which may be full of warnings or herald new life."

As Shi Linglong finished speaking, her unwavering resolve spread out like an invisible ripple.

Meanwhile, inside the tent, Zhao Changhe was the first to move.

The middle-aged team member, whose fingers were always covered in rock dust, silently stubbed out his cigarette and picked up his notebook again.

His movements were steady and slow, like a stone that had been washed by water for thousands of years—no matter what flowed over it, it just stayed in place and did what it was supposed to do.

He thought to himself, "Whatever it is, I can't forget any of the data that needs to be recorded."

Zhou Guoliang lowered his hands, which were clasped in front of his chest, and his gray eyebrows gradually relaxed.

Having lived for over fifty years and spent most of his life in the wilderness, he had long understood a principle: "Even if the sky falls, you must finish what's in front of you first."

He glanced at He Shusheng, who was still in a daze beside him, reached out and patted him on the shoulder, and nodded without saying anything.

That means, "Stop thinking about it, get to work."

He Shusheng seemed to wake up from a dream after being patted by Zhou Guoliang.

He glanced at Zhou Guoliang's deeply lined face, then at Shi Linglong's retreating figure, and suddenly felt a little more at ease.

He didn't know what the stonemason meant by "existence," but he knew that as long as the stonemason stood there, the sky wouldn't fall.

Then he picked up his pen and began to organize the sample labels that had been interrupted earlier.

Zheng Mingyi pushed up his glasses, his Adam's apple bobbed once, and finally said the words he had just swallowed back:

"I'll check the seismograph's storage space; if we expand the sampling, the capacity might not be enough."

His voice was a little dry, but at least he managed to say it.

He thought to himself, "No matter what's underground, I'll do what I can first."

Luo Xiaoman was still hugging her arms, but she didn't feel as cold anymore.

He glanced at the seniors around him who had already taken action, then at Shi Linglong and Qin Lan, and a thought suddenly popped into his mind:

"I'm only nineteen. If something really big happens, it wouldn't be a loss to be able to stand here and witness it with my own eyes."

This idea was silly, and he knew it was silly, but just thinking about it made him less afraid.

He loosened his grip and jogged over to help Ding Hai retrieve the soil drill.

Sun Mingyuan then took off his glasses again, this time actually wiping the dust off the lenses, and then opened his laptop to check the data storage path.

He thought to himself, "No matter how strange the data is, someone has to record it."

Perhaps ten or twenty years from now, someone will look at these data and understand what really happened today.

Fang Dawei slowly loosened his grip on the label book.

He was illiterate and couldn't understand the fluctuating numbers and distorted waveforms, but he could understand the stonemason's expression—it wasn't fear, but an expression he had seen many times before, the kind that appeared every time a new mineral vein was discovered.

He wondered to himself, "Could there really be some treasure underground?" This thought inexplicably excited him.

As for Liu Demao, the driver who was leaning against the tent frame, he put down his right hand that was touching the scar, lit a cigarette in his mouth, and then sat down on the ground leaning against the frame to continue to doze off.

Outside the tent, Wu Dayong stood there stunned for a while, then suddenly slapped the back of his head.

The crisp sound startled Song Shuwen, who was standing nearby.

"Get to work, get to work!" Wu Dayong's voice rose again, as if to drive away the eerie silence from before. "Forget about the pulse, get the equipment set up first!"

He thought to himself, "It's embarrassing for a grown man to be startled by a gust of wind."

Song Shuwen adjusted his glasses and bent down again to record the numbers on the instrument panel. His pen scratched on the paper, and his handwriting remained as neat as printed text.

But when he wrote a certain number, his pen paused—that number had jumped to a different order of magnitude.

But Song Shuwen said nothing, he simply wrote down the number neatly, thinking, "No matter who you are, you do what you want, I'll keep track of what I'm doing."