"..." Ke Lan did not answer immediately. He kept recalling those few seconds... In fact, due to the light, he could not see the other person's face or the expression on his face. The other person did not make any sound and just pushed him down without saying a word.

Although I don't remember the falling process very clearly, the drop was at least several hundred meters. Taking into account the acceleration of gravity, this was enough to shatter Ke Lan into pieces the moment he hit the water...

But he didn't die, he just broke a few bones.

"There's something wrong with that place..." Ke Lan muttered to herself, "At that height, I will definitely die, but why..."

He did not tell the Hound about the illusion, but if that space was used to imprison the creature that seemed to be from the ancient times, why was there only sea water underneath... and how could he appear above the sea?

Ke Lan felt that his head was in complete chaos. All kinds of clues and information were piled on the ground like countless puzzle pieces. From each piece, he could catch a glimpse of a small part of the truth, but he just couldn't piece these pieces together to form a complete picture.

"I've already told the others that the operation has been suspended. We will take the transport plane back to the Ark with you... You should heal your wounds first, and we can talk about other things later." The Hound said, and was about to get up, but at this moment, there was a sudden knock on the door.

"Mr. Ke Lan...are you awake?" First Mate Caroline's voice came from outside.

"Yes, he's awake." The Hound opened the door and let Caroline in.

Caroline was wearing an orange-red one-piece protective suit and a pair of long sealed boots. She had obviously just come down from the deck. She was holding a thin document in her arms, and her expression looked... a little unnatural.

"What's wrong?" Ke Lan turned her face slightly, looked at Caroline and asked.

"The plane that's coming to pick you up has arrived..." Caroline said, and suddenly swallowed her saliva, "That... the black skeleton that was sent back before... the relevant analysis report has also come out..."

"Analysis report? Wasn't it said to be out tomorrow? How come it's a whole day earlier?" Ke Lan was a little surprised.

"They... I mean the people from the research institute... After they got the stuff, they did a gene comparison experiment as usual... and then sent the report over in a hurry." Caroline spoke intermittently, as if she was considering her tone. "That... something is a little wrong."

"What's wrong?" Ke Lan asked hurriedly. The research institute didn't even have time to complete all the tests, but they were in such a hurry to send the report over, which meant that there must be a very important discovery.

Caroline hesitated for a few seconds before she spoke: "The things in the black skeleton... those translucent substances that look a bit like slugs. The people at the institute extracted its DNA, and after comparing them..."

It seemed that even she herself could not believe it. After taking several deep breaths, Caroline said with some difficulty: "Its genetic material is 99.92% similar to humans and us."

The genetic material similarity is 99.92%... Anyone who has completed the compulsory education process of the Ark New Generation knows what this means: this creature... is actually human.

In other words - this thing, he, Ke Lan, the hound, Caroline, and everyone on this ship are all of the same species!

You should know that the genetic similarity between human blood relatives is about 99.95%, while the chimpanzees, which are said to be the species closest to humans biologically, have only 98.8% similarity in genes with humans.

This means that there is not even any reproductive isolation between humans and that thing...

"How is this possible? This is absolutely impossible!" The hound was stunned for a moment, and then said, "You mean... that thing is a human?" He pointed at his nose, his face full of astonishment. "Is it one of our kind? That slug-like thing? Is it one of my kind?"

"Judging from this comparison report alone, this is correct..." Caroline nodded silently. It seemed that this incident had quite a big impact on her.

"Could they have made a mistake? Did the people from the research institute take the wrong specimen? Did someone accidentally get their own blood in there?" The Hound still couldn't believe it. In his opinion, this matter was even more outrageous than what Ke Lan had experienced.

"They thought so at first, and then conducted three identical comparative experiments, and the results were the same." Caroline handed the document in her hand to the Hound, "Well... As someone who has witnessed... that... that 'thing' with my own eyes, I myself cannot accept this fact. The captain has ordered that this matter be listed as the top secret of the entire consortium, and is trying to bypass the Security Bureau and directly contact the people at the Institute..."

The three words "Research Institute" without any prefix refer only to the "Noah Core Research Institute" which represents the highest technological level of all mankind and the official authority of the Ark... There is nothing wrong with the Soma Foundation doing this - if there is no problem with this report, then this matter is no longer something that a foundation like theirs can solve.

However, lying on the bed, Ke Lan thought of other things: the black skeleton... humans... the black skeleton in the camp of the 776 Special Forces Team... and the mysterious black shadow who pushed her off the cliff, suspected to be "Liao Xing"... These clues seemed to be connected by an invisible thread...

There is also the ambiguous codeword "Leave the bed", which appears in three places: on the inner shell of the diving chamber, in Collins' log, and as the password to open the black box of the 776 special forces team...

From this point of view, the first "Leave the bed" was most likely written by the black skeleton.

So what message is it trying to convey to them?

But if the black skeleton wanted them to see the text, why did it attack them?

If it successfully killed Ke Lan and others who entered the cargo hold, then why would it carve those words in the submarine cabin?

This is the first thing that doesn't make sense...

Just when Ke Lan was about to change his thinking, the scene of the previous fight with the black skeleton once again emerged in his mind... He suddenly realized that there was a detail that he seemed to have overlooked.

The black skeleton's target of attack was me from the very beginning!

In the first confrontation, it was Asano Akira who stood in front of him, and then the black skeletons wanted to attack him, but Asano Akira took the initiative to stop them...

Plus the subsequent invasion of consciousness... that fatal black hole of thinking...

Ke Lan suddenly had a very bold idea: Could it be that because he had the language ability of the Alpha civilization, the black skeleton mistook him for an Alpha? Was it because it wanted to kill him to protect others?

From its perspective, it was this "alien" who had held several other people hostage... As long as it could kill itself, it could save the others?

However, Ke Lan did not use those abilities at the beginning...

Ke Lan felt that she seemed to have completed a corner of the puzzle, but just when she was about to get a glimpse of part of the truth, she could not find the crucial piece.