Black Well. In the small conference room on the top floor.
The members of the temporary decision-making committee had also seen the complex tunnels inside the cave.
“Agent W, has the aircraft arrived?” Marshal Vina asked. Her judgment was consistent with Pei Ran’s. “There definitely won’t be just this one entrance from the collapse. Have you found any other entrances?”
“One aircraft has already reached the collapsed entrance,” W replied. “Another pilot discovered a new entrance in the southwest. Unfortunately, with the tunnel height like this, a manned aircraft can’t go in. The pilot has already left the aircraft and entered the underground tunnel on foot.”
“What about drones?” General Eugene asked.
Drones are much smaller and more maneuverable—perfect for flying in these kinds of tunnels. And they move much faster than people on foot, at least ensuring they won’t lose track of the Thinker.
W replied, “I’ve already dispatched drones. Two have now reached the newly discovered entrance and are entering the tunnel.”
W switched the big screen to display the footage captured by the drones.
The drones had their lights on, one in front and one behind, speeding through the maze-like tunnels.
“My patrol robot has been doing its best to map out the tunnel terrain, but we’ve passed very few branch paths. We can only use positioning to try to get the drones as close as possible to our current location.”
For now, they still had to rely on Pei Ran, along with the NG_y8 she carried with her.
W reminded, “Marshal Vina, we’ve found the last Thinker. I’ve already drafted the tactical plan for the northern front after its destruction. I’ll need your prior approval.”
“Alright.” Marshal Vina stood up. “Everyone, let’s move to the adjacent command center and make preparations. Once the Thinker is destroyed, we immediately launch a counterattack.”
The northern front was a grueling, bitter battle. The soldiers were fighting in blood and fire. Discovering the last Thinker was the best news they’d had in the past day and night.
Dozens of kilometers away.
Inside the tunnel.
Pei Ran had been chasing madly behind the tunnel boring machine, when she suddenly noticed its speed had slowed down.
There was no road ahead anymore—it had started boring a new tunnel. While boring, its speed was much slower than when moving through an already-dug tunnel.
Pei Ran was secretly pleased.
The rear of the tunnel boring machine was open. The Thinker was hanging there. The open rack and conveyor belt structure were visible. As long as she got close enough to throw the NG_y8 onto it, retreat quickly, and press the detonation button, she could take care of the Thinker.
The tunnel boring machine suddenly stopped.
“RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE—”
A roar louder than when it was moving just moments ago suddenly erupted.
Pei Ran, who had been speeding up to run toward it, instantly realized—something was terribly wrong.
The next second, a huge gush of red earth and crushed stones sprayed out from the rear conveyor belt.
Pei Ran only had time to close her eyes and protect her head and face. Her body was slammed to the ground by a massive force.
Her mouth was taped shut. Dirt kept pouring into her ears and nostrils.
It felt like a mountain had been added to her body—the pressure grew heavier and heavier. Her chest was crushed in searing pain, and she couldn’t breathe at all.
She had been buried alive.
The tunnel boring machine’s roar was blocked out by the earth, and the background became eerily silent. There was only one sound left ringing crystal-clear in her ears.
“Pei Ran?”
“Pei Ran??”
Just like that night—the voice trying hard to pull her out of a nightmare.
Black Well, South Entrance.
On the horizon, that hazy orange sun gradually sank toward the west, disappearing behind the red cliff walls—gone from sight.
Fortunately, the rift valley was sheltered from the wind, so it wasn’t particularly cold.
Engineer Jiang and Ai Xia sat together on a big white stone. They pulled small buns from their backpacks, finished eating in a few bites, and stuffed one into Jin Hejun’s hand.
Jin Hejun sat just behind them. He touched the bun, gave a small shake of his hand—probably not in the mood to eat anything.
The others also took out food. Appetite or not, if they wanted to survive, they had to maintain their strength.
Inaya stood alone, still keeping her distance from the rest. She pulled out a bag of birdseed from her backpack, opened it, poured out a small handful into her palm, and unwrapped the tape around the parrot’s beak.
Nuomituan was hungry. It quickly pecked up the small pile of assorted seeds, then tilted its head to look at its master, indicating it wanted more.
Inaya poured out another handful into her palm.
There were still two packets of birdseed left in the bag. She mentally calculated—she could hold out a while longer. When the birdseed ran out, she could share her own rations with it.
The people from Black Well had told them not to leave yet, to wait here for now. There might still be a chance to get inside.
She was thinking about this, somewhat lost in thought.
Nuomituan quickly finished the second handful. Still waiting for her to pour more, it was starting to lose patience. Suddenly, it flapped its wings, lifted its head, and opened its beak.
A bright, ringing song burst out from the parrot’s mouth, echoing through the twilight canyon.
“In the vast lands of East Manya—”
The moment the parrot began to sing, Inaya’s thoughts were yanked back. A jolt ran through her.
She didn’t know why, but an unexplainable chill crept into her heart.
