Huo Shaoheng’s face gradually became stern as he recalled Gu Xiangwen’s every move and expression in his dream.
He rushed out of his cabin and ran all the way to the surveillance room.
The dark blue sea outside the cabin rippled with the wind. The moon and stars reflected in the sea were shattered by the waves and scattered in the depths of the sea like pearls.
With a bang, Huo Shaoheng pushed open the door of the surveillance room and finally stopped.
He calmed his breathing and stood at the door.
The people in the surveillance room were shocked and turned to look in the direction of the door.
At this time, it was Song Jinning’s turn to operate the mechanical arm with the experts. Zhao Liangze was still there to accompany them.
Upon seeing Huo Shaoheng suddenly barge in, Zhao Liangze hurried over and said, “Major General Huo, you’ve only slept for a little more than three hours. Aren’t you going to sleep some more?”
Huo Shaoheng shook his head and said as calmly as he could, “I’m not going to sleep anymore. You can go sleep. I’ll watch over here.”
Zhao Liangze quickly said, “I’m not sleepy either. Major General Huo, you came just in time. We were about to capture the submarine!”
Huo Shaoheng looked at his watch. It had been eleven hours since they had started to salvage the submarine.
“They’ve already begun to capture it? “Huo Shaoheng walked over and stood behind the expert as he looked at the display screen of the robotic arm. “Have they detected the situation around the submarine?”
Song Jinning stood beside him and nodded. “We’ve already detected it. There are no abnormal metal objects. Moreover, the trench here is so deep. Currently, no country has the technical means to plant explosives on the seabed here.”
Huo Shaoheng slowly let out a sigh of relief as he looked at the robotic arm on the display. It was like a large steel hand that was moving in and out of the seawater while causing the seawater to gradually turn turbid.
The coral was cut in half and scattered on the seabed. The red starfish didn’t move at all, and drifted away with the rocks that had been knocked over.
The violet-blue electric eels hid far away. Only a few ugly monk-fish remained motionless in the water. There was a fin sticking out from the top of their heads, and the tip of the fin was shining like a light bulb.
The box-like jellyfish were faintly discernible under the flickering lights of the monk-fish, and its long tentacles fluttered about in the seawater.
The scenery was dreamlike.
Huo Shaoheng stared at the mechanical arm and saw that it had finally completed its positioning. The five mechanical fingers at the bottom opened with a whoosh, and brought waves with them.
Amidst the rolling waves, the five mechanical fingers suddenly closed, and firmly held onto the upper half of the submarine on the seabed.
Then, five shiny steel thorns extended from the tips of the five mechanical fingers!
These were steel thorns made of the strongest hard alloy. They could instantly penetrate the concrete shell of the submarine and pierce into the interior of the submarine to fix it, making it easy to salvage.
Moreover, the middle of these five steel thorns was hollow. They could also sample the air inside the submarine.
Under everyone’s nervous gaze, these five steel thorns pierced into the submarine’s shell from different angles.
Tss — !
A series of ear-piercing noises came from the monitor.
The ear-piercing noise was a hundred times worse than the sound of a steel file grinding a steel saw.
The faces of those with a lower tolerance threshold had lost their color and were as white as a sheet.
But fortunately, it didn’t take long.
Not long after, the ear-piercing sound of the drill disappeared. The five steel thorns slowly pierced through the submarine’s hull and held it firmly in place.
“Lift ready.”
“Power unit ready.”
“Rope group ready.”
..
Following a series of commands, the preparation to lift the submarine upward was ready.
At the same time, the steel thorns that drilled into the submarine had already sent the air sample from the submarine up.
Song Jinning quickly took over this analysis.
She transferred the air sample from the steel thorns into the instrument. Before she could start a full analysis, she heard a beep from her analysis instrument. The analysis was already completed.
It took less than a second.
Song Jinning’s expression instantly turned worse than her expression when she heard the sound of the steel spike drill.
