19: Chapter 19: Drilling Wells While Drawing Symbols
Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo gazed at Jiang Ning's back, then turned his head to glance at the brightly lit camp in the distance, where machines were roaring incessantly. His heart was filled with anxiety.
"Chief Consultant, are we... just leaving like this?" he asked in a hushed voice, lacking any confidence.
Over there was the nation's top exploration team, equipped with the world's best equipment, with hundreds of experts working tirelessly.
Then look at their own side.
One Chief Consultant, one sidelined Commander-in-Chief, and a dozen young engineers who were also being left out in the cold. Their transportation consisted of two beat-up off-road vehicles, and their exploration equipment... relied entirely on the Chief Consultant's two legs.
The disparity was simply too great.
"What else? Stay there and watch them put on a show?" Jiang Ning didn't even turn her head, her words light and airy, as if she were out for a stroll.
She didn't get into the car, just walked on the sand. Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo, Dr. Li, and the group of young people had no choice but to follow behind, trudging through the sand with heavy hearts.
"But... Chief Consultant, where are we going? We need a direction, right?" Dr. Li couldn't hold it in anymore. He had followed Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo for years and was a technology enthusiast, but now that he was being treated as a mere decoration by Chief Engineer Wang Heshan and his old cronies, he was already seething with anger.
But anger alone was useless; in the current situation, he was completely in the dark.
Jiang Ning stopped and looked back at him: "Who said there's no direction?"
She pointed to the sandy ground beneath her feet, then to the sand dunes in the distance, and asked: "You look at this desert, what do you see?"
Dr. Li was stunned and blurted out: "Sand, it's all sand. And the wind, the wind is so strong."
"Incorrect." Jiang Ning shook her head.
She closed her eyes, and an indescribable sensation instantly spread out, penetrating the earth beneath her feet. In her perception, this desert was by no means dead.
Deep underground, besides sand and stone, there were two fierce forces rushing about. One came from the earth, ground down by the sand for thousands of years, called the "Earth Fiend." The other came from the wind, invisible and intangible, yet sharp as a knife, called the "Wind Fury."
These two forces would be fatal for ordinary people to encounter, but in her eyes, they were treasures far better than the smog and filth of Donghai City.
"Beneath this, there is a 'Dragon Vein'." Jiang Ning opened her eyes, using a term they could barely understand.
"A Dragon Vein? Do you mean... an underground river?" Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo perked up.
"Close enough, but not entirely." Jiang Ning said, "It's more like a river twisted together from energy, running underground. Water is just a byproduct. Chief Engineer Wang Heshan and his team using instruments to find water is putting the cart before the horse. We are going to drag this 'Dragon' out directly."
Having said this, she didn't elaborate further and continued walking forward.
Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo and Dr. Li looked at each other, their minds barely able to process this. Finding a "Dragon"? This sounded too superstitious. But when they remembered the Purification Tower that had risen from the ground in Donghai City, they dared not disbelieve her.
"Keep up! Everyone keep up!" Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo gritted his teeth and shouted to the young people behind him, "Do whatever the Chief Consultant tells you to do! Everyone, perk up!"
This small team thus detached from the main force and headed into the desert in a direction no one could understand.
Their movements, of course, could not be hidden from Chief Engineer Wang Heshan's side.
A technician operating a drone looked at the few small black dots of Jiang Ning and her group on the screen and laughed out loud.
"Boss, look, that group really left. Just walking blindly like that, planning to measure the desert with their feet?"
The man called "Boss" was Chief Engineer Sun Hai, the chief exploration engineer of Chief Engineer Wang Heshan's team. He glanced at the screen and snorted: "Ignore them, a bunch of inexperienced brats messing around with a little girl. It's good that they left, it saves them from being an eyesore at the camp."
"I just find it funny," the young technician said, "We have satellites and radar here, but they've gone back to basics. What do you call this? Metaphysical exploration?"
Several people around them laughed along.
Inside the tent, Chief Engineer Wang Heshan was facing a large geological map, discussing with a few core experts.