It was as if she suddenly saw the departure platform of Yehai Station No. 7, that metal gate, and the college student sliced in half by the blade-like transparent barrier.
His ghost seemed to be standing right there, before the cliff wall opposite her, staring at her with a chilling gaze.
I didn’t mean to kill you.
Inaya hurriedly explained in her heart.
Back then, the entire Yehai city was on fire, and there were no vehicles. Station No. 7 was the only way out. I was just desperate to try and see how to pass through that strange gate.
I wanted to save myself, to save Nuomituan. I didn’t mean to harm you. I truly had no other choice at the time.
But why, in the crowd back then… did I single out that person?
Inaya hadn’t really thought about it in depth before, but right at that moment, the answer surfaced clearly.
Her family conditions weren’t good. She started working before graduating high school. Though the income was decent, sometimes when she saw those college students, there was still a subtle, twisting feeling deep inside.
Why.
Why, at the same age, could some people go to school carefree, studying for what felt like forever, with a bright future ahead—while others had to shoulder the burdens of life early, running around just to make ends meet? This world was unfair.
Boom—
As the parrot’s song began, Ai Xia and Grandma turned their heads at the same time.
Before a single line of the lyrics was finished, Inaya and her parrot had already disappeared.
Jin Hejun also heard the singing and the sound of the explosion. He couldn’t see, so he tilted his head in panic to listen carefully. But he couldn’t speak—he had no way of asking what had just happened.
People were dying one after another. Engineer Jiang remained motionless, staring in a daze at the blood splattered on the ground from the blast.
The parrot, which could once talk, was now blown up too.
The silent state continued to escalate.
Things could change at any moment—even what was once safe was gradually becoming unsafe. The sign language, the hand gestures, the Morse code—all the temporary ways of communication had become ticking time bombs.
Staying outside the shielding layer was becoming increasingly dangerous.
After thinking for a while, Engineer Jiang stood up from the rock, took a few steps back, distancing herself from Ai Xia.
This was the Xiaxia she had raised with her own hands since childhood. She had once been a tiny baby, with chubby little hands and feet. In the blink of an eye, so many years had passed, and now she had grown so big.
She herself was almost seventy years old. Death was foreseeable, something that could happen at any moment. She just hoped Xiaxia could survive safely.
As long as she was gone, and Xiaxia had no one left to worry about, she would enter Black Well safely.
She looked at Ai Xia lovingly, pulled down the scarf from her neck, and spat out the small wooden stick from her mouth.
The moment Grandma stood up, Ai Xia already knew what she was planning. Seeing her really spit out the wooden stick, Ai Xia’s mind went blank with a buzzing noise.
Grandma didn’t want to become her burden. She intended to end herself so Ai Xia could enter Black Well alone.
Ai Xia sprang to her feet without hesitation, yanked off her scarf, and also spat out her own wooden stick.
If Grandma gave up and spoke, she would also speak.
Living wasn’t necessarily a good thing. If they were going to die, they’d go together.
Engineer Jiang looked into Ai Xia’s eyes—eyes as determined and unwavering as those of a gunslinger facing a duel.
She was stubborn. But so was Ai Xia.
She was just like herself forty years ago—once she made up her mind, she never backed down. Stubborn like a mule. This was the child she had raised with her own hands, and her temper was exactly the same.
The elderly and the young locked eyes in silence for a while. Engineer Jiang finally sighed quietly, placed the small wooden stick back in her mouth, walked back, embraced Ai Xia, and sat down again in the same place.
Dozens of kilometers away, on the red earth wasteland.
Inside the underground tunnel—
Pei Ran was struggling in suffocating darkness.
It was as if a mountain was pressing down on her—her entire body couldn’t move, only the mechanical hand on her right side could barely function.
She struggled to move that hand.
But the moment it loosened slightly, more fresh earth collapsed from above, as if her efforts were in vain.
The sensation of suffocation was overwhelming. What had originally been pitch-black in front of her eyes was now turning white. The real problem was her chest—it couldn’t move at all.
Pei Ran tried to mobilize the green light within her. Green Light No.1 had just finished snacking on sunflower seeds and was now sleeping like the dead, completely unresponsive.
Pei Ran did her best to fold the mechanical hand across her chest, trying to create space for her head and chest cavity.
There was a slight loosening in front of her chest.
Her mechanical hand touched something equally hard.
It wasn’t a rock. It was moving.
It was the metal claw on W’s folding arm, working together with her to loosen the soil.
W’s voice still echoed in her ear. “Pei Ran, when you got buried just now, I saw clearly—there’s slightly less soil just ahead, a bit to the left of your head. Let’s see if we can dig our way out.”
His voice didn’t sound like usual. His speaking pace was faster than normal, like he was anxious.
Pei Ran could still communicate with him in her mind, but the suffocating feeling made her dazed in waves.
She replied in her heart: “Okay.”
They were so close to Black Well now—she couldn’t die here.
