Chapter 196: Earth Vein Passage

Inside the earth‑vein passage, the darkness was thick as ink.

But this ink breathes——dense plant roots on the walls emit a silver‑green glow, pulsing with some throb from deeper in the passage, light and dark alternating. The light is just enough to see the ground below: the roots woven into steps are not stairs but a downward‑spiraling slope, its surface bearing fine texture, and bare feet feel warmth upon it.

Three new life‑forms walked in front, their eyes the only light source now, silver‑green pupils tracing three clear paths in the darkness. Han Qing followed behind, the phantom of the plant stalk left on his chest tilting slightly forward, as if sensing direction.

Su Yu grasped his hand——this time not holding hands, but she placed her palm on the back of his hand, fingers spread, so he could feel the temperature and subtle motion of each of her fingers. "If you can't see," she whispered, "feel my hand. I'm still here."

The passage began to narrow.

From three abreast at the start, to two, then only single file could pass. The team stretched into a thin line of light, extending downward in the spiral. Old Zhao walked behind Han Qing, his breathing heavy but regular——this tough guy was suppressing his fear of confined spaces by controlling his breath.

"How long has it been?" Aili's voice came from the middle of the line.

"Seventeen minutes." Kaiwen replied, his lenses reflecting the roots' light, "Depth estimate……already below sea level. We're heading toward the Pacific floor."

Suddenly, the three new life‑forms cried out in unison from ahead: "Stop!"

Everyone froze.

Three meters ahead in the passage, the root‑step staircase ended.

Not a collapse, but an intentional break——the gap was clean, below it pitch‑black darkness with no bottom. Five meters beyond the gap on the far side, the staircase resumed. In between, only a few isolated glowing roots spanned the void, thin as spider silk.

"How do we cross?" Old Zhao lowered his voice.

The first new life‑form reached out and touched the spanning roots. The roots thickened under his fingertips, their surface sprouting fine points of light like a code. "They say……" he turned, his silver‑green eyes especially bright in the dark, "'Trust the path remembered by the root network.'"

"Speak plainly." Old Zhao said.

"Walk with eyes closed." The second life‑form explained, "The root system will adjust its strength and position automatically according to your weight and stride. But you must not look——looking breeds doubt, doubt breeds hesitation, hesitation leads to……"

"…you'll fall." The third interjected.

Han Qing walked to the edge of the gap. The rainbow‑string shadow in his left eye swiftly analyzed: the roots' material is a composite of plant fiber and stardust, theoretically strong enough to bear weight, but unevenly distributed, requiring precise footfalls. Walking with eyes closed meant abandoning all data support, relying purely on……

"Trust." Su Yu said, already with her eyes closed, "Trust that these roots have not forgotten, for three thousand years, how to uphold life."

She was the first to step onto it.

The moment her bare foot touched the finest root, it suddenly thickened and split, weaving a small stable platform beneath her. She continued with her second step, and new roots reached out of the darkness to catch her foot.

One step, two steps, three steps.

She seemed to walk on an invisible bridge, while the bridge generated itself in real time under her feet. Over the five‑meter span she took twelve steps, each as steady as stepping on solid ground.

Having reached the far side, she turned and said, "Next."

Xiao Yu was second. The child closed her eyes, quietly counting paper stars in her mouth: "One, two, three…" She moved faster than Su Yu, almost at a run——the less she hesitated, the quicker the root network responded.

When it was Han Qing's turn, he stood at the edge of the gap without immediately closing his eyes.

He lowered his gaze to his chest. The phantom plant stalk there swayed gently, pointing toward the opposite side—not a visual cue, but some deeper pull. He suddenly recalled a line from Chen Mo's notebook: "Some paths are not walked with the feet."

He closed his left eye (Se Lan's analytical eye), leaving only his right eye (the human eye) open, then closed that too, plunging himself completely into darkness.

There was light in the darkness.

Not visual light, but a sensed light——he could "feel" the pathways of the roots, could "feel" the memories of countless lives they carried, could "feel" the warmth radiating from Su Yu's outstretched hand across the gap.

He took his first step.

The roots steadfastly supported him.

Midway through the team's advance, a sudden change occurred.

Old Zhou's mechanical prosthetic suddenly emitted a sharp buzz—not a malfunction, but resonance. The crystal lattice across its surface lit up, shining ten times brighter than normal, casting dazzling, multicolored refracted light across the passage walls.

"What's happening?" Aili immediately stepped closer.

Old Zhou himself, however, had his eyes closed, his calm expression tinged with surprise: "It's……singing. No, it's the memories inside it singing. The fragments of silicon‑based civilization's memory are resonating with something in the passage."

Before his words finished, the roots on the passage walls suddenly changed their glow pattern.

The formerly uniform silver‑green fluorescence began to differentiate: the roots near Old Zhou's left side turned crystal‑like transparent, with intricate geometric light paths glowing within; those on the right grew greener, like spring sprouts.

