Volume 15 Gray Fog Forest Chapter 750: The Corpse of "Uncle Hong"
Ke Lan walked up to the "Walker" mecha and used his hands to remove the hatch that had been deformed by countless vines.
A pale skeleton was lying in the cockpit, and a large amount of randomly growing wood fibers almost completely filled the small space in the cockpit.
Apparently, this driver was also "eaten" by Kirisimu.
Ke Lan used an engineering shovel to split the wood fibers and took out the pilot's personal belongings wrapped inside - an FMG submachine gun folded into a suitcase, an EDC emergency kit (Note: EDC: everyday carry, things carried with you every day, later extended to the meaning of "survival gadgets carried with you", the brothers in the survivalist bar should be very clear about it.) and a paper notebook.
Perhaps because he was thinking about the notebook of Mo Jue's father, Ke Lan felt inexplicably excited when he saw the notebook with a faux leather cover and the emblem of the Field Corps printed on the front.
He quickly flipped through the notebook, but the contents disappointed him greatly - the pilot of the "Walkers" stopped taking notes on the second day after entering the Gray Mist Forest, and the contents of the first day were so brief that they were less than two hundred words.
"This damn forest, this damn fog."
"Will this fog never clear up?"
"I'm lost again. How come I'm lost again?!"
" The walker that led the way has disappeared. How could such a big target disappear so quietly right under the noses of others? This is really weird!"
"The company wants to select another machine to serve as a pioneer. I don't want to be chosen. I think it's safer to stay on the flank of the formation."
On the first day of entering the Gray Mist Forest, the pilot's notes only contained these five paragraphs, and after that, nothing was written.
The FMG folding submachine gun that served as the pilot's self-defense weapon was still in a folded state, and the magazine was full of bullets, which meant that at least the pilot had not encountered a situation where he needed to get off the plane to fight.
However, Valentina discovered that the machine gun ammunition of this " Walkers " mecha had been completely used up, the rocket launcher was empty, the blade of the mecha combat dagger used for close combat was also full of gaps, and there were obvious claw marks and acid corrosion marks on the front, side and back armor. The two legs were not even original, but were removed from another body and replaced.
All this shows that this walker mecha has experienced a very fierce battle - but because this armored unit was originally chased into the Gray Mist Forest by indigenous creatures that were dozens of times larger than itself, it is difficult to judge whether the battle took place before or after entering the forest.
At least according to the pilot's notes, their entire unit had been fighting and fleeing before entering the forest, and no fighting occurred on the first day after entering the forest.
Then, Ke Lan opened the EDC emergency kit again. Most of the tools inside were still there, and there were two unopened energy bars that had melted into mud in the interlayer - at least from the pilot's personal perspective, he had not yet run out of ammunition and food.
As for the toxins in the fog, the cockpit of the walker mecha is a fully sealed structure. Under the dual protection of air filters and oxygen generators, a walker mecha can last for at least one month in a toxic environment... So, what was the cause of the pilot's death?
"There are still some unused energy crystals in the power reactor." Valentina said to Ke Lan, "The main body of the mecha is not damaged. Give me two hours and I can make it move again."
"That's strange... There was no shortage of ammunition or food, sufficient oxygen, the gun had never been used, and there were no shells in the cockpit, which rule out suicide... Then how did the pilot die? Could it be that the cockpit was secretly pried open by vines while he was sleeping and he was strangled to death? That doesn't make sense. People need to sleep, but machines don't. The energy of the walker mecha has not been exhausted. If the cockpit was pried open by external forces, the alarm would definitely be enough to wake up the sleeping pilot..." Ke Lan ruled out the possible ways of death of the pilot one by one, but in the end, he found that there was no possible explanation left - except for unreliable ways of death such as sudden illness, he could not find a reasonable explanation.
Ivan's autopsy also found no clues - there were no residual toxins or radiation in the bones, and like the Golden Retriever's body, the bones had multiple fractures, but it was impossible to determine whether the fractures occurred before or after death.
On the other side, Sanshisan and Mo Jue inspected the "Type 906" light tank together - from the model of the tank, it can be known that this is a light tank that was officially equipped in the army in the year 906 of the new era. It has been retired long ago. Except for a small number of them left in military museums and the warehouses of some powerful collectors, people born in Ke Lan's era can only see it in pictures and videos.
The tank had only two shells left, and almost all of its smoke bombs had been used up. The machine gun on top of the turret had disappeared, leaving only a severely twisted metal base.
Due to the use of a large number of automated and intelligent equipment, the standard crew of the Type 906 light tank only requires two people: a driver and a commander who also serves as a gunner. As for the machine gun on the roof, it is generally operated by infantrymen who cooperate in combat or ride in the tank.
But inside this Type 906 tank, Thirty-three actually discovered fifteen remains!
The uniforms on the remains can be used to identify the deceased. Except for the driver and the commander, the others were infantrymen of this unit. The remains of these people were huddled in the small and crowded carriage, tightly fitting together...
"It's stuffed like a can of sardines," Mo Jue said.
Ke Lan shook his head and said, "I think it's more like the black slaves stuffed into the cabin of a slave ship in the 15th century of the Old Era."
