It started when a bloody rain was about to fall.

At the same time, Ma Xiaochuan kicked a small stone on the ground and said to Ge Hongjun beside him, "Let's go, move the boxes."

Ge Hongjun responded and bent down to lift the other end of the equipment box.

The two of them worked together to lift the box and walked towards the storage area.

After walking a few steps, Ge Hongjun suddenly lowered his voice and said, "Tell me, if the earth could really talk, what would be its first words?"

Ma Xiaochuan thought for a long time, then shook his head: "I don't know. But I feel it definitely wasn't anything good."

The two exchanged a glance and fell silent, but quickened their pace.

As Ding Hai carried the soil drill back to the tent, he bumped into Luo Xiaoman, who was coming out of the tent.

The two young men looked at each other and saw the same thing in each other's eyes—not fear, but an indescribable emotion mixed with tension and excitement.

Ding Hai handed one of the soil-boring drills to Luo Xiaoman and whispered, "Take it."

Luo Xiaoman took it, weighed it in her hand, and replied, "Do you think we might dig something up?"

Ding Hai did not answer.

He recalled what Shi Linglong had just said—"If the earth tries to give an early warning"—and a strange thought suddenly welled up in his mind: "If something is really coming, it's always better to know in advance than to know nothing at all."

Then Ding Hai slammed the soil-digging drill into the ground, the drill bit striking the gravel with a crisp sound.

"Let's go," he said.

The two walked out of the camp. The voices of Shi Linglong and Qin Lan could no longer be heard from the tent behind them. Only the mountain wind continued to pour down from the top of Mount Tai, making the pine forest rustle.

Just then—

On Shi Linglong's left wrist.

The bracelet made of seven unpolished, rough, and rustic gray-brown stone beads—

It suddenly became burning hot, clearly and continuously, without any warning!

That popularity is not an illusion.

It is firm and stable, fitting snugly against the softest skin on the inside of Shi Linglong's wrist.

It even subtly resonated with the pulse in her wrist, creating a mysterious and synchronized slight resonance.

Tap...tap...tap...

Like the heart of a giant, slumbering for eternity, at the bottom of the abyss—

For the first time, a faint yet undeniable connection was established with this human heart.

Inside the tent, Qin Lan was closest to Shi Linglong. At that moment, she was recording on the tablet computer that Shi Linglong had just handed her, recording matters related to contacting the National Earthquake Administration's data center that Shi Linglong had arranged earlier.

However, when she casually looked up, her heart clenched suddenly, and she stopped what she was doing and hugged the tablet to her chest.

Qin Lan noticed that Shi Linglong's figure suddenly stopped, and then she saw her raise her left wrist. She saw something Qin Lan had never seen before in her eyes, which were always as calm as a deep pool—astonishment, doubt, and even unknown confusion.

"Sister Linglong?"

Then Qin Lan's voice trembled, and her whole body tensed up, because Qin Lan saw that the stone bead bracelet on Shi Linglong's left wrist was glowing, flashing, with an earthy yellow glow, gray and dark.

The people working inside and outside the tent seemed to sense something at almost the same moment.

They couldn't see it—Shi Linglong had her back to most people, so they couldn't see the unusual glow of the stone bead bracelet on her left wrist.

It wasn't that I heard anything—the burning sensation of the stone bead bracelet made no sound whatsoever.

Rather, it's something deeper.

It felt like the air had suddenly become heavier.

It felt like the ground beneath my feet had suddenly become unstable.

It was as if an invisible ripple had spread silently from the center of Shi Linglong.

The notebook in Zhao Changhe's hand fell to the ground.

He didn't pick it up; he just stood there, frozen in place, his eyes fixed on Shi Linglong's back.

He thought to himself, "What's wrong? What happened? Why is my heart beating so fast?"

Zhou Guoliang suddenly stood up, causing his chair to tip backward and crash to the ground with a loud thud.

But no one in the tent turned to look at him.

This was because everyone's attention was drawn to Shi Linglong's figure.

The veteran geologist, who had seen countless storms, had a slight tremor in his lips.

He suddenly remembered something his grandfather had said: "Mountains have hearts. If a person touches the heart of a mountain, the mountain will move."

Liu Demao, the driver who was sitting on the ground by the tent frame, pretending to doze off, was jolted awake, not by being startled, but by being burned, because the cigarette butt in his mouth fell and hit his right hand.

Then he stared blankly at Shi Linglong not far away, his eyes fixed on the stone bead bracelet on her left wrist, muttering to himself, "Am I possessed? Ordinary stone beads can glow?!"

He Shusheng's pen slipped from between his fingers.

He tried to bend down to pick it up, but his body felt like it was nailed to the chair, unable to move.

His mind went blank, with only one thought remaining: "What is she looking at?"

Zheng Mingyi's Adam's apple bobbed violently, and his eyes behind his glasses widened.

He was seven or eight steps away from Shi Linglong, yet he clearly sensed—no, not sensed—he knew.

He knew something was happening, happening to Shi Linglong, happening in this tent, and happening on the ground beneath their feet.

Luo Xiaoman had just reached the tent entrance, with one foot inside and the other outside.

He turned around and saw Shi Linglong's raised left wrist, and the gray-brown stone bead bracelet that he had seen countless times but never thought was anything special—at this moment, under his gaze, the seven stone beads were emitting a certain light.

