114: An unexpected encounter with a "canyon" during migration

The day of relocation finally arrived as scheduled, amidst careful preparation and faint anticipation. The sky was kind that day, clear and blue, and the sunlight draped a layer of warmth over the silent base entrance. Several specially modified vehicles gathered quietly; they appeared to be ordinary luxury RVs and rugged off-road vehicles on the outside, but inside, they integrated the most advanced communication, life support, and defense systems. The vehicle armor was capable of withstanding small arms fire, and the windows were made of bulletproof multi-layer composite materials. This convoy would carry Excellence, Su Mu, Evelyn, and an elite advance team composed of security, medical, and technical experts, embarking on the long journey to the new "Homeland".

The farewell was brief and restrained. Wang Jianguo personally came to the garage to see them off. He patted Excellence on the shoulder firmly, his gaze sweeping over Su Mu and Evelyn, and said in a deep voice, "Have a safe journey. Once you arrive at the new home, be careful with everything. Stay in touch." The words were concise but carried immense weight. Excellence nodded as if he understood, his eyes filled more with curiosity and excitement for the unknown journey.

The convoy slowly drove out of the base's heavy gates, leaving the steel Fortress hidden deep within the mountain behind, and merged onto the winding mountain road. Excellence clung to the car window that had been specially reinforced for him, his face almost pressed against the glass, greedily watching the scenery flashing by outside. For him, having lived in a closed underground base for a long time, such a vast and real external world was in itself a huge spectacle.

At the beginning of the journey, they passed through relatively flat plains and rolling hills. The vast fields, the scattered villages, the straight highways—everything made Excellence feel curious. His questions were fired like a machine gun at Su Mu and Evelyn beside him:

"Squad Leader, Squad Leader! Why are the crops in that field in grids, like chocolate?"

"Big Sister Evelyn, look, what is that big pillar emitting white smoke over there? Is it the legendary industrial punk?"

"Wow! That flock of birds is flying so neatly! Do they also have a squad leader shouting commands?"

"Why is that mountain half green and half bald? Is there a 'Happiness Catcher' on the green side?"

Su Mu and Evelyn looked at each other and smiled, taking turns to answer patiently, the atmosphere relaxed and pleasant. Su Mu would use metaphors and stories to explain, while Evelyn focused more on scientific principles, but both carefully avoided involving any complex concepts that might trigger his overthinking. Looking at Excellence's pure, inquisitive eyes, the fatigue of the journey seemed to lighten significantly.

To pass the long driving time, Su Mu suggested playing idiom solitaire and brain teasers. However, the game quickly derailed under Excellence's "excellent" thinking pattern.

Su Mu started: "One heart, one mind!"

Excellence hesitated for a long while, then his eyes lit up: "Mind... Spaghetti! It's delicious!"

Su Mu was torn between laughing and crying: "Okay... 'Mian'... Flushed with shame!"

Excellence thought hard: "Chi... Equatorial gravitational acceleration deviation value! This is very precise!"

The whole car fell into silence, and then burst into irrepressible laughter. It was clear that the game could not continue normally. Evelyn tried a brain teaser: "What gets dirtier the more you wash it?" After serious thought, Excellence replied: "Data! Because the cleaning process might introduce noise!" The answer once again made everyone collapse. His thinking always went directly to underlying logic or scientific concepts; ordinary humor seemed to be insulated from him, but this unique "punchline" instead became a special pleasure during the journey.

As the convoy continued deep into the southwest hinterland, the scenery outside the window gradually became treacherous. The gentle hills were replaced by towering mountains, and the road, like a thin ribbon, wound around the steep mountainside. The sky had unknowingly piled up lead-gray clouds, the sunlight was completely swallowed, and the air became stifling and humid.

Finally, the convoy drove into an extremely dangerous canyon area. This was the "Flying Eagle Ravine" marked on the map. On both sides were nearly vertical, hundreds-of-meters-high dark cyan cliffs, with rugged rocks, as if split by a giant axe. At the bottom of the valley, a turbulent river named "Blue Dragon Ravine" roared, the turbid yellow water crashing against the reefs, emitting a thunderous sound. The road was carved hard into the cliff face, exceptionally narrow, barely allowing two vehicles to pass each other.

