We walked over and saw a bowl-shaped, downward concave area in front of the fat man, as if the ground had been smashed out by a giant lead ball. He had already torn away the mud covering this roughly ten-meter by ten-meter depression, revealing the patterns underneath, which were arranged like a bowl.

Of course, the fat man hadn’t cleaned it up completely; there were still many areas covered in mud. However, we could already tell that the patterns on this disc were different from those in other places. We squatted down to take a look with the fat man. I quickly noticed that some of these shapes were actually the same as those I had seen in the German’s notes before.

“Turtle shell,” the fat man glanced at me and asked, “Is the notebook still with you?”

I took it out and compared it with the patterns, finding that although they weren’t exactly the same, their arrangement and meaning should be completely identical.

“What does it mean?”

“This is a mural, carved on bronze,” the fat man said, “It should tell the story of the origin of this bronze cave.”

“Can you understand it?”

“Guessing is the best we can do; no one dares to claim they can fully understand these things,” the fat man replied. “Look, all the reliefs on this ring; we need to find the first relief to interpret it from there.”

So we cleaned all the black mud from the disc and lit one of the last three cold fireworks, starting to search for the source of all the reliefs. In fact, there was no need to look far; the source was the center of this disc.

The fat man shone his flashlight, and we saw that the center of the disc was a strange round ball, covered with numerous holes.

“Is this a wasp nest?” Zhang Haixing asked.

“No,” I replied. I glanced at the fat man, and he looked back at me; we both knew what this was.

“This is a meteorite,” I said, “We’ve seen it before, deep beneath the mountain, in the underground of the ancient city of Xiwangmu.”

Following the center, we began to look for the direction of the reliefs. This was my strong suit; I was best at discerning the sequence of images. Although the blade and brushwork were different, human consciousness was the same. As long as these reliefs were sculpted by humans, I wouldn’t be too far off.

I quickly found the second pattern, which was depicted in the German’s notebook. I instantly understood what it meant. This was not a turtle shell; it was a scene of a meteorite falling. A person stood on the ground, watching a massive meteorite split into several pieces in the sky, transforming into fireballs of varying sizes.

I looked around and suddenly realized how this enormous bronze cave was constructed. The fat man also thought of it; he looked at me and said, “You’re absolutely right. This thing was formed in outer space; it’s a metallic meteorite.”

“This is a bubble—a hollow meteorite bubble that crashed into the mountain long ago, solidifying here. After being discovered, someone broke through the outer shell of this meteorite and carved these things inside,” I explained.

So, these enormous bronze structures embedded deep within the strata were all fragments of that colossal meteorite.

I recalled the bronze giant gate within the underground rock layers of Changbai Mountain, the meteorite beneath the ancient city of Xiwangmu, the bronze ancient trees at the foot of the Qinling Mountains, and this bronze cave at the foot of the Himalayas. I touched the metal beneath me and thought, how could there possibly be a bronze meteorite? Is this really bronze?

Based on all the signs we’ve discovered along the way, this meteorite must have swept across most of China, even one-ninth of the Earth, entering the atmosphere from the eastern side of China, then breaking apart and crashing into the depths of the crust in several pieces.

Of course, it could also be the complete opposite, entering from the west. In that case, there might even be parts we haven’t discovered that crashed into the sea.

I looked at the pattern; if this pattern is absolutely precise, then the mother meteorite that crashed in from the east should be the one beneath Changbai Mountain. According to the comparison in the painting, that meteorite is N times larger than the one we are currently examining. If it is hollow inside, it must be at least several square kilometers in size.

I lowered my head to look at the relief, all my nerves tensed up, and I could feel the cold sweat starting to bead on my forehead. Judging by how deeply these meteorites have embedded into the rock layers, they are completely and deeply embedded in the rock, which means that when they impacted the layers, it must have been a very long time ago, and their impact even melted the rock, allowing them to embed into it.

Then, I recalled all the delicate patterns on these meteorites; all of them, except for the one beneath the ancient city of Xiwangmu, have intricate designs. How did ancient people discover meteorites that might have embedded into the rock layers billions of years ago? Clearly, these ancient people even tracked the trajectory of the mother meteorite and found several of its fragments.

This would have been completely impossible for ancient people; they wouldn’t even know of these meteorites’ existence—after all, they are buried so deep in the rock layers.

“Don’t get too tangled up in it,” the fat man said after hearing my analysis. “Look at this picture; it depicts houses collapsing, the ground cracking, mountains splitting in half, and this meteorite is within the rock layers, which obviously indicates that the rock layers are very unstable.”

“Why? Can the rocks in the layers shake?”

“I don’t know, but don’t you think this drawing resembles some phenomena on Earth?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like plant seeds germinating,” the fat man said.

His words sent a chill down my spine, but then I shook my head: “Impossible. Are you saying these meteorites are some kind of seeds that can germinate?”

“I just think it looks similar,” the fat man replied. “But the meaning of this relief is very clear: either this rock will cause an earthquake, or after the earthquake, the mountain will collapse, and this meteorite will be exposed. Didn’t you study this? What’s the significance?”

I thought for a moment and suddenly understood the principle: “Almond cake.”

“What? Cake? Now that you mention it, I’m hungry. But where am I supposed to find a cake for you?”

“Not really. I mean, if there’s a cake with a lot of almonds and you break it open, there will always be a few almonds at the fracture. You can’t break it open and find both sides are just cake, with the almonds all wrapped inside. The same goes for hard materials; if there’s a bubble in steel, the fracture will definitely be at the spot where the bubble is, because an impurity has altered the stability of the entire material.”
“So you’re saying…”
“As long as there’s an earthquake, the rock layers will crack and definitely reveal these bronze meteorites.”
“That makes some sense.”
“Keep going,” Zhang Haixing said.
We looked further down and saw a relief sculpture depicting people carving at the exposed parts of the meteorite. There were a lot of people densely packed around, chiseling away at the rock to reveal bronze and intricately carving patterns on it. The胖子 suddenly leaned in closer and said to me, “Look, who are these people? Why do they have so many hands, like spiders?”
“Wannu King,” I replied, rubbing my eyes vigorously. At that moment, the胖子 suddenly turned his head sharply and grabbed the wall.
He was looking deep into the meteorite cave, where there was nothing, not even a sound.
I was startled, and the胖子 shouted, “Who?”
I suddenly realized Zhang Haixing was no longer beside me; she hadn’t paid us any mind and had walked away after listening to us for a bit. I said to the胖子, “It might be the old lady.”
“No, the old lady is over there,” the胖子 pointed behind me. I turned around and saw Zhang Haixing squatting in another spot.
“What’s going on over there?” I started to feel a bit nervous, and the胖子 said, “I felt like someone was watching me just now.”
We both stared over there for a long time, but there was no movement at all. The胖子 turned back and clicked his tongue, “Am I getting old and overly sensitive?”
Before he finished, Zhang Haixing called us, “Stop looking over there; come see this. There’s something even more amazing.”
“What is it?”
“There’s a person here,” Zhang Haixing said.