Volume 15 Gray Fog Forest Chapter 747: Maps Left Behind by the Alpha Civilization
"Necklace? Is there something wrong with the necklace?" Ivan picked up the cross pendant necklace and threw it to Ke Lan.
Ke Lan took the cross pendant, examined it carefully, and soon discovered the problem.
This cross pendant looks like an ornament full of religious atmosphere, but it is actually an exquisite and small hidden container.
On the side of this cross, which is no more than one centimeter thick, there is a fairly obvious gap. The gap was originally tightly closed, but because a layer of oxide formed on the metal at the joint, the gap, which was originally difficult to see with the naked eye, was widened.
With the mold making and casting technology used on the Ark, even the cheap handicrafts sold on the street stalls can be formed in one go. The structure of this cross is not complicated at all, and there is no need to divide it into two parts. Doing so will only increase the working hours and costs.
This can only mean one thing: there is another mystery inside the cross.
Ke Lan inserted his fingernail into the gap and scratched it gently. The cross, which was made up of two nested parts, immediately split into two halves, revealing the hollow internal structure.
Inside the cross, there was a circle of small pink paper notes. The edges of the paper notes had faded and turned yellow, obviously having been rubbed many times by hand.
Ivan's eyes lit up and he asked, "Ke Lan, how did you know there was something hidden in the cross?"
"Mo Jue just said that this golden retriever usually speaks a mixture of truth and lies. The story about the hostess' gift was probably made up... But he was telling the truth about one thing. This cross is indeed very important to him. You can see that the edges and corners of the cross have been rounded. This is not an effect caused by metal oxidation, and it is difficult for this kind of hard alloy to be worn to this extent through daily wear... There is only one possibility. The wearer would touch the pendant from time to time to confirm whether it was lost." Ke Lan analyzed.
"You can guess this from just a few traces of wear and tear?" Mo Jue was a little surprised. Although she didn't spend a long time with Uncle Golden Hair, it was at least a few months. But this Ke Lan, based on some clues from a corpse, actually deduced Uncle Golden Hair's most frequent unconscious actions on a daily basis... She would never think that there was any mystery hidden in the pendant, she would only think that it was a personal habit similar to touching the nose and biting nails.
What he said was absolutely right. Uncle Blonde had always had a quirk, which was to reach out and touch the pendant on his neck every few minutes. But if Ke Lan hadn't deliberately pointed this out, she would never have thought of it - because after getting used to it, Uncle Blonde's behavior of touching the pendant was too normal for her.
"Of course, based on this alone, I can't guarantee that there are any secrets hidden in this cross. After all, Mo Jue also said that the golden retriever is a Christian. As a symbol of faith, it is normal for him to often touch the cross pendant. But I have searched every corner of his clothes, even the interlayer of the fabric, but still found nothing. At this time, I naturally thought of this cross pendant." Ke Lan continued, "In fact, according to the normal search process, the inspection priority of this cross pendant is the same as other things. It's just that everyone's attention was attracted by the bones and the clothes on the bones. The cross pendant is too small, and it played a role as the identity proof of the bones in the first time, so we overlooked it."
"Don't talk about this anymore, take a quick look at what's on the note?" Thirty-three couldn't help but urge.
Ke Lan didn't dare to do it directly, for fear of damaging the already ripped note. He had to ask Ivan for a pair of tweezers and carefully picked up the note.
However, when he spread out the note with great expectation, he found that the pink note was just a corner torn from a coupon of a red-light shop, with a photo of a bunny girl wearing black fishnet stockings printed on it, but the part above the waist of the bunny girl had been torn off, leaving only two long legs that were obviously photoshopped, posing in an alluring pose.
"What the hell is this..." Ke Lan's eyes twitched involuntarily. He couldn't accept this result - hidden in this cross pendant, there was actually a damaged coupon for a sex shop? !
Moreover, judging from the emblem on the QR code, it belongs to the same ... Even if Golden Retriever had buried some clues in that brothel, they have now turned to ashes along with the old East 9th District.
This thing is obviously a secret code for contact similar to playing cards - the torn corner of the coupon is in the hand of the golden retriever, and the rest is in the hands of another contact person. When the two meet, they don't need to say a word. As long as they can piece the coupon together, their identities can be verified.
But the problem is, even if the contact person did not die in the Old East District 9 incident, where would Ke Lan find him?
What's more, he couldn't return to the Ark before figuring out the secret of the Gray Mist Forest - if he went back now, it would be difficult to get out next time.
"This thing should be a contact token, right?" Ivan's thoughts were exactly the same as Ke Lan's. "In many spy movies I've watched, when agents and informants contact each other, there is always a scene where a card torn in half or something is put together. This coupon should be the same."
Ivan sighed and said, "This may be a very important clue, but unfortunately it is useless to us at this stage."
Ke Lan read the corner of the coupon for the brothel over and over again. Apart from the explicit promotional copy, the bunny girl's long legs in black stockings, and the service items that only an experienced person could understand, the only information contained in this corner of the coupon was the QR code.
Ke Lan suddenly had an idea in her head - QR code?! Why would there be a QR code on a coupon for a sex shop?
Although brothels are officially recognized as trading places by Ark, they are still part of the gray industry. The QR code you scan in will definitely not be the official website of the brothel - no brothel dares to advertise so blatantly. Even in Kabukicho Ichibangai, most of the services that can be provided are only open to regular customers.
As for the payment code...have you ever seen a store print the payment code on a coupon?
This QR code can’t be a short video for customers to “preview”, right?
