Long Yuehong's words echoed in the library, like thunderclaps, exploding in the hearts of Jiang Baimian and Bai Chen.
The first owner of the "Underground Ark," Montias, suspected to be Dimalco himself, had actually been to Tieshan City!
And to Jiang Baimian's surprise, he went there not during the Chaotic Era, but before the Old World was destroyed.
Jiang Baimian stood up abruptly, walked to Long Yuehong's side, and took the autobiography in his hand.
After reading it repeatedly several times, Jiang Baimian said to Long Yuehong and Bai Chen with a look of surprise:
"Let's find out when Montias returned, what places he visited in Tieshan City, and what he did."
The three of them buried themselves again, flipping through the several volumes of autobiography.
This time, they even unconsciously filtered through the punctuation marks.
After who knows how long, Jiang Baimian and the others finally extracted all the content related to Montias from the autobiography.
In the era when the autobiography was written, he was not the head of the family, but only the eldest son with a high inheritance ranking, so his various activities did not take up much space, but were occasionally mentioned in passing when recording other things.
Regarding Montias's participation in the bidding for the old city renovation project in the neighboring Tieshan City, the family autobiography did not specify whether it was successful or not, but Jiang Baimian judged that he should have won the bid and stayed in Tieshan City for a long time, based on the fact that Montias did not participate in other family affairs until more than a year later.
"Montias was later sent to be responsible for the construction of the city's landmark building until the Old World was destroyed... This shows that he left Tieshan City a few years before the Old World was destroyed... Did the 'Tieshan City Second Food Company' have some weirdness even in the Old World?" Jiang Baimian made a reasonable inference.
The city corresponding to the ruins where Redstone Collection is located was quite economically developed in the Old World. The autobiography mentioned that labor costs were very high and efficiency was reduced, and the construction of various large-scale projects was no longer rapid. Therefore, it was normal for the construction of landmark buildings to take several years.
"And the 'Underground Ark' was built many years before he went to Tieshan City, which is obviously unrelated to the weirdness of the Second Food Company." Bai Chen felt that the things still couldn't be truly connected.
After another discussion, Jiang Baimian glanced at the electronic watch on her wrist and yawned, covering her mouth:
"It's getting late, let's go back to sleep and continue tomorrow morning."
She felt that there were too many books here and it was impossible to finish it all at once. Since there had already been some progress, it was better to rest well and recharge her energy before fighting again tomorrow morning.
Bai Chen and Long Yuehong glanced at the sentence written by Montias or someone else in the *Holy Book*. Seeing that they couldn't think of any new ideas for a while, they agreed with Jiang Baimian's suggestion.
Jiang Baimian walked a few steps to the side, bent down, grabbed Shang Jianyao with her left hand, and lifted him up to lean on her, accepting her support.
This guy had no intention of waking up at all.
Long Yuehong, who wanted to volunteer to help, suddenly had an idea and closed his mouth again.
The four of them returned to the second basement level and arrived at the two rooms that Ulrich had arranged for people to tidy up.
These were both double rooms, specially requested by Jiang Baimian to ensure that they could take care of each other.
"Go back to your rooms and rest. Try not to get up at night. If you really need to, wake the other person up and never act alone." Before separating, Jiang Baimian habitually reminded them.
The bathroom of the double room was outside.
"Okay." Bai Chen agreed.
"Yes, squad leader." Long Yuehong's heart was pounding when he answered.
Although this kind of grouping was a habit of the "Old Task Force" all along, and everyone was used to it and very familiar with each other, there was nothing embarrassing about it, but Long Yuehong still felt that today was different from the past.
His mentality was different.
And since his injury recovered, he had never slept in the same room with Bai Chen again.
——From the initial city back to "Pangu Biology", from "Pangu Biology" to Redstone Collection, the "Old Task Force" would only occasionally find settlements to replenish supplies, and had not stayed in hotels, rented rooms, or even set up tents. All of them were in groups of two, taking turns sleeping in the jeep.
Under the "public eye", this undoubtedly didn't feel like sleeping in the same room.
Long Yuehong originally thought that after everyone had grown up, the squad leader would readjust the grouping and no longer pair men and women together to avoid everyone feeling uncomfortable all the time. After all, the situation of an old member leading a new one no longer existed, and he could barely take on the responsibility of keeping an eye on Shang Jianyao. Who knew that Jiang Baimian seemed to have forgotten about this and never mentioned it again.
The reason why Long Yuehong didn't take the initiative to help Jiang Baimian support Shang Jianyao just now was that he was suddenly afraid that she would remember to readjust the grouping because of this.
After entering the room, Long Yuehong turned his head and looked at Bai Chen:
"Which bed do you want to sleep in?"
"They're all the same." Bai Chen took off the tactical backpack from her back and casually threw it on the bed on the right.
"Oh, oh." Long Yuehong walked to the side of the bed on the left and sat down.
At this time, he saw Bai Chen take off her coat.
Although this was a common sight before, and Bai Chen was also wearing a long-sleeved camouflage t-shirt underneath, and nothing could be exposed, Long Yuehong still felt inexplicably uncomfortable. He cleared his throat almost imperceptibly and turned his gaze to the side.