The two lights converged before Old Zhou, weaving a luminous archway.

Beyond the arch, the passage visibly widened, the root‑step staircase grew gentler, and even a handrail appeared—formed naturally by glowing vines entwining.

"It knows you." Xiao Yu's wrist‑light print analyzed, "Or rather, it recognizes the silicon‑based civilization memory stored in your prosthetic. This passage……is adjusting itself to the traveler."

The three new life‑forms simultaneously reached out to touch the arch. Their silver‑green eyes reflected a more complex scene:

"Not just silicon‑based civilization."

"Also vortex‑civilization, gas‑civilization……"

"Every civilization has left its mark here."

The geometric flower in the lone woman's eye socket suddenly blossomed, its projected geometric light‑shadow perfectly matching the crystal roots on the wall. The old reservoir‑keeper's mist drifted out on its own, merging with a more humid section of the passage, and within the mist drifted the ancient melody of the gas‑based civilization.

This passage is not merely a conveyance.

It is a test——testing whether travelers carry "civilization memory," testing whether they are worthy to proceed to the Aeo Ship.

Old Zhao looked at his empty hands and gave a wry smile: "I'm not carrying anything at all."

Before his words faded, the dog tag he clenched suddenly heated up. A faint silver pattern appeared on its metal surface——the backup imprint the plant network had left on the tag when Han Qing earlier stripped away his memory.

The passage responded instantly: a stretch of root extended beneath his foot, weaving a small special platform whose surface displayed the vascular map of Earth plants—oak, dandelion, bamboo……all species common before the disaster.

"You brought Earth." Xiao Yu whispered, "The most primal civilization memory."

Past the arch, the passage widened enough for two to walk side by side. But the darkness grew denser—the roots' glow dimmed, as if conserving energy, or……preparing for some greater blossoming.

In the darkness, a stone suddenly whispered, "Older sister Xiao Yu, how deep underground are we now?"

"Very deep." Xiao Yu said, "Deeper than a mine."

"Then……can we still see the stars?"

That question left the team silent for a moment. Asking about stars from deep underground is like asking about a distant, nearly impossible dream.

But Xiao Yu thought, then said, "Yes."

She raised her wrist; the faint light‑print glowed, projecting a tiny star map—not the real star chart, but the sky from her memory: a summer night before the disaster when she and her parents lay on the grass counting stars, her father saying, "Every star is a story."

The star map from the light‑print drifted in the darkness, tiny but clear.

Shitou stared at it for a while, then pulled out the sunflower "Little Sun" from his bosom. The child lifted the flower pot, letting the faint light fall on the sunflower's face: "Little Sun, look, the stars."

The sunflower's leaves swayed gently.

Then, something even more unexpected happened: the roots on the passage wall began to imitate that starry sky.

At first there were just a few points of light, then more and more; the fluorescence on the roots differentiated into different colors and brightness, piecing together the outlines of constellations on the wall—the Big Dipper, Orion, Cygnus...

Although it wasn't the real starry sky, the posture of "creating light in darkness" was more moving than the starry sky itself.

Han Qing watched the roots on the wall simulating the starry sky, and his chest suddenly ached.

It wasn't the wound hurting; it was the emptiness of memory that ached—he should remember a certain starry sky, should remember a certain person related to the stars, but the concrete image was gone, leaving only the feeling "I should remember" itself.

Su Yu felt his trembling. She didn't speak, just gripped his hand tighter.

"Do you know," she said softly, her voice only passing between the two of them, "Chen Mo once said that sometimes forgetting is not a bad thing. Forgetting the past allows one to see the present more clearly."

She pointed to the glowing roots on the wall: "For example, these stars are the stars of now. They belong only to this moment, only to this place."

Han Qing looked at those points of light. They were indeed unrelated to memory, only to the present: related to the children's posture of looking up, related to Shitou's arm holding the sunflower, related to the pulse of the light mark on Xiao Yu's wrist.

He suddenly felt that these underground, artificial, temporary stars might be more precious than the real starry sky.

Because it is being created, not recalled.

After the team had marched for forty minutes, the first anomaly appeared.

The three new life forms suddenly stopped at the same time, the light in their cyan-green eyes becoming chaotic. "The root system is... trembling," the first one said.

"Not a physical tremor," the second added.

"It's a memory tremor." The third turned to Han Qing, "Something has awakened deep in the passage. Not the Aeolus Ship, but something else. Older, more... confused."

As soon as his words fell, the entire passage shook violently.

It wasn't an earthquake, but a resonance of some frequency—coming from deep below, like a giant's heartbeat. The roots' light all turned warning dark red, the walls began to seep, not seawater, but some viscous, glowing liquid.

Kaiwen's monitoring equipment failed, the screen showing only snow: "Frequency interference too strong! We're passing through some... high-energy field!"

