223: Chapter 223 Hollow

Chu Ge, Engineer Yu, and a few others stood not far from the drilling center, all waiting for something.

The largest drilling rig drilled intermittently, quickly reaching a depth of over 400 meters; deeper than that, it would require the assistance of smaller drilling equipment.

Thus, the two self-propelled crawler drilling rigs swapped positions, and drilling operations continued.

Every 100 meters, Engineer Yu and his assistants would use probing equipment to analyze the rock layer structure layer by layer.

What puzzled them was that the rock structure remained as fragmented as ever, only its color was slightly different compared to the layers above.

Engineer Yu and his team retrieved some rock samples and began to observe them closely.

"Academician Chu, look, the state of these rocks seems to have changed."

Engineer Yu said, pointing to the rock chunks that had just been retrieved; they were marked with streaks of yellowish-brown.

Chu Ge picked one up to examine it closely. In his focus, he even forgot about his face mask and tried to bring it under his nose to sniff it.

"It seems to have been subjected to extremely high temperatures and pressure."

"Yes!" Engineer Yu agreed.

"Could it be magma? I recall that the moon only had this stuff briefly during its early formation process, and it should have cooled down long ago."

"Formed back then? That seems a bit of a stretch."

Chu Ge began to mutter to himself. Engineer Yu couldn't give him an accurate answer either; everyone was completely baffled right now.

"Let's continue; the answer might be revealed soon."

Chu Ge ordered decisively. They had already come this far; they had no choice but to bite the bullet and continue.

The two drilling rigs worked together, and the depth quickly reached 1100 meters, at which point an unexpected situation occurred.

First, the drilling rig's sensors sounded an alarm, and red warning lights flashed; it seemed they had encountered a special situation, so Chu Ge and the others rushed over to the drilling rig.

"Captain Wang, what happened? Is there a problem with the drill bit?"

"It doesn't seem like it. According to the computer data analysis, the drill head seems to be spinning in a void, and the pressure data is gone, dropping to zero."

After Captain Wang and his team repeatedly checked the fault data, he replied, somewhat speechless.

"What kind of fault is that?" Chu Ge didn't understand.

"We've encountered this fault code before: a void. It means the drill head has drilled into a hollow space; the area underneath is empty."

"..."

This was something Chu Ge hadn't expected, and for a moment, he didn't know how to respond.

After a while, Chu Ge finally came back to his senses. Captain Wang, Engineer Yu, and the others were all looking at him, waiting for his next instruction.

"First, bring the drill bit up, then... then lower the probing equipment, and add a few more sets of floodlights."

Chu Ge hesitated for a moment before giving the direct order.

"Yes."

Upon receiving Chu Ge's instructions, everyone immediately took action. After the drill bit was withdrawn section by section, Engineer Yu began to set up the probing equipment.

This probing equipment was custom-made, with six sets of probes distributed in six directions: front, back, left, right, top, and bottom of the platform.

The probes in each direction could also rotate freely on their plane.

The terminal display screen at the other end could display all 6 camera feeds simultaneously, or show one of them individually.

Following Chu Ge's instructions, Engineer Yu added several more sets of floodlights around the cameras. With everything ready, the probing camera was lowered.

Chu Ge walked over to the display screen, and Engineer Yu and the others left the most direct viewing position for him.

The group gathered in a circle, staring blankly at the images on the display screen.

The images coming from the front were all of rock strata, just as Engineer Yu and his team had recorded: messy and chaotic, with no section connected to another.

Layer after layer, apart from slight changes in color, there was no discernible pattern from top to bottom.

After a long time, the camera finally reached the hollow area, and everyone stared nervously at the screen.

It was now displaying the feeds from all six sets of probes simultaneously.

As the relatively clear images from the camera came through, Chu Ge and the others discovered that it was indeed completely empty.

The floodlights' beams were like stones dropped into the ocean.

The light beams disappeared into the distance; wherever the light reached, there was nothing but the hollow. Even after rotating a full circle, they didn't find any boundaries like walls.

"It seems the space down here is quite large," Chu Ge said softly.

"But there's nothing here; it's somewhat similar to a karst cave on Earth," Engineer Yu added from the side.

"Continue descending; let's see how deep this hollow section is."

"Alright."

After Engineer Yu replied, he continued to operate the probing equipment, and the probes continued to descend.

The display showed almost no change over a long distance; the light beams were still swallowed by the darkness, and still, no boundaries were visible.

Finally, the probing platform reached the bottom. The downward-facing camera captured images of rock, and it was only the downward-facing camera that did so.

The other directions still showed no changes.

"It finally reached the bottom. I thought it would just keep being empty, which would have been boring," Chu Ge said, heaving a sigh of relief.

"Fortunately, our probing platform's data cable is long enough."

"Engineer Yu, what is the height of this hollow section?"

"Nearly 1000 meters."

Engineer Yu glanced at the height data displayed on the probing platform: 2099 meters. Subtracting the 1100 meters of rock layers above, this hollow section was nearly 1000 meters deep.

"A hollow nearly 1000 meters deep must have boundaries. Perhaps our exploration location is wrong; otherwise, it's inexplicable."

Chu Ge said, puzzled.

"Hmm, rock structures are strange and varied. Looking at it this way, this hollow is no big deal; perhaps it existed since the very beginning of the moon's formation."

"The shockwaves from giant meteorites later on could also form such hollows..."

Everyone chimed in with their opinions, completely failing to notice the unusual behavior of Captain Wang, who was standing silently to the side.

Captain Wang's gaze was fixed, staring intently at one of the six screens. As his pupils dilated, his breathing became rapid.

Soon, Chu Ge sensed his unusual behavior.

"Captain Wang, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?"

Engineer Yu and the others turned to look at Captain Wang after hearing this. Captain Wang didn't speak but instead raised his hand and pointed to a corner of the display screen.

"Y-you guys look, is there, is there something different in the distance of this feed?"

"Hm?" Chu Ge looked closely, and then he too fell into silence.

In one of the feeds on the top right corner of the display screen, a cluster of blue light points was flickering in and out, eerily "watching" their camera.

Chu Ge shivered, blinked hard, and looked again. This time, he paid attention to other information on the display screen.

The problematic feed was coming from the camera facing the front of the platform.

"This... this isn't just a simple flickering. It's more like some kind of mechanical strobe, a frequency signal."

After observing carefully for a moment, Chu Ge said in a trembling voice.

"As long as it's not some biological signal, that's fine," Captain Wang replied inexplicably.

"Engineer Yu, can this camera zoom?"

"Yes." Engineer Yu said, then began to adjust the camera.

The 6 feeds on the display screen locked onto that one image. The lens zoomed in, and the flickering light source only became slightly larger.

Zooming in further, it just became a blurry halo.

"The distance is a bit far; I can't make anything out." Engineer Yu gave up and adjusted the image to the clearest focus.

The group continued to watch the screen, and for a while, no one spoke.

This image was truly eerie. Discovering a light source with a flickering pattern 2100 meters deep inside the moon—if they hadn't seen it with their own eyes, no one would believe them if they told anyone.

Chu Ge frowned, thinking of several possibilities. No matter how he looked at it, this thing didn't look like something made by humans. Moon Sister had truly played a huge joke on him this time...