Endless route

Chapter 119 26. Weird Stories and Ancient Oriental Ships [2-in-1]

Zheng Yun glanced at it.

The rescue forms are densely packed.

"We receive tens of millions of tourists every year, and the accident rate is almost one in ten thousand. Isn't that high? This kind of place is inherently dangerous, and there are still many half-hearted people who want to go into the mountains to have fun." Liu Ming interjected and asked. .

"It depends on how you analyze it. If we treat this place as a snow-capped mountain with an extremely high altitude, then the accident rate is relatively small. Even one out of ten accidents is not impossible."

"But this place is a mature tourist area, and there are only a few people who can disclose the news of the accident. This number is just the number of people missing so far. The real accident rate should only be known by the local officials of the Christmas Islands, but they have never made it public, so That number shouldn’t be low.”

Hu Ruihua has a serious expression. He has always been serious about matters involving human life.

After a pause, he looked at Zheng Yun and asked: "There are many resident rescue teams in the Christmas Islands. They should know some information. Should we go and find out?"

"It's best to ask around."

Zheng Yun nodded, this is definitely a good idea, he can quickly grasp the strange things nearby.

"Then I won't be in a hurry to take over the task. I'll first have a general understanding of the environment and then look at the situation." Hu Ruihua nodded.

"Brother Hu, show me what missions there are around here." Huzi leaned his head over and read:

"On July 12, Kate, a 27-year-old white male, drove a snowmobile to the Bow Glacier, carrying emergency supplies for twelve days. She disappeared and did not return, along with four other people."

"Snowmobile location: North of the bow glacier..."

"7.11, Hood, 34 years old, white male, went to the unnamed glacier in a large snowmobile with six people, carrying supplies for ten days, suspected of falling into the rift valley."

"Radio positioning: Northwest of Ice Cap Lake..."

"On July 9, Corinna, a 26-year-old white female, disappeared together with the pilot while riding a glider. She was suspected of falling into the Doom Rift Valley. Three days of supplies."

"Signal positioning: South of Doom Rift Valley..."

"It's all in the glacial mountains of the north."

"Why do these positionings only have directions and fuzzy distances, but no longitude and latitude coordinates?" Liu Ming interjected and asked.

"W-08 has poor resources, and compared to other planets, it is more difficult to extract resources, and the investment cost is too high. There are only some scientific research base stations and meteorological satellites, and the approximate location can only be found through signal sources and triangulation."

Hu Ruihua explained.

"It's the same situation again. You don't even have to use the satellite phone this time, right?" Liu Ming recalled that it was the same last time.

"There are signals at a few famous scenic spots, but there is no signal at other places." Hu Ruihua replied.

Zheng Yun also roughly looked through it. These disappearances seemed to be accidents. There was nothing weird about them, especially gliding aircraft, which were inherently high-risk behaviors.

"The bounties for these missions are pretty high, aren't they from the insurance company?" Huzi sighed.

It can easily reach millions.

And the numbers are still similar.

"Indeed." Hu Ruihua nodded.

After everyone chatted for a few more words, Huzi took Zheng Yun into his room. It was on the second floor of the hotel. It was large and well decorated, with an independent bathroom and a window facing the north.

Typical snow style.

Warm-colored rooms with cool-colored scenery.

"Brother Zheng, rest first. When the meal is ready, I will come up and call you." Huzi closed the door and left.

"Um."

Zheng Yun just didn't want to go skating with them. In fact, he didn't feel tired, so he put down his backpack and took a look around.

There is a huge 'bearskin' rug in the center of the room, a 'deer head' shaped lamp on the bedside table, and many travel brochures on the shelf next to the TV.

Pick up a natural history magazine.

Zheng Yun lay on the bed and read through it.

Many questions have been answered.

The 'bear skin' on the ground is not actually a bear. Although it is also a carnivorous bear, it is a giant amphibious canine-like creature called Graham Bear. It hibernates for six months every year and has a lifespan of up to one hundred years. Eighty years.

The creatures here are all long-lived species.

If you look through it casually, it basically has the attributes of hibernation and longevity. Local canids can live up to eighty years.

W-08 is so far away from the earth that the terrestrial biota is too different, and there are many unseen creatures.

For example, there is an amphibious creature here called the Luodu Serpent, which lives at the bottom of the Crooked Ice Sea and can live for eight hundred years. The famous pirate Luodu was named after it.

There is also a kind of Kirk Snowman, which stands on two legs with slender forelimbs and has snow-white hair all over its body. It is a real primate with a lifespan of more than 160 years, which is longer than humans.

Other creatures are similar, especially marine creatures, such as snails, insects, and jellyfish, which can live for thousands of years.

The more he looked at Zheng Yun, the worse he felt.

