The fleet of
SUVs drove on the rugged, mountainous paths on the border of southwest China
for over seven hours.
At around 1 PM,
they finally arrived at the suburb of a small city.
Nobody stopped,
they merely turned onto the highway and roared on.
Another three
more hours on the road and one could finally see the high rises in Sang Shing
through the car windows.
By now, the sun
was about to rise.
Anne was the
one who drove the SUV that Lin Shuo was riding in. Normally, a girl driving for
12 hours straight could be fairly dangerous.
But this girl
chatted with the starling the entire trip and showed no signs of being tired.
It was Lin Shuo
who found the woman and the bird being too noisy through the entire trip.
The SUV fleet
finally arrived at their destination -- the five-star Four Season hotel in Chun
Ning, Seng Shing. They stopped for food.
Chun Ning was
known to be spring like year round. The city did a great job in turning itself
into a green city.
Lin Shuo let
the starling went to seek his own food in the forest nearby and placed the
ebony box neatly into the guest room before heading to the buffet restaurant
inside the Four Season with Anne, Wei Xingshan and the rest of the crew.
The
200-something square meter fine dining restaurant barely have anyone inside at
this hour of the day. It seemed quite empty.
Their group of
a dozen or so individuals, especially Wei Xingshan and his team of soldiers
marched into the restaurant. The ten or so of them were in sync whether they
were walking, looking for seats, or sitting down. The few patrons in the
restaurant all turned their heads to look at them.
Lin Shou picked a table that was slightly secluded and Anne
waived for Liu Qing and the two women sat down with Lin Shuo. Lin Shuo invited
Wei Xingshan to join them as well, but he gave Lin Shuo a look and declined his
invitation.
After they have gathered their food and in the middle of
dining and eating, two more walked inside the buffet restaurant.
Both of them were bespectacled. The older one of them looked
to be about 60 years or so year old, cladded in traditional Chinese silk
garment (tangzhuang).
His hair was all silver but he was still quick on his feet. One could feel the
wind brought up when he walked.
Following behind him was a man in his thirties looking very
refined in his white buttoned down shirt.
The two of them picked up a plate and picked their own food
before they looked around and finally headed toward Lin Shou’s table.
Anne and Liu Qing stood up when they saw the two men.
“Let me introduce them,” said Anne. “This is professor He
Zihong, the top researcher of Global Lifeform Research Organization. And this
one is his student, a young biologist from our country, Dr. Yang Ta.
“Professor He, Dr. Yang, this is Mr. Lin Shou, the team lead
of our project.”
“I’ve have long heard about you, Mr. Lin!” Old man He Zihong
passionately stretched out his hand, “I never imagined Mr. Lin to be so young!”
Lin Shuo paused for a second then stood up and shook hands
with He Zihong.
After some pleasantries, everybody finally settled down in
their seats. Lin Shuo looked at Anne inquisitively.
Anne immediately explained with a smile, “I’m just a
half-assed research student and don’t measure up to the knowledge of these two
experts. So they will be the subject matter expert for the trip to
Heilongjiang. They have been waiting to join up with you here.”
“You mean Professor He and Dr. Yang will be coming with us
to Heilongjian?” Lin Shuo frowned and looked at the two scholars.
“Well, of course!” Professor He Zihong beamed and said
loudly. Then looked around at their surrounding and lowered his voice, “From
the specimen we have obtained from the scale, we have just completed our
preliminary research on the creature at Heilongjiang. Oh my God! This is truly
a miracle in biology! Xiao Yang, why don’t you explain!”
The refined Yang Ta pushed up his spectacles and beaming
with excitement, started with a low voice, “From the size of the scale, we
gathered that it’s size is unmatched on earth.
It weight is around the currently largest creature on earth,
around 100 ton. But it lives in the ocean, the buoyancy of the water can
protect and support it’s weight.
On the other hand, the creature we are talking about now is
terrestrial.
This was almost impossible in the biological sense. With
this kind of weight, what kind of biological structure and strength of the body
does it have to handle gravity?
This is our first question.
Second, the hardness of it reached 9.5 on the Moh’s scale,
almost that of diamonds. We are talking about hardness of ore and have never
been observed on any living organisms.
Third, from our analysis, we were able to find out that it’s
shares 97% of its genome with the Titanoboa, a giant snake that lived during
the Middle to Late Paleocene epoch. Yet even the Titanoboa did not reach this
size.
On top of that, we have also discovered that this creature
has been alive for over 1,000 years.”
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