"The latest scan data shows that in this area, between 800 and 1500 meters underground, there is a large basin. Tens of millions of years ago, this was likely a large lake. The possibility of high-pressure water below is extremely high!" Chief Engineer Sun Hai pointed to a red circle on the map, speaking with absolute certainty.
"I agree with Old Sun's view." Another hydrology expert pushed up his glasses, "We've compared satellite data for over a decade, and the surface temperature in this area is 0.03 degrees lower than the surrounding area in summer. This indicates that water vapor is rising from underground. Although it's weak, it's definitely a good sign!"
"Good!" Chief Engineer Wang Heshan heard these data-backed analyses, and his brows relaxed significantly. This was what real work was—taking it one step at a time, with logic and evidence.
"It's settled!" He slapped the table, "The first well will be drilled right here! Bring over the best drilling rig and drill down as fast as you can! Within three days, I want to see water!"
"Yes!" In the command tent, there was a chorus of cheers.
Just then, a sentry rushed in, his expression a bit strange.
"Chief Engineer Wang, that... Consultant Jiang and her group have stopped."
"Stopped?" Chief Engineer Wang Heshan frowned, "Where did they stop?"
"Just to the west of our A3 exploration zone, on a flat area about thirty kilometers away."
Chief Engineer Sun Hai immediately brought up that location on the computer, zoomed in, and his brows knitted together.
"Nonsense! This is absolute nonsense!" He pointed at the screen, his voice rising, "That place is the hardest piece of granite we scanned! Forget water, underneath that is just a solid block of stone! What are they stopping there for? To make flowers bloom on stone?"
The experts in the tent crowded over to take a look and shook their heads.
"Too unprofessional, can't they even read the most basic geological map?"
"Maybe they're tired of walking and are taking a break," someone guessed.
Chief Engineer Wang Heshan looked at that lonely dot on the screen, then at his own drilling site backed by countless data points, and only disappointment remained on his face.
He had thought that the young girl so highly regarded by the higher-ups would at least have some real skills, even if she were young. Now it seemed it was all wishful thinking.
"Ignore them." Chief Engineer Wang Heshan waved his hand, completely losing interest, "Pass on my order, all units concentrate their strength, work in 24-hour shifts, and drill at full speed! I want to let everyone see that conquering the desert relies on science and sweat, not some bullshit 'Dragon Vein'!"
The order was passed down, and the huge drilling platform began to emit a thunderous roar.
Meanwhile, thirty kilometers away.
Jiang Ning stood on a vast, empty expanse of sand, the sand beneath her feet smoothed flat by the wind.
She said to Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo behind her: "This is the place."
Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo took out the GPS locator to check, then took out the blueprints to compare repeatedly, the expression on his face becoming increasingly confused.
"Chief Consultant... this... this place isn't right." He said hesitantly, "The data shows that underneath this is a solid block of granite over three thousand meters thick, the most stable place in this area. Logically, this is the least likely place to have water."
"Your data is correct." Jiang Ning nodded.
"Then why are we..." Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo was even more confused.
Jiang Ning didn't answer, but asked him in return: "What is the purpose of drilling a well?"
"To get water, of course."
"Then what if, the water could flow out on its own?" Jiang Ning looked at him and said another sentence that no one understood, "We are not here to drill a well, we are here to open a skylight for the Dragon."
After saying this, she took a few ordinary-looking metal rods out of her worn cloth bag and inserted them into the sand at her feet.
"Alright, get to work. First step, use these rods as markers and level the ground. I want a square with a length and width of one hundred meters."
Chief Engineer Wang Jianguo and the dozen or so engineers looked at each other, staring at the crooked rods, then at the boundless desert, and all felt that this matter seemed completely unreliable no matter how they looked at it.
But an order was an order, and they had no choice but to bite the bullet and proceed.
As the sun set, the two teams, heading in completely different directions and using completely different methods, began a contest that no one had spoken aloud. On one side, the roar of steel giants and science; on the other, a dozen people with a few shovels, drawing a large square on the sand that no one could understand.