Just then, the weather suddenly deteriorated! Bean-sized raindrops fell without warning, instantly turning into a torrential downpour. Visibility plummeted to less than fifty meters, and strong winds, carrying rain, whipped crazily against the car bodies. Muddy torrents quickly gathered on the mountain road, and the road surface became exceptionally slippery and muddy. The convoy had to turn on fog lights and hazard lights, reducing their speed to the minimum, crawling like snails on the dangerous road with extremely low visibility.

A tense atmosphere began to permeate the convoy. Noisy road condition reports from the lead vehicle came over the walkie-talkie from time to time. Everyone held their breath and focused, praying to pass through this most dangerous part of the journey safely.

However, what they feared most happened. When they reached the deepest part of the canyon, a U-shaped bend known as "Ghost's Dread," a hurried and nervous voice from the lead vehicle driver came over the walkie-talkie: "Report! There is a landslide about 200 meters ahead! Falling rocks and a large amount of mud are blocking the road! The engineering vehicle is trying to clear it, but the landslide volume is not small; it is expected to take at least two hours!"

When the news came, everyone's heart sank. The convoy was forced to stop completely in the torrential rain and on the edge of the cliff. Outside the window were the roaring river, howling wind, and pouring rain; inside the car was oppressive waiting and uncertainty. The security captain ordered all vehicles to keep their engines running and personnel to remain vigilant to deal with potential secondary landslides or other accidents.

Time passed second by second, and the rain showed no signs of weakening. Excellence was initially watching the rain outside curiously, but gradually, he seemed to become uneasy. He no longer paid attention to the rain, but tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something, his brows gradually furrowing.

Suddenly, he sat up straight abruptly, turned his head, and stared fixedly at the steep cliff on the left outside the car window, which was blurred by the torrential rain, his pupils slightly contracting.

"What's wrong, Excellence?" Su Mu, who had been paying attention to his state, immediately asked with concern, reaching out to hold his slightly cold hand.

"There... there is a sound..." Excellence raised his finger, pointing precisely at an area on the cliff that looked no different from others, covered with dense vines and rain, "No... it's not entirely a sound... it is... it is a vibration... a very regular... low-frequency wave source..." His tone carried a rare mixture of certainty and confusion.

Su Mu and Evelyn immediately looked in the direction he pointed, but except for the misty rain curtain, slippery rocks, and swaying vines, they could see nothing. They pricked up their ears to listen carefully, but all that reached their ears were the sounds of wind and rain, the roaring river, and the faint rumble of the engineering vehicle; they simply could not distinguish any abnormal "wave source".

The accompanying security personnel also immediately heightened their vigilance, and the captain signaled the technicians to use on-board acoustic sensors and vibration monitors to scan that direction. However, the data displayed on the instrument screens was all normal; there were only environmental noise and the chaotic vibration spectrum generated by the rain hitting the cliff, and no regular, non-natural signal source was identified.

"Excellence, did you hear wrong? Maybe it's the aftereffects of the thunder, or the sound of the river hitting a cave?" Evelyn tried to explain in a rational way, worried that the harsh weather and enclosed environment had caused Excellence to have an illusion.

But Excellence shook his head firmly, his eyes exceptionally focused, even carrying a trace of urgency: "It's different! This wave source... is very stable, very regular... it's like... it's like the rhythm of some machine running... or... or a kind of code? There is... information in it!" He struggled to find words to describe that mysterious Perception, "It's a bit like... a bit like a navigation signal coming from very far away... and a bit like... a huge heartbeat slowed down many times?"

He insisted on his feeling and even proposed to get out of the car to get closer to "hear" it clearly. This request made the security captain very troubled. Outside, the rain was pouring, the mountain road was slippery, and there was an abyss nearby; the risk was extremely high. But seeing Excellence's unusually serious and persistent expression, and thinking of his various incredible performances in the past, the captain dared not ignore it completely.

After consulting Wang Jianguo at the rear command center, the captain made a compromise decision: allowing Excellence, while wearing a full set of rain gear and a safety rope, and being closely guarded by two elite security personnel, to stay and observe for a short time in a designated safe area next to the vehicle, for no more than five minutes.