Pei Ran forced herself to focus and moved the mechanical hand on her left side, loosening the soil around her. The movement range of the hand finally increased. As she kept loosening the dirt, she continued calling out for the green light in her mind.
But there was no need for it anymore—light suddenly appeared on her eyelids.
She opened her eyes and saw the bright white illumination of the metal sphere, shining on the tunnel walls.
The metal sphere was right beside her, also buried in the earth, only half of its body exposed.
It wasn’t tending to itself, but was rapidly waving its pair of folding arms, frantically digging, trying to unearth her head from the soil.
Its digging speed far surpassed that of a human. The red soil and crushed stone flew off to the sides continuously. The twin metal claws moved so fast they left afterimages in the air.
Her nose was exposed as well.
But it was packed full of dirt—she still couldn’t breathe. Her chest was tightly compressed. There wasn’t a single bit of air in her lungs, and even if she wanted to blow the dirt out, she couldn’t.
Pei Ran’s own mechanical hand had also emerged. Working together with W’s metal claws, they pushed aside the soil. Her mouth finally broke through to the surface. She forced it open, tearing away the duct tape.
Air rushed into her chest cavity.
But her chest was still tightly compressed by the surrounding soil and couldn’t expand.
Pei Ran recovered a little. Her shoulders had emerged as well, and her mechanical hand could now move. She worked hard to dig herself out.
Her upper body finally came free.
Air poured into her lungs, and Pei Ran choked and coughed violently.
Once she was out, she could see clearly—she had been buried alive under a massive mound of earth. For some unknown reason, the tunnel boring machine had suddenly gone wild just now and sprayed the soil it had chewed up straight into the tunnel.
The tunnel boring machine still had its lights on, cheerfully moving forward, huffing and puffing as it bored a new tunnel.
Pei Ran pulled her legs out, fished out the metal sphere, and staggered to her feet. She hadn’t even stood steady before she began stumbling forward again.
She was chasing the tunnel boring machine.
W: “……”
He reminded her, “Pei Ran, your ears are full of dirt.”
Though in this silence, ears weren’t much use anyway.
W added, “There’s also a lot of dirt in your hair.”
Her tied-up hair was in a complete mess, tangled and matted like a net, collecting a good amount of red earth. Her coat, pants, and shoes were also covered in dirt, which kept pattering down nonstop.
As she ran, Pei Ran shook her head to get the dirt out of her ears.
“It actually dared to bury me alive,” Pei Ran said to W in her mind. “I’m going to blow it to smithereens.”
She looked down at the metal sphere and gave it a shake.
Red earth poured out from the cracks in the shell with a rustling sound—the whole sphere felt noticeably lighter.
The tunnel boring machine was still forging ahead, carving out new territory. The speed of this frenzied fused machine far exceeded that of a normal tunnel boring machine, but it was still relatively slow. The distance between them kept closing.
Pei Ran ran while unwrapping the scarf from her back and pulled out the black disc—NG_y8.
“It won’t explode just from throwing, right?” she asked.
W replied calmly, “Toss it however you like. Even if you drop it from two thousand meters in the air, it won’t go off. Only the remote trigger sets it off.”
“Good,” Pei Ran said. “Once I get a little closer, I’ll throw it over.”
W asked her, “Before that—do you have anything you want me to relay to Black Well?”
After traveling together all this time, he truly understood what she was thinking.
“Yes. I can try to help Black Well blow up the Intelligent Mobile Operations Center, but on one condition—they have to let everyone I brought in this time enter Black Well. Including Engineer Jiang, including Jin Hejun, including every single person.”
W responded quickly, “I’ll go relay the message.”
Just a moment later, W returned with an answer: “The temporary decision-making committee unanimously agreed. Everyone you brought with you this time can enter Black Well. Marshal Vina says—for Black Well’s safety, please do everything you can to destroy the Thinker as soon as possible.”
Black Well was vast—it didn’t really care about just a few extra people. There was no need to go back on their word over such a small matter.
Pei Ran agreed, “Alright. If they keep their word, I’ll keep mine too.”
She pushed herself to the limit, speeding up, chasing the tunnel boring machine, and finally closed in.
Pei Ran used her mechanical hand to grip the NG_y8 and aimed at the open rear of the tunnel boring machine.
The machine ahead suddenly jolted and unexpectedly accelerated.
It had just broken through this tunnel and entered a pre-existing tunnel up ahead.
The distance between it and Pei Ran started rapidly widening again.
A chance lost would be hard to find again. Pei Ran didn’t hesitate any longer—she swung the NG_y8 in her hand, aimed at its rear, and hurled it.
Just like a hundred thousand years ago, in the distant Stone Age, when skilled hunters among early humans relied on instinct and masterful technique to hurl a slingstone, striking a stone ball toward their prey.
The black disc spun rapidly through the air, tracing an arc as it flew, landing precisely on the open rear conveyor belt of the tunnel boring machine—and came to a stop.
The landing was accurate, the position was ideal—only two or three meters away from the Intelligent Mobile Operations Center hanging at the rear.