Aili had already opened the medical kit: "Everyone, grab the wall! Old Zhou, can your prosthetic hold?"

Old Zhou inserted his mechanical hand into a root gap, the prosthetic locking automatically: "It can hold for three minutes!"

The shaking grew stronger. The passage began to deform—the woven root structure was reorganizing, the walls squeezing inward, the ceiling lowering. They were being sent to a preset location, not moving forward freely.

Han Qing's left-eye rainbow string shadow frantically calculated: "The passage is contracting! Target diameter... only enough for one person to pass! It's screening!"

"What is it screening?" Su Yu shouted.

"Screening 'qualification'!" Han Qing looked at the team, "Only... might be able to reach the Aeolus Ship."

He didn't finish, but everyone understood. Chen Mo's message required three keys: Bearer, Tuner, Bridge. Others might just be running alongside.

When the passage contracted to its limit, three forks appeared ahead.

Each fork was shrouded in a different-colored light curtain: left silver-white (Selan), middle seven-colored (Tuner), right gold-yellow (Bearer).

And the other roots began to gently but firmly push Lao Zhao, Aili, Kaiwen, the one-eyed woman, the reservoir old man, the children... all "non-key" personnel backward—pushing them toward an upward passage that clearly led back to the surface.

"No!" Lao Zhao clung tightly to a root, "I'm not leaving!"

The roots lightly wrapped around his wrist, the cyan-green light softening, as if comforting. A line of words appeared in the light, which Xiao Yu translated aloud:

"Your mission is on the ground."

"Protect the homeland, await return."

"This is not abandonment, but division of labor."

Lao Zhao's eyes reddened. This tough man gritted his teeth and finally let go.

Aili stuffed the medical kit into Su Yu's hands: "Inside are three doses of strong stabilizer. If... if we need to fight desperately, use it."

Kaiwen pushed up his glasses and handed Han Qing a small data storage unit: "All research data, including the weakness analysis of the Selan Fleet."

The one-eyed woman said nothing, merely plucking the nest-building bird feather from her neck and pinning it on Su Yu's collar.

The reservoir old man patted Han Qing's shoulder: "Tell my son... the ship is still there."

The three new life forms stood at the fork, having chosen none of the paths. They held hands, facing the passage's depths: "We're going to meet that 'awakened thing'. It sounds... lonely."

The passage split completely.

Han Qing, Su Yu, and Xiao Yu walked toward their respective light curtains.

Lao Zhao and the others were lifted by the roots upward, soon disappearing into the darkness.

Parting came without farewell, for everyone knew—the battle on the surface was equally important, and they would meet again.

If we can still meet again.

The three stopped before the light curtain.

Silver-white, seven-colored, gold-yellow—the three-colored light flowed in the narrow space, like three differently colored rivers converging here. Beyond the light curtain, the passage could be faintly seen continuing onward, but the road was clearly different:

The silver-white road was a precise geometric staircase, each step flashing with Selan script.

The seven-colored road was a rotating light spiral, like the manifestation of frequency when the Tuner resonates.

The gold-yellow road was the simplest, just an ordinary root staircase, but each root was inlaid with a glowing seed—a micro-projection of the Three-Thousand Civilization Seeds.

Xiao Yu looked at Han Qing: "Chen Mo said we need to do three things in order. The first..."

Han Qing pressed his chest. There, the plant phantom had fully merged into his body, leaving only a tiny deep-purple leaf-bud imprint. "The first thing is to ask me if I remember that wildflower." He closed his eyes, recalling that faint image: rust, chemical smell, purple in the crack, "I remember the feeling. Although I don't recall the details, that feeling... remains."

As his words fell, the leaf-bud imprint on his chest suddenly glowed.

It was not silver-white, not seven-colored, not gold-yellow.

It was pure, deep purple.

That purple light was like a key, simultaneously activating the three light curtains. The curtains began to merge—silver-white, seven-colored, gold-yellow combining into a rotating stream of indescribable color, within which the outline of a door appeared.

The door was wooden, but its grain flowed with starlight.

The door had no lock, only three recesses: one heart-shaped (Bearer), one seven-pointed star (Tuner), one string-shaped (Bridge).

Xiao Yu, Su Yu, and Han Qing reached out simultaneously.

Just as the fingertip was about to touch the depression, three overlapping, terrified cries of new life forms came from deep within the passage:

Run!

It woke up!

It's not Aeon—

The sound cut off abruptly.

Immediately after, an indescribable, ancient aura that froze the soul surged from the deepest part of the passage.

The door automatically opened a crack.

What seeped out of the crack was not light, but… a gaze.

Countdown: 10 hours.

Han Qing grabbed Xiao Yu and Su Yu's hands, and the three rushed into the door together.

The door slammed shut behind them.

It cut off the aura, and also cut off the retreat.