Chapter 1432: Chapter 4: Countdown_3

The intense geological activity of the super disaster pierced directly through the entire research facility, causing compression and deformation.

This shiny silver door remained intact, but a large hole had formed in the nearby wall. The so-called eerie crying was actually mechanical alarm sounds, all coming from the other side of the hole.

“Let’s go in and take a look.”

The bearded man pointed at the flickering red and green lights in the cave:

“Since it’s been confirmed as mechanical sounds, there’s nothing to fear.”

“Mm-hmm.”

CC had long accepted the reality, packed the wild fruits into their pocket, and followed Lin Xian into the abandoned machine room.

Only to see…

Everything in the machine room was sparkling.

All the machines here seemed to be made of the same durable material as that shiny silver door, remaining as new as they were a hundred years ago, without a single scratch.

It was precisely because of this durability that these machines could endure the long passage of time and continue to operate.

“Is this… a timer?”

The man looked around, finding the walls covered with constantly flickering red and green letters. Upon closer inspection, there were English labels for days, hours, minutes, and seconds.

The numbers were too complex, so the man decided to look elsewhere first.

He walked to the center of the room.

There, he found a solid sealed sphere. It sounded very sturdy when tapped, and due to its opacity, nothing inside could be seen.

However, beneath the large sphere, numerous arm-thick cables connected it to the monitors on the surrounding walls, resembling a large octopus stretching its limbs.

The man lowered his head and counted: a total of 22 cables.

“20…21…22.”

At the same time, CC also counted all the monitors on the wall:

“VV, there are 22 monitors on the wall here, each displaying a series of continuously changing numbers. Among them, 21 numbers are green, and only one number is red.”

The man looked up, staring at the vast sea of dazzling green numbers.

Indeed, these 21 rows of green numbers are timers. Although each number has a slight time difference, the difference isn’t significant, all rising uniformly.

For example, the time on the monitor labeled 1 shows:

days 07 hours 32 minutes 41 seconds.

Blink, and it changes to 40932 days 07 hours 32 minutes 42 seconds.

The monitor labeled 2 is slightly slower than monitor 1 by about a dozen minutes, displaying:

days 07 hours 16 minutes 11 seconds.

Although slower, it still continuously climbs second by second.

The man did some mental math:

“It’s currently the year 2616; over 40,000 days is about 112 years. In other words, these timers started working in…”

“2504.”

The man squinted his eyes:

“How so coincidental? They started timing from the year of the super disaster. Does it have any special significance?”

“That’s not right, VV.”

CC spun around in place, looking at the chaos of timers without any apparent pattern, and posed a question:

“If the start of timing was from the great disaster, shouldn’t all timers be synchronized? But see, each of these green timers shows different times, and the differences are irregular.”

“What is even more inexplicable is…[why are these 21 green timers increasing, while only this red timer counts down?]”

The man and CC looked up.

They both turned their gaze to the sole red timer on the right-hand side.

Indeed.

The red timer is distinctively different from the green timers in that its numbers are significantly smaller and descending like a countdown–

[2925 days 11 hours 54 minutes 33 seconds]

[2925 days 11 hours 54 minutes 32 seconds]

[2925 days 11 hours 54 minutes 31 seconds]

…

The red numbers pulse like a heartbeat, reducing by the second.

And it was from this display’s speaker that the continuous beeping alarm sounded.

This was the culprit of the eerie cries.

Truly baffling.

Why.

Among the 22 timers, is only this one counting down?

The cold red light inexplicably added a sense of tension and urgency.

The man stroked his beard, sensing something eerie.

“If the countdown started from the 2504 super disaster, then the countdown… could it be counting down to some future date?”

“Then, CC, we can calculate using the date shown on the electronic clock today and see what year and day the red countdown ends.”

With that, the man picked up a piece of paper from the ground, which instantly disintegrated, rendering it unusable.

Unable to, he picked up a sharp stone shard to perform calculations on the wall.

Fortunately.

Amnesia hadn’t taken away basic skills, and addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division were still clear in his mind.

As calculation steps proceeded line by line further down, the final results emerged in due course.

Tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping.

The man finished the last stroke, stepped back two paces, and looked at the final answer calculated on the wall:

“The date when the red countdown reaches zero is precisely–”

“[August 29, 2624, 00:42:00!]”