Chapter 105: Explosion
He had already experienced this zero gravity environment many times before, so he had some experience.
This time, climbing over along the rope didn’t take much effort.
Truly stepping onto the floating city ground that was glowing with a yellowish-white sheen everywhere, he felt gravity reappearing on his body again. Jiang Yang turned back to look and saw a thin rope extending into a pitch-black hole in the distance.
The passage they had taken on the way here had become deep again, seeming to lead to some unknown distance.
Jiang Yang turned around and carefully examined everything in front of him.
The buildings in front of him were no more than ten meters tall, arranged irregularly, but not messy at all; instead, they were full of a strange charm.
Some buildings were like a big tree, but without branches, the trunk twisting strangely in height;
Some buildings were like a building, but completely empty in the middle for a few meters, with another section of building floating in the air above;
Some buildings were like a small mountain, initially round, then becoming square higher up, and so on.
There were intervals of more than ten meters between different buildings, very spacious.
“Disperse and explore.”
“Yes.”
A total of 15 people were divided into 6 teams, with 5 teams of 2 people each, totaling ten people, and the remaining four people formed a five-person team with Jiang Yang.
In this floating city with a total area of only a fraction of a square kilometer, the six teams dispersed separately.
Looking at the forest of buildings in front of him filled with exotic style, feeling the weak gravity under his feet, feeling the ubiquitous yellow-white light, for a moment, Jiang Yang actually had the illusion of being in a different spacetime.
This floating city wasn’t large; in just twenty minutes, the astronauts had completed the search and gathered again at the edge.
This search didn’t find any living creatures in the floating city. Those buildings of various sizes also seemed to be solid; at least, they hadn’t found any doors or windows, nor anything like machinery.
“Total number of buildings: 406. Except for different shapes, the colors are consistent, and the materials seem consistent as well.
We noticed that different buildings have different patterns, some with more and some with fewer; Building No. 119 has the most.”
Jiang Yang had also noticed this before, but he hadn’t seen Building No. 119.
Led by the astronauts, Jiang Yang came in front of this building.
This was a massive building that overall looked like an announcement board, covered with densely packed patterns of unknown meaning; roughly counting, there were fully over a thousand.
Plus those distributed on the other buildings, with as few as one and as many as four or five per building, all the patterns in the entire floating city probably numbered around two thousand.
They were all combinations of line segments and dots, similar to Morse code, but obviously much more complex than Morse code.
Some single patterns contained more than a dozen line segments and dots divided into several rows, and these dots varied in size, those line segments in length.
But different patterns were clearly separated from each other, each maintaining independence.
This immediately reminded Jiang Yang of something.
Text?
Were these complex patterns composed of line segments and dots the text used by the unknown existence that left behind this floating city and caused the extinction of all human civilization?
They left some information here. But unfortunately, they didn’t have the ability to decipher this text.
“Have you all photographed them?”
Tong Zheng asked in a low voice. The astronauts quickly replied: “All photographed.”
“Then don’t worry about these texts for now.
Start measuring environmental factors!”
The astronauts had brought numerous measurement equipment this time: for measuring various radiation, substance composition, and so on; everything that could be brought was brought.
After going back and forth between that passage and the floating city several times, all these equipment were transported here, and detailed measurements began.
Soon, some results appeared in front of Jiang Yang.
“Radiation intensity matches normal lunar underground environment intensity.”
“Environment is vacuum, consistent with other areas.”
“Gravitational acceleration is 1.6 meters per second squared, consistent with moon gravity.”
“Temperature is minus 30 degrees Celsius, normal.”
……
It seemed that except for being suspended in the air, the environment of this floating city was just an ordinary lunar underground cave, with no peculiarities at all.
But analysis and detection hadn’t ended.
The astronauts then began attempting to analyze the specific materials and elemental composition of this floating city itself and the various buildings on it.
Using X-ray fluorescence spectrometers, people began analyzing one by one. But soon, an unexpected result appeared.
“The spectrometer can’t analyze what material these buildings are made of.”
Jiang Yang had some understanding of this equipment.
Its basic principle is to release high-energy X-rays to bombard the atoms of the material, exciting the inner electrons of the atoms, which then release X-ray fluorescence with specific energy.
Each element releases different fluorescence, so by analyzing the spectrum, one can know what elements it is composed of.
But at this moment, whether the floating city itself or those buildings, under high-energy X-ray irradiation, showed no reaction at all.
They tried several other detection methods and changed multiple detection points. Finally, Zhao Jianguo, who was in charge of the actual operation, stood up and shook his head again.
Jiang Yang knew that they probably couldn’t determine what material these were made of.
Tong Zheng thought silently for a moment, then looked up again.
“Use explosives for strength testing!”
“Yes!”
People had previously tried destructive methods like pushing with hands or kicking with feet, but couldn’t leave any marks on these things.
A target was selected, and a 500g pack of high explosive was attached. The timer was set, and the astronauts quickly withdrew.
Moments later, a burst of strong light suddenly appeared and instantly disappeared.
The astronauts gathered over and saw that the building still showed no damage at all.
They tried several other buildings, with the same result.
The astronauts fell silent again.
Although they had truly come here, if detection methods couldn’t detect anything and explosives couldn’t damage it at all, was coming here really just to take a look?
Jiang Yang turned his head, his gaze involuntarily converging on the nuclear bomb lying quietly on the board cart at the passage.
If conventional explosives didn’t work, then the only option next was the nuclear bomb.
But… not to mention whether the nuclear bomb could destroy this place.
At this moment, they hadn’t obtained suitable intelligence yet; even if the nuclear bomb could completely destroy this place, what would be the meaning?
“Continue searching.”
Tong Zheng issued the new order in a deep voice.
The previous search was too general, too overall. This time, focus on the minutiae, not missing any possible clues!
Jiang Yang also silently joined the search.
He didn’t know how much time had passed; when Jiang Yang had almost completely familiarized himself with this small floating city, a voice suddenly appeared in his ear.
“Building No. 874 has an anomaly!”