It wasn't a bright light, but a dim, yellowish-brown glow emanating from within the stone, like magma from the earth's core.

Luo Xiaoman's breath caught in his throat. He thought to himself, "So the thing she's been wearing all this time isn't an ordinary stone."

Sun Mingyuan's laptop screen flickered once, then flickered again.

He looked down and saw that the waveform on the screen was fluctuating violently, far exceeding any of the previous records.

His hand hovered above the keyboard, his fingertips trembling. He thought, "This isn't geomagnetic fluctuation. This is... a heartbeat."

At the same time, Fang Dawei's hands began to clench again.

This time, he crumpled the label book in his hand, the pages warped in his rough palm.

He is illiterate, cannot read waveforms, and cannot understand data, but he can understand people.

He saw Shi Linglong's raised left wrist—it wasn't the posture of a geologist observing a sample, but the posture of a person listening to some kind of call, especially since the stone bead was still shimmering with an earthy yellow light.

Outside the tent, Wu Dayong's hand slipped from the knob of the seismograph.

He turned around and peered through the gaps in the tent's canvas, only to see Shi Linglong's back and her left wrist raised in mid-air.

His booming voice had completely died down, and only one thought kept repeating in his mind: "That bracelet is glowing...that bracelet is alive!"

Song Shuwen stopped writing.

This time it wasn't because the numbers jumped by an order of magnitude, but because all the numbers were jumping.

Every reading on the dial fluctuated violently, as if countless boulders had been suddenly thrown into a still pool.

He put down his pen, slowly stood up, and looked through the gap in the tent flap at Shi Linglong, where he also saw the shimmering yellow stone bead bracelet on her left wrist.

He thought to himself, "It's not the earth speaking. It's the earth calling to her."

Ma Xiaochuan and Ge Hongjun, carrying the equipment box, had already walked more than ten steps.

The two of them stopped at the same time.

The equipment box was suspended in mid-air, and all four arms were trembling slightly.

Ma Xiaochuan's voice was as dry as sandpaper: "Did you feel it?"

Ge Hongjun did not answer.

His gaze passed over the equipment box, over the tents and instruments in the camp, over his teammates who stood there in a daze, and finally landed on that tent.

He thought to himself, "The mountain has awakened."

Ding Hai and Luo Xiaoman stood at the edge of the camp, and both of them turned around at the same time.

The soil drill slipped from Ding Hai's hand and fell to the ground, the drill bit hitting the gravel and sending up a few sparks.

But no one noticed those few sparks.

At this moment, everyone's gaze, everyone's mind, everyone's breath—

All eyes were drawn to the figure inside the tent who had raised his left wrist.

Five women, including Wang Xiuying (who had previously compared Shi Linglong to a wild orchid blooming alone in her hometown because of her beauty), had not stayed at the main camp during this time because another exploration point in the camp needed help temporarily, and were unaware of what was happening here.

When the five of them returned after finishing their work, they happened to see the stone bead bracelet on Shi Linglong's left wrist emitting a faint yellowish-brown light.

The five women paused, stunned, their eyes fixed on the bracelet of earthen-yellow stone beads that shimmered with light. Their expressions shifted from surprise to terror, but none of them uttered a sound, simply standing quietly at the tent entrance watching.

Wang Xiuying felt that the atmosphere at the camp was different from the atmosphere when she was sifting through rock debris before she left, so she did not speak rashly.

But staring at the stone bead bracelet on Shi Linglong's left wrist, which was emitting a faint, earthy yellow light, she felt a strange, indescribable eeriness.

At this moment, Shi Linglong stared at the bracelet on her left wrist that was emitting an earthy yellow light.

Deep within her clear eyes lay a rational lake, as still as a celestial pool.

For the first time, a huge meteorite called "Unknown" was thrown into the air.

What was stirred was not a ripple.

Instead, it was a dark vortex, heavy as a bottomless abyss, capable of swallowing up light.

On his deathbed, his grandfather's trembling hands handed him the "Mountain Soul" bracelet, his aged, broken voice conveying his entrustment regarding the "Heart Stone of Mount Tai" within the bracelet, and its meaning of "protection and connection"...

The intense, burning sensation resonated in Shi Linglong's mind. At the time, she was only twelve years old and thought it was just the ramblings of an old man on his deathbed, so she didn't take it seriously.

Fourteen years have passed.

This "Mountain Soul" bracelet is as still and lifeless as a real mountain rock. It accompanied her as she studied and grew up, walked through countless wildernesses, and explored countless rock strata, without ever showing the slightest abnormality.

Why now?

The scorching heat, like molten lava, continued to emanate from the stone bead, seeping through the softest skin on her wrist, seeping into her blood, into her heartbeat, and into her entire being as "Shi Linglong".

Meanwhile, inside and outside the tent, more than thirty people stood still or sat stiffly on the ground.

No one speaks.

No one moved.

Only the mountain wind continued to blow, the pine trees continued to rustle, and the numbers on the dial continued to jump.

as well as--

That "Mountain Soul" bracelet, worn on Shi Linglong's fair wrist, flowed continuously, steadily and powerfully, like an ancient heart—

It pulsates and glows.

The shadow of Mount Tai seemed to press heavily on Shi Linglong's shoulders through the gaps in the tent's canvas.

It also weighed heavily on this afternoon, when the sunlight was still bright, yet it seemed to have already begun to change its tone.