He can understand that organisms in low-temperature environments generally have longer lifespans. This is scientific, because they grow slowly and metabolize slowly, so they will naturally live longer.

What worried him was what would the ancient Dongfang think when they came here and saw the long-lived creatures all over the world? Would they think there was a 'secret method of longevity' here?

If Triton came here in the Ming Dynasty more than a hundred years ago, stabbed a bear and recorded it, and then found that the bear was still alive a hundred years later, how would Triton react?

"It seems that this time it may be related to longevity again."

Zheng Yun sighed and closed the natural history magazine, then picked up a tourist attraction introduction and flipped through it.

There are many glacier attractions here.

The glacial mountains in the north are more than a thousand kilometers long. In the west, they were called Mycolenas Holy Mountain in the pirate era. In the east, they seemed to be called the Cold Mountains, which completely isolated the north and the south.

In these glaciers, not only pirate ships are sealed, but also several luxury cruise ships from the last century. They are probably from the ice melt period and were accidentally frozen on the waterway.

The people on the ship abandoned the ship and left. The ship was completely frozen during the no-sail period, sank to the bottom of the sea during the ice melt period, and then slowly accumulated on the glacier.

The scene in the album is magical.

Whether it's a glacier or a glacial lake, if you pour water on the ice, you can see the complete ships of various eras sealed in the blue ice. It can be called a great navigation ship museum.

But there are very few Ming Dynasty shipwrecks here.

Logically speaking, during the Great Navigation Period, there were no fewer ships from the East than from the West, and 100% of them came to W-08. However, there are not many Ming Dynasty shipwrecks near the Christmas Islands.

Not long after.

Hu Ruihua knocked on the door and said that he had found the contact information of a local rescue team and could communicate by phone.

Zheng Yun went to the living room on the second floor. Hu Ruihua dialed the other party's phone number. After a while, the call was connected.

After a simple greeting.

Hu Ruihua claimed that he was a tourist and asked about some things that need to be paid attention to when going to the glacier from the perspective of a professional rescue team, especially the selection of vehicles and supplies.

He then went on to inquire about the signs of disaster, such as the blowing of sleet indicating that strong winds might be coming.

There is also the situation of snowy mountains in glaciers. There may be ice chasm valleys thousands of meters deep under the snow cover. If you fall in, there is no way to survive. After the rescue team finds the chasm with a signal search device, they will turn around and leave. It is assumed that tourists are killed. .

In addition, there are cracks in the ice. Once an earthquake occurs, you must be careful about the cracks. It is best to find islands and land as soon as possible, otherwise you will fall into the ice sea.

There is a charge for this call.

Hu Ruihua spoke very quickly and understood the difficulties and experiences of local rescue and travel from a practical perspective.

Then Zheng Yun asked.

He asked a question, had the rescue team encountered anything difficult to understand in all these years.

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone.

He paused for a moment before speaking: "Are you a traveler or a writer? This kind of question is rarely asked."

"writer."

Zheng Yun replied briefly.

"We have encountered one in the past two years, on an unnamed iceberg. At that time, we knew that the victim was dead before we entered, and we went to recover the snowmobile."

"The melting period was about to begin, and we planned to recycle the snowmobile and leave. But when we found the snowmobile, we saw that the snowmobile had been opened, and some strange symbols had been painted on the body and interior of the car. Painted with blood.”

"We were startled at the time and suspected that the person who drew the symbols was still nearby, so we quickly found a bunker and looked around. After searching for a long time and finding nothing unusual, we followed the tourist footprints on the ground to try to find if there were any surviving tourists."

"The precursor to the melting ice period is snow. We followed the footprints for about five or six hundred meters and passed through an ice valley. Suddenly it started to snow. The clouds blocked the aurora and moonlight, and the surroundings suddenly became dark. We pulled the rope back to the rescue vehicle. "

"Turns out the snowmobile was gone."

"There were footprints near our rescue vehicle. At that time, we suspected that this person had been near our vehicle and found that it was going to snow, so he drove away with the snowmobile."

"We were also a little afraid of the heavy snow, so we drove the rescue vehicle to find a safe spot and waited for the snow to pass in a cave on the rock wall. The rescue vehicle was protected from the wind and we made a fire to keep warm."

"There were six of us, taking turns to keep vigil at the entrance of the cave. The snow fell for about a day and a half. When the snow stopped, the rescue vehicle was less than half buried by the snow."

"We took out our tools and planned to dig out the rescue vehicle at the entrance of the cave. But as soon as we went out, we saw footprints on the snow. They were probably left when the snow was halfway down."

"At the time, we couldn't understand how this person could walk in the heavy snow. We really felt a little scared. We didn't dare to follow the footprints to look for clues, so we drove away."

