Prologue (2/2)

Shi Qi shook his head. “The strange thing is, according to the first batch of people who went there, that there are ancient life-form fossils in the rocks used to construct the courtyard’s walls.” Shi Qi paused, rubbed the goose bumps on his arm, then continued, “There are fossils of ancient organisms in the rock which spawned a watermelon-sized insect, as shown by the child who discovered the cave. However, it was not complete. It was only a portion of the remains. But even so, according to the researchers’ theories, if that organism were still living, it could indeed be as big as a watermelon. Moreover, its appearance would also be quite close to the child’s descriptions.”

“ . . . It sounds incredible; however, was the child the only one who saw it, and others didn’t see insects crawling out of their walls?” Shao Xuan was a bit drawn in.

Shi Qi shook his head. “I don’t know. Let’s go ask in a while when we get there. We’re almost there anyway.”

When the group of people arrived at their destination, it was already noon, 11 o’clock. Shao Xuan followed Shi Qi and the others and ate a simple lunch, then returned to the bus.

Shi Qi and the others were already impatient. After eating, they did not rest and planned to immediately start working.

Shi Qi had already told Shao Xuan the things he needed to pay heed to: which things couldn’t be touched, which places couldn’t be gone to, who to find when he needed someone, etc. Shao Xuan had a plan in his heart.

“I’ll talk to you after work today. Take a scroll by yourself for now! The scenery in this place is quite nice: green mountains, blue skies and waters . . . Clean out your lungs after staying in the smoggy city!”

After speaking Shi Qi took his tools and followed his instructor. Shao Xuan was not allowed in that place, but he did not have much interest going there regardless.

Only Shao Xuan was left in the bus. After closing the windows and doors of the buss, it was fairly quiet. In the past few days, Shao Xuan hadn’t gotten good sleep, and on the road, he was listening to Shi Qi’s narrations. Now that it was silent, he was sleepy.

When he woke up, it was nearly 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Shao Xuan planned to head out for a walk. Just as he planned to do that, he saw Shi Qi in work clothes walking over. He went in the buss and grabbed a document. Afterwards, he continued to hurry over and work.

However, before leaving the bus, Shi Qi took out a chicken egg–sized stone and threw it to Shao Xuan. “I picked it up from the cave, and as they weren’t paying attention, I grabbed it. It shouldn’t be anything important. I cannot give you ‘antiques’, but regardless, this stone was still found in the cave. It even looks quite smooth! Someone probably threw it over there, but I’ll give it to you as a remembrance.”

The stone was found near the cave entrance, and was some distance away from the core of the cave. The quality of the stone was also clearly different from the other objects dug out, and there lacked any marks on it. So, the people who came in the first batch focused on the murals and Stone Age’s “antiques”. No one cared about the piece of stone near the cave entrance, and for the sake of amusement, Shi Qi smoothly obtained it.

After catching the thrown stone, Shao Xuan looked at it carefully in his hand. The feeling of it was no different from other stones—dark-green, chicken egg–shaped, a rather sleek surface, as if it were polished carefully. There was nothing odd at a first glance, and even though it wasn’t any “antique”, it was decent as a small toy, or as an ornament.

Shao Xuan did not mind it. After playing around with it in his hands for a while, he felt that the stone could not be warmed up. After a dozen or so minutes in his hands, it was still quite cool. Thinking about it, Shao Xuan took out a lighter and used fire to burn the stone. Logically speaking, the places that the flames came in contact to should be slightly scorching. But the reality was after burning, it was still as cool as before.

Sweeping his gaze at his surroundings, Shao Xuan took a fruit knife from the table and laid a piece of paper. He planned to use the knife to scrape off a few bits and take it to the archaeology bus and ask someone to help him examine it. However, after scraping the stone with the knife, not even the faintest of traces were left behind. There was not even a scratch from jabbing it with the tip of the knife.

Cannot be heated by fire, cannot be marked by a knife . . . It was truly an odd stone.

Shao Xuan walked down the bus with the stone, planning to let Shi Qi look at it carefully later.

The bus stopped at a fairly close distance from the village. It was just that the road was not too suitable for walking.

Some of the villagers in the village had went to work, and those a bit more leisure went to the newly discovered cave for the liveliness. As such, when Shao Xuan entered the village, he only saw a few people walking around.

Around the village was a two-meter tall wall made from rock and dirt. It was said to be built several dozens of years ago for protection against wild beasts. The rocks came from the mountain; however, there weren’t many large beasts recently, so no one paid any more attention to the stone wall.

Glancing at it, he could see the wall’s large pieces of rocks. It had a long history, bringing about a feeling of desolation.

Shao Xuan played around with the stone in his hand, his eyes staring at it. Hearing about the discovery of ancient organism fossils in the walls’ rocks, Shao Xuan recalled the “watermelon-sized insect” Shi Qi spoke of.

He was just planning to shift his gaze away when suddenly, Shao Xuan saw a snake-like thing appear on the wall. It was even squirming around. As thick as a small water tank, and its scale-like patterns emitted a cold glint. It was several meters away, but Shao Xuan felt a chill go down his spine, and all his hair stand on end. It frightened him so much he almost leaped into the air. Yet, when Shao Xuan blinked and looked back, he discovered absolutely nothing. The rock wall was still the broken rock wall that took many years of beating from the weather.

Illusion?

Shao Xuan looked at the other places of the wall. Afterwards, his line of sight fell upon a hole in the wall. There was a large rock over there, left behind after the wall at that area collapsed. The small parts were taken by the villagers back home to build their own walls, the larger ones were left, untouched. And, at that moment, Shao Xuan saw a green-coloured sprout pop up from the rock. The sprout quickly bud leaves and grew tall. At the same time, several vines extended outward towards all directions. The initially three-meter tall hole was instantly veiled by the vines and leaves. A fragrance belonging to plants even permeated the air.

Shao Xuan took several steps back, breathing deeply. Focusing his eyes and looking back, he discovered the vines and branches had disappeared. The rock wall was same as usual, but the ground was full of the large smooth stones.

Feeling some strange movement in his hand, Shao Xuan looked down at the stone.

The stone that could not be heat up nor could be scratched became sand in a split moment. They slipped through the gaps between Shao Xuan’s fingers