The car door opened, and the strong wind, carrying icy rain, poured in instantly. Excellence put on a yellow raincoat, the safety rope firmly tied around his waist, and under the guard of two tall security personnel, one on the left and one on the right, he walked to a relatively flat small area on the side of the road. Su Mu and Evelyn also held umbrellas, following closely behind, their faces full of worry.

Excellence completely ignored the icy raindrops hitting his face and the deafening environmental noise. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath of the damp and cold air, and concentrated all his spirit, as if trying to merge himself with the violent natural environment around him, to capture that faint "signal" that ordinary people could not perceive.

Su Mu watched him nervously, afraid that he would faint again like he did when interfering with the magnet last time. Evelyn stared intently at Excellence's expression and the detector screen in the security personnel's hand.

Time passed second by second, and the detector remained silent. Just as the security personnel were about to persuade him to return to the vehicle, Excellence suddenly opened his eyes! Rainwater flowed down from his hair tips, but his eyes were surprisingly bright, without any fatigue or confusion, only a clarity of having grasped some secret.

He raised his hand and pointed without hesitation to the area on the cliff he had noticed earlier, saying clearly and affirmatively: "There! The wave source is right behind that! It's empty behind the vines and rocks! There is... a very large space! I felt it... the echo is different!"

His tone was so certain that everyone present felt a shiver in their hearts. The security captain did not hesitate anymore and immediately ordered: "Use portable geological radar and through-wall life detectors to focus on scanning the area he pointed to!"

Technicians braved the heavy rain and quickly set up the equipment. When the radar beam hit the cliff, the image on the screen, which should have shown solid rock layers, unexpectedly showed an obvious cavity reflection zone! The data showed that about five meters behind the cliff, there was a huge cavity with very obvious traces of man-made excavation! Preliminary estimates suggested its area might exceed a basketball court! Even more alarming was that the life detector (enhanced version) also captured an extremely weak, but definitely existing, non-natural low-frequency energy reaction signal from inside the cave, similar to some electronic equipment in a standby or low-power operating state!

This discovery made everyone who knew about it instantly nervous to the extreme! Cold sweat, mixed with rainwater, slid down the security personnel's foreheads. In the depths of this desolate and dangerous canyon, a secret facility unknown to anyone, hidden in the mountain? Who did it belong to? Was it friend or foe? Was it long abandoned, or still operating? Was its existence, along with the "Homeland" project's location here, a coincidence or...

The news was immediately encrypted and sent back to the command center far away at the base. When Wang Jianguo heard the report, especially that Excellence's unbelievable and accurate "intuition" was once again confirmed by instruments, his expression became incomparably grave.

He stared at the coordinates of the canyon on the electronic map, weighing the options rapidly in his mind. Forcefully clear the road and pass? The risk was too high; what if there were hostile forces or automatic defense systems inside the cave? The convoy would become a sitting duck. Detour? The map showed this was the only passage, and the weather was bad, so the detour time could not be estimated.

After a moment of contemplation, Wang Jianguo decisively issued an order: "Suspend clearing operations! All vehicles must remain vigilant, and personnel must not leave the vehicles unless necessary! Immediately release miniature silent drones and tracked reconnaissance robots to try to find an entrance or crack and enter the cavity for preliminary reconnaissance! Before the situation is clarified, do not approach that cliff under any circumstances! Repeat, safety first!"

As the order was issued, several black drones the size of bees flew silently out of a modified off-road vehicle, flexibly avoiding raindrops, and began to search along the cliff for possible gaps or vents. At the same time, a book-sized tracked robot, camouflaged in the color of a rock, was also lowered and began to carefully search at the base of the cliff.

The convoy was still trapped in the rain-drenched canyon, but everyone's attention had shifted from the landslide to that mysterious cavity in the cliff. An unplanned "canyon encounter," because of Excellence's eerie ability of Perception, had brought this migration journey into an episode full of unknowns and suspense. The "Homeland" ahead had not yet been reached, but the puzzle along the way had already quietly emerged.