"Aren't you going to wash up?" Bai Chen took out her toiletries.
"Oh, oh." Long Yuehong stood up suddenly and began to rummage around in a flustered manner.
Can openers, iron combs, and other items popped out from time to time, and were then put back.
After finishing these things and lying on their respective beds, Long Yuehong kept his eyes open, staring at the ceiling covered in darkness, unable to fall asleep for a long time.
He didn't know when he fell asleep, and woke up in the middle of the night.
Perhaps because he had been a little nervous all the time, Long Yuehong felt a relatively obvious urge to urinate.
He heard Bai Chen breathing deeply, obviously sleeping soundly, and didn't want to wake her up, so he tossed and turned, trying to hold it in.
He lay on his side for a while, then lay on his back for a while, and then lay on his side in the other direction for a while, constantly adjusting his posture and finding the most comfortable state.
Suddenly, he heard a rustling sound from Bai Chen's side.
"Are you awake? I want to go to the bathroom." Bai Chen said.
"Okay." Long Yuehong flipped over and sat up abruptly.
The two of them went out of the room together with their weapons and came to the next door.
"You go first." Long Yuehong pointed to the bathroom door with great gentlemanly manners.
Bai Chen didn't decline and quickly walked in.
As her figure disappeared from sight, Long Yuehong suddenly felt the wind in the corridor was cold and eerie, and the few wall lamps that were turned on were dim and yellow.
He suddenly remembered the situation during the battle against Dimalco—in the eerie and indescribable terrifying atmosphere, he felt like he was being invaded by a ghost and couldn't control his body.
Could there still be a trace of Dimalco's breath remaining, existing in a ghost-like state, wandering within the "Underground Ark"? The more Long Yuehong thought about it, the more afraid he became, and he always felt like someone was watching him in the dark.
His eyes moved slightly, and he slowly turned his body, cautiously looking behind him.
In the next second, he saw a pair of eyes.
Eyes that peeked out from behind a monkey mask.
Long Yuehong calmed his wildly beating heart and blurted out a question:
"Why didn't you make a sound?"
"It would disturb others." Shang Jianyao explained, suppressing his voice.
"..." Long Yuehong couldn't argue, "Why are you awake?"
"I slept for too long and need to go to the bathroom." Shang Jianyao said righteously.
"Why are you the only one here? Where's the squad leader?" Long Yuehong asked, frowning.
"It's such a short distance, she can just use her senses. There's no need to get up at all." Shang Jianyao replied indifferently.
He then asked:
"Did you guys discover anything in the library before?"
"Yes." Long Yuehong had just made a reply when Bai Chen walked out of the bathroom and said, "It's your turn."
"Wait a minute, tell me what you found first." Shang Jianyao took off his monkey mask, looking curious.
Long Yuehong, who was bursting, took a breath, gritted his teeth, and decided to finish speaking quickly.
"I'll do it." Bai Chen walked between him and Shang Jianyao.
"Okay." Long Yuehong was inexplicably happy.
By the time he finished peeing and washing his hands, Bai Chen had already told Shang Jianyao the general situation.
Shang Jianyao rubbed his chin and muttered to himself:
"Montias thought he was possessed by a devil at the time? Didn't he know that it was awakening?"
"He probably hadn't been exposed to relevant concepts at the time." Long Yuehong expressed his opinion.
Shang Jianyao didn't answer and hurried into the bathroom.
…………
The next morning, after breakfast, the "Old Task Force" came to the library in the "Underground Ark" again.
Shang Jianyao didn't go to flip through Montias's *Holy Book* and the Dimalco family autobiography, but looked at Ulrich and sincerely asked:
"Do you have any books on mysticism here?"
"There are some." Ulrich replied, "Although Mr. Montias was a devout believer and didn't like mysticism at all, some of his parents and grandparents were fond of it and brought copies of the books to the ark."
"Take me to see them." Shang Jianyao said directly.
After hearing the conversation between the two, Jiang Baimian said thoughtfully:
"Do you suspect that after Montias thought he was possessed by a devil, he once tried to find the corresponding source and solution from mysticism?"
*Clap clap clap*, Shang Jianyao applauded.
He was refreshed and in good condition in the morning, and couldn't see that he was still suffering from mental damage.
Soon, he and Ulrich and Long Yuehong brought back three stacks of books on mysticism.
After Ulrich left, the four members of the "Old Task Force" divided the work and were each responsible for checking a part.
While flipping through it, Long Yuehong made a discovery:
Certain words and sentences in the book were underlined at the bottom with a blue-black fountain pen.
He immediately reported this situation, and Jiang Baimian, Shang Jianyao, and Bai Chen successively stated that the books in their hands also had similar situations.
After comparison, they found that the underlined words and sentences were all related to spirit, soul, and spirituality.
This involved different mystical theories, including ether theory, animism, etc.
As the inspection deepened, Bai Chen found a new clue at the end of a book.
A blue-black fountain pen wrote a word in the blank area with very heavy strokes:
"Price?"