The space inside the Type 906 light tank is very small, with a height of only 1.4 meters. A tall person would bump their heads when sitting in it, and the area can only accommodate four to five people at most... The fifteen remains were stacked and crammed in, curled up, like books on a bookshelf...
"It's possible that these people were already dead when they were moved in." Ivan thought for a moment and said.
"This is the only possibility. They can't even move in this position. It won't be long before the people in the car die of suffocation. This tank should be used to store corpses." Ke Lan said, "But... there is a problem that I can't figure out."
"What's the problem?" Ivan looked at Ke Lan with a questioning look.
"According to the records in the Ark archives and the diary of this walker mecha pilot, this unit ran into the Gray Mist Forest when it was being chased and had no choice but to run. In that situation, the surviving soldiers had no time to collect the bodies of their fallen comrades. As for the seriously injured, they probably couldn't keep up with the large, high-speed moving force... Abandoning the remains of comrades and the seriously injured was excessive, but in order to allow more people to survive, the commander was forced to make such a decision." Ke Lan frowned.
"This... Is there any problem with this?" Mo Jue was a little unresponsive for a moment.
"This troop should not have brought any corpses or seriously injured soldiers with them when they entered the Gray Mist Forest. In other words, these people all died in the Gray Mist Forest." Ivan said solemnly - it was obvious that he had understood the implicit meaning of Ke Lan's words.
"What do you mean?" Mo Jue still didn't react.
"Your team lost so many people in the Gray Mist Forest. No matter whether these people are dead or alive now... but from the perspective of 'status definition', they are all 'missing', aren't they? Have you ever seen a companion die in your sight - I mean, in this forest." Seeing that Mo Jue still didn't understand, Ke Lan could only sigh and explain to her in detail.
“This…” Mo Jue was stunned for a moment, “It seems… it seems that there really isn’t one. Although we all say that this is a ‘man-eating forest’ and although corpses can be seen everywhere in this forest, but… it has never really shown its ‘fangs’ in front of us…”
"Could it be that after these soldiers disappeared or died, their bodies were discovered by the survivors and then buried?" Thirty-three said, "After all, this army has 1,500 people. With more people, the possibility of finding the bodies of the missing people will be much greater."
"It's more likely, but not that much." Ivan shook his head. "Considering the total area of the Gray Mist Forest, even 15,000 people, let alone 1,500, is just a drop in the ocean. 1,500 people, if lined up normally, wouldn't even fill up a football field... and judging from the bodies that have been found, they are obviously spread out very far apart. It would be reasonable to find one or two bodies... Fifteen, I think it's unlikely."
But before Ivan could perform autopsies on the fifteen remains one by one, Ze Luo suddenly came forward, pulled Ke Lan's sleeve, and said, "There is another body that you haven't found."
"There is another one... Do you mean that including the pilot of the walker, there is a seventeenth corpse here?" Ke Lan was slightly stunned and subconsciously cast his gaze towards the piles of bones moved out of the tank compartment - could it be that one of the corpses was broken up and mixed into the bones of other dead people?
Ivan at the side had the same idea as Ke Lan. He carefully counted the bones piled on the ground again, then shook his head: "There are fifteen bodies, for sure. I counted the skulls, pelvises, thigh bones and other bones with obvious features. There are fifteen of each type, no more."
"Under the car." Ze Luo said again.
"Under the car?" Ke Lan and Sanshisan looked at each other. The latter waved his hand and a dozen black flying blades turned into mini excavators, frantically digging up the soil that buried the tank chassis.
Fifteen minutes later, the seventeenth body of remains was picked up by Ivan from right under the tank, between the two tracks, along with a pile of severely rotten clothes and personal belongings.
However, after seeing the messenger bag whose straps were rotten and broken, Mo Jue let out a low cry of surprise.
"What's wrong? Could this corpse be someone you know?" Thirty-three asked.
"He... he is the one you are looking for... Uncle Hong." Mo Jue nodded stiffly. "I remember this shoulder bag very clearly. It was a birthday present his daughter bought for him. He once told me... because I have never given my father any present, this incident left a deep impression on me."
"Tsk, it's true that after searching for a long time, I finally found it without any effort..." Ke Lan asked Ivan to piece together the broken skull of "Uncle Hong" and then scanned his facial bones.
He had also scanned the golden retriever before. That man's original name was "Derrick Safin". He was a mercenary with no experience of regular military service. After his contract with the PMC expired, he quit the business and became an "unemployed vagrant."
However, from the Ark's entry and exit records every few months, it can be learned that he joined Mo Jue's father's "lumberjack" team at that time... But why this person became one of the core members who had the right to know the "secret", there was no clue from his personal file and resume.
As the red laser swept across the assembled facial bones, a face that looked majestic without even being angry appeared on the screen. Mo Jue, who was staring at the screen, nodded immediately: "Yes, this is Uncle Hong!"
"But the file shows that this person's name is Wu Feng... and, like Jinmao, he has no military service experience." Ke Lan muttered.
"Perhaps their service history has been erased?" Thirty-three said solemnly, "If they were a special forces team that performed a special mission, it would be normal for their information to be missing from the archives."