With the idea that it wouldn't cost anything to scan the code, Ke Lan took out his mobile phone. The words "Not in service area" were displayed in large letters on the screen. If the information contained in the QR code was a link address, then Ke Lan would be completely helpless against it. But if it was something else...
He pointed his phone camera at the QR code.
Ke Lan's phone was custom-made for him by Zofia. All its configurations were basically top-notch, and the speed of QR code recognition was extremely fast. As soon as Ke Lan moved the camera over, a photo popped up on the screen.
It was not a large-scale picture of beauties, nor a price list of various services, but a photo of an ochre-colored stone tablet engraved with strange words.
The moment Ivan saw these strange characters, he looked up at Ke Lan and said in a deep voice, "These are the characters of the Alpha civilization."
The second half of his sentence was obviously intended to ask Ke Lan what the words meant, but with Mo Jue as an outsider present, there were some things that the fewer people who knew about it the better.
Naturally, Ke Lan also subconsciously wanted to "read" these Alpha characters, but when he focused his attention on the Alpha characters on the stone tablet, he felt his head suddenly sink. In a trance, these characters seemed to float up from the picture and then hit his eyes heavily!
These words don’t have any specific meaning, but when they are connected together, they form another picture!
"Is this... the image-text conversion technology of the Alpha civilization? These words are actually a painting?!" Ke Lan was stunned. The things engraved on this stone tablet can actually be regarded as a QR code in essence.
"Russian dolls, right?"
He focused his attention on the picture that appeared in his mind, and soon, Ke Lan realized that this should be a map, and a map of the Gray Mist Forest!
This map is different from ordinary maps: ordinary maps directly draw the terrain and routes, making it easy to see at a glance; but this map is more like a dynamic compass... or in other words, a navigation software.
It will not present the entire picture of the forest to you, it will only tell you how to walk through the areas shrouded in gray fog.
When Ke Lan "looks" at this map, the map will instantly expand and wrap around his consciousness.
From Ke Lan's perspective, he felt as if he had turned into a disembodied ghost, moving quickly through the thick fog, with countless fog-dwelling tree trunks and supporting roots on both sides rapidly retreating... From time to time, the perspective would turn, and sometimes, it would even move horizontally or even retreat.
But no matter how the perspective changes, there is a voice in Ke Lan's subconscious mind telling him that he is moving forward, moving forward continuously, towards the core area of the Gray Mist Forest.
But just when Ke Lan thought he was about to reach the destination, the camera stopped abruptly - it was a map indeed, but it was not a complete map.
It can take Ke Lan to the depths of the Gray Mist Forest, but it cannot reach the core area directly.
"Did you see anything?" Ivan glanced at Mo Jue, then rephrased the question and asked carefully.
"It's a map." Ke Lan said without hesitation.
“Map?!” Mo Jue was the first to react. “What map? The map of the Gray… Gray Mist Forest?”
"Yes, but it's not complete." Ke Lan nodded, "It can only take us to a depth of 35 kilometers at most. We have to walk the remaining one-third of the way by ourselves."
"Thirty-five kilometers?!" Mo Jue was shocked. You know, their team spent several years and sacrificed more than twenty members to reach a depth of 500 meters. Now they have reached a depth of 35 kilometers. Isn't this span too exaggerated?
If my father and his friends had this thing at that time, how could they...
When Mo Jue thought of this, he suddenly came to his senses. He looked at the photo of the stone tablet with a puzzled look on his face, then looked at Ke Lan: "How did you know this was a map?"
"I can read the writing of Alpha civilization." Ke Lan said bluntly.
Anyway, this matter is not a secret to the Undead Crew, and Ke Lan is too lazy to hide it any longer.
Mo Jue was stunned for two seconds, then his whole body trembled violently, and whispered: "It seems... you have already made up your mind to silence me from the beginning, right?"
"I don't intend to silence you, just don't spread rumors when you go back." Ke Lan looked nonchalant, "Even if you really do this, the only people who will come to you are agents from the Security Bureau... As for what they will do, I don't know."
"Then...then is this thing really...a map?" Mo Jue changed the subject in a somewhat stiff tone, "But, my father and his people can't read the words of the Alpha civilization. How did they know that this is a map and preserve it?"
"Your father and his men may not know that this is a map, but they definitely know that this stone tablet has a very important connection with the Gray Mist Forest." Ivan said, "In fact, you can rest assured. If we wanted to silence you, you would be dead by now."
"Uh..." Mo Jue thought about it and realized that what the team doctor named Ivan said was not wrong at all: his furthest exploration depth was 500 meters, and he was able to reach that depth mainly because of his father and others... With his ability, it was already the limit for him to bring Ke Lan and others to a depth of 300 or 400 meters. And now, the other party has obtained a map of a depth of 35 kilometers, which means that he is no longer useful to them.
"Is there a safe route drawn on this map?" Thirty-three asked. "Given the strangeness of this forest, even if we follow the route on the map, we might still get separated. After all, a map can't protect us from those things."
The "those things" that Thirty-Three refers to are naturally the strange phenomenon that everyone "collectively forgot" when Denim disappeared.
"This is not an ordinary map. Rather than calling it a map, I prefer to call it a navigation map." Ke Lan shook her head. "I have just walked that road in my mind. As long as you follow my steps, you won't get lost."
After saying this, Ke Lan turned to look at Mo Jue and said, "Ms. Mo Jue, your mission has been completed. You can choose to return to the forest along the same route, or you can choose to stay and move forward with us."
"I..." Mo Jue hesitated for a moment, bit her lower lip hard, and finally said, "I will continue to go with you... I actually want to know what the 'secret' my father has been looking for is."