"As a result, not long after the car drove out, as soon as we returned to the place where we first found the snowmobile, we saw that the snowmobile came back again and was half buried in the snow."

"We got out of the car and approached with our guns. We swept the snow off the glass and found that there was still no one in the car. The door was ajar, as if no one had ever driven past."

"The story ends with us taking this snowmobile and leaving. Isn't this a weird enough story?"

The other party said a lot in one breath.

Moreover, his speaking speed was a bit slow and stumbling, as if he was reminiscing or deliberately delaying time.

"Are there any others?"

Zheng Yun frowned and asked again.

"Actually, there are all kinds of weird things in the Holy Mountain. We were in a cave and saw more than a dozen corpses. They were stripped clean and there was no living thing to eat them."

"At that time, we suspected that hibernating animals were storing food. But when we went to see it the next year, the dozens of corpses were still there, melting into the ice and returning to the embrace of the sacred mountain."

"On other occasions, when we were doing rescue operations, we encountered strange creatures that kept howling in the mountains. We guarded the rescue vehicle all night. When we went out the next day, we found a snowmobile stuck in the middle of the glacier... …”

The other person kept talking.

This consultation call is paid, costing more than 100 yuan per minute, and the other party is naturally willing to tell stories.

"Are you still asking?"

Hu Ruihua looked at Zheng Yun.

"Forget it, there's no need."

Zheng Yun waved his hand. The person opposite was very strange. The story was indeed incredible. It sounded real, but it also seemed to be made up, or some details were concealed.

And the speaking speed is too slow.

But there is always a feeling of unreliability.

Hu Ruihua nodded and hung up the phone. It didn't take long. It turned out that the call lasted seventy-seven minutes and cost more than seven thousand yuan.

"This is a good business. I make a lot of money every year." Hu Ruihua paid the money and sighed.

"Send me the bill later. They make money locally and spend it locally. Prices here should be quite high." Zheng Yun nodded.

"The prices of vegetables, fruits and meat are higher, but others are not very high. There are several hot lakes in the south, and there is no shortage of seafood. The shipping fee is not expensive now." Hu Ruihua put away his mobile phone.

Afterwards, the two briefly chatted about their plans.

For Hu Ruihua, snow mountain rescue is actually his specialty. He is not too afraid of this glacier mountain range. There are also mountains under the glacier, similar to snow mountains.

The only difference is the chasm.

This thing is more difficult to prevent.

But now is the ice period. If it doesn’t snow, there won’t be much problem. Combined with the detailed local map, if you just go in and walk around, you won’t encounter too many difficulties.

Many tourists don’t know anything and are basically amateurs. After just two days of training in the Christmas Islands, they dare to drive a snowmobile into the mountains for a self-driving trip. Naturally, they are not afraid.

Chatted for a while.

Sister Wang, Song Wan and others returned from shopping.

They brought a lot of vegetables and meat with them this time and bought local specialty seafood. They set up their own stove in the family hotel and planned to have a barbecue on the ice tonight.

Zheng Yun and Hu Ruihua went downstairs.

Everyone returned to the hotel to prepare.

A group of people were busy together and it was so lively that the heating system didn't even need to be turned on, and the family hotel was filled with heat.

Zheng Yun looked at Song Wan's best friend. She was dressed neatly and had a single ponytail. She had a gentle personality but was not acquainted with life. She also looked good. She might be a good match for Liu Ming.

Everyone was busy for a while.

Move tables onto the ice in front of the hotel, light a bonfire, and set out chairs, grills, and beer kegs.

Zheng Yun couldn't get involved in the whole process, so he sat on a recliner and watched the aurora above his head falling on the glaciers in the north.

Not long after.

Everyone sat around the campfire and started grilling skewers.

"Brother Zheng, we were shopping in the city just now and met a Chinese who opened a Sichuan restaurant here. After asking about it, he said that there is an Oriental shipwreck site deep in the northeast."

Song Wan led his best friend to sit on one side with Zheng Yun and Liu Ming. Then Song Wan suddenly moved a chair and sat next to Zheng Yun, creating an opportunity for Liu Ming and her best friend to be alone.

"Yes, we asked."

Sister Wang on the other side also nodded in agreement.

"The location of that site is very dangerous. There was a major accident 20 years ago, so now the Christmas Islands don't dare to promote it, for fear that tourists will go there on their own and something will happen."

Song Wan took out her mobile phone.

I flipped through it twice to find the photo.

The photo was taken from a yellowed travel brochure that looked to be quite a few years old. The picture in the brochure was the Oriental shipwreck site they mentioned.

An ancient oriental ship.

Frozen in the crevices of the glacier.

There is a sharp point on the bow of the ship that is exposed outside the glacier, and there are several holes, which seem to be able to be drilled in...