Since the analysis result came out in such a short time, if it wasn’t because her instrument was exceptionally effective, then there was only one reason. The air composition in the submarine was very simple, so simple that the analysis instrument could perform at the fastest theoretical analysis speed.
In other words, there was only one effective component in the air in the submarine.
No matter what the conditions were, if there was only one ingredient in the air in an enclosed space, it meant that the space was a “dead space”.
Her hand trembled as she pressed on the air analyzer. A large chemical formula appeared on it — N2.
N2, nitrogen.
This submarine was filled with nitrogen!
It was so dense that other components could basically be ignored.
Song Jinning rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. She removed the air sample from the first steel spike, emptied the analyzer, and began to measure the air sample from the second steel spike.
It was almost exactly the same as before. The air sample on the air analyzer was also N2!
Then the third, fourth, and fifth!
It was all N2 — nitrogen.
At this point, Song Jinning could no longer convince herself otherwise.
She turned to look at the equipment specialists who were still monitoring and said in a low voice,”… the submarine is full of nitrogen. There is no other component.”
“Nitrogen?! Are you sure? It’s all nitrogen?!”
The equipment specialists were stunned.
What kind of situation was that?
Where did the nitrogen come from?
And how did it get into the submarine?
If the oxygen inside the submarine was thin, they could completely understand.
However, not only was there no oxygen, there was also no carbon dioxide. Instead, it was filled with pure nitrogen, which was very strange.
They could conclude that the pure nitrogen inside the submarine definitely didn’t get into there naturally. It was definitely man-made.
Although Huo Shaoheng had been mentally prepared, his heart still sank when he heard Song Jinning confirm his guess. It was a sense of having high hopes crushed like jumping from a parachute.
“… There’s definitely… no one alive in there.” An expert snapped back to reality and sighed.
They had hoped that there might be someone alive in there so that they could have a good conversation with them.
Unfortunately, their last hope had been crushed.
Huo Shaoheng felt sour and bitter, and his eyes instantly turned red.
Zhao Liangze looked at him worriedly and patted him on the back as if to comfort him. He said in a low voice,”… I’m sorry for your loss.”
Huo Shaoheng raised his head with difficulty and swallowed the tears that were about to flow down his face. His voice sounded especially deep and grave, “It’s okay, continue.”
The experts looked at each other, but none of them were gossipy people. They quickly looked away and focused on their work.
Song Jinning shook her head regretfully. She turned to look at Huo Shaoheng and whispered,”… What are you going to tell Nianzhi?”
Huo Shaoheng’s face was as calm as tranquil water. He walked to the window of the surveillance room with his hands behind his back and stood still. He looked out at the vast night sky. After a while, he said, “We’ll talk about it after the submarine is salvaged.”
Perhaps there was no one inside?
Or perhaps there was no Gu Xiangwen inside?
He wouldn’t give up hope until the very last moment.
Song Jinning knew that Huo Shaoheng was just being cautious out of habit.
However, the result had already come out. Whether he admitted it or not, it would still be there.
She turned to look at the analyzer and suddenly said, “Since the steel spikes on the mechanical arm are hollow, can you put down the pinhole camera and take a picture of the situation inside the submarine?”
“I don’t think so. Although the pinhole camera is known as the ‘pinhole’, it refers to the aperture of the camera. Compared to the steel needle of the mechanical arm, the real size of the pinhole camera is still too big.” An equipment expert rejected Song Jinning’s proposal.
Otherwise, they would have installed the camera directly on the five-finger steel needle of the mechanical arm.
However, Zhao Liangze’s heart skipped a beat and he quickly said, “I have a specially made pinhole camera. It’s different from other pinhole cameras. It’s very small. Maybe I can give it a try.”
That was a special equipment that the Special Operations Forces provided to field personnel. It was many times stronger than the “pinhole camera” that was the size of dollar coins on the market.
Zhao Liangze’s “pinhole camera” was not only a literally pinhole camera, but it was also equipped with an AI system. It had a simple self-recognition function.
In other words, it was a “smart pinhole camera”, or in other words, it was a small robot that liked to act as a peeping tom.
