The two hurriedly moved away from the patch of water plants, and once the beast's roar subsided, they slowly approached again.
Currently, finding the fragments was like searching for a needle in a haystack, and finding the Dragon Girl was proving difficult in the short term. The roar of the ferocious beast had been heard on the surface of the sea, so perhaps some clue was hidden here.
However, as they got closer to the water plants, they became increasingly surprised. This patch of water plants probably couldn't even hide a single submerged bull, let alone the "fierce beast" that had frightened the herd.
The water plants swayed with the current, and the gaps between the blades were very clear; it was impossible for anything of any enormous size to be hidden there.
Zhu Haowen's bubble: "Could it be that the beast is hiding in the soil under the seaweed?"
Qin Ci's bubble: "The terrain of this seabed is very high, it seems to be a mid-ocean ridge."
Zhu Haowen's bubble: "This question is too profound, we can't describe the entire seabed here. If this is a mid-ocean ridge, that means there was seafloor expansion here, that is, this was once a rift valley, and the magma that erupted from the rift valley formed these mid-ocean ridges?"
"Your bubble is too big..." Qin Ci struggled to break Zhu Haowen's big bubble, and spewed out a few small bubbles himself, "So, there was a rift valley here tens of thousands of years ago?
"So, a large amount of magma was generated here?
"So, the fiery sky above the sea surface actually has a kind of...
"a time difference?"
Zhu Haowen caught these small bubbles back and forth like playing badminton, two of them were in reverse order, and it took a while to understand what he heard.
Qin Ci caught a small bubble from Zhu Haowen: "I told you to keep posting."
Qin Ci's bubble: "..." Zhu
Haowen's bubble: "The idea of a time difference is great. We jump into the sea of fire, and the sea monk leads us through it. Maybe we'll travel through tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years?"
Qin Ci couldn't help but exhale a bubble, which he quickly popped and repeated: "Ahem, that makes a lot of sense. Mr. and Mrs. Si Nian are archaeologists themselves; they might have discovered some..."
A roar that echoed across the seabed came again, startling the two of them.
Zhu Haowen marveled at his series of backflips in the water. After regaining his balance, he swam over to try and stir up the patch
of seaweed. Qin Ci felt that Zhu Haowen was being a bit reckless, but he still followed and exhaled a bubble that gave him a serious warning.
Zhu Haowen ignored the bubble and continued searching the patch of seaweed, but he didn't see anything inside.
There were no fish or shrimp within several miles of this place; they were probably all scared away by the sound.
"That's really strange. Could this thing really be hidden in the rock strata beneath the seabed?" Zhu Haowen spat out a bubble that seemed to be talking to himself.
Then came another roar, like a sonic wave, causing both men's hair to stand on end in the water.
Annoyed, Zhu Haowen, with his hair still standing on end, untied the cloth strip around his waist, revealing a music box.
Qin Ci, not understanding what Zhu Haowen was up to, spat out several bubbles and asked a few times.
Zhu Haowen only spat out one bubble: "I'll teach him a lesson too." "
With another roar from the seaweed, Zhu Haowen snapped open the music box, and the sound of crashing waves instantly filled the entire sea.
The 'thing' in the seaweed grew anxious, roaring angrily in succession, while the music box emitted continuous booming sounds of waves crashing against the rocks. Zhu Haowen placed the open music box next to the seaweed...
Qin Ci plugged his ears with some soft seaweed.
After a while, the 'thing' in the seaweed seemed to tire of roaring and finally stopped.
The music box, however, didn't tire and continued to emit cheerful sounds of small waves.
Qin Ci saw Zhu Haowen spray a bubble at him and tapped the receiver, discovering that he could still hear it even with his ears plugged. Could it be that listening to bubbles uses a different set of senses?
Zhu Haowen's bubble: 'Let's try digging. I have a feeling this beast is related to us; maybe it's guarding the fragments.'" Qin
Ci swam over, and the two prepared to first pull up the seaweed, then try to dig the soil using something like lobster claws.
While pulling up the seaweed, Qin Ci suddenly found something at the base of the seaweed—a conch shell, the only sea creature they saw in the vicinity.
Qin Ci picked it up and discovered it was an empty shell, but there seemed to be something inside.
Zhu Haowen also rushed over to see, and saw Qin Ci pour out a small cube about the size of a medicated oil bottle from the conch shell. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a tiny cage, and inside was…
Both of them gasped in surprise, and when their bubbles collided, they exclaimed in unison—
"A lion!" "
Yes, there's a lion in this little cage, or rather, a male lion, but it seems a bit tired right now, lying silently in the cage.
This lion is only the size of a peanut.
The lion looked up at the two 'giants' in front of it, but wasn't alarmed. Instead, it stood up, shook its mane, opened its mouth wide, and let out a series of frenzied roars.
The two men's ears were ringing from the noise. Zhu Haowen, annoyed by the lion's noise, simply put the little cage into the music box and closed the lid. In an instant, all was quiet.
Qin Ci's Bubble: 'I've never seen such a small lion before.'
Zhu Haowen's Bubble: 'Me neither, I've never even seen such a small toy lion.'
Qin Ci's Bubble: 'Is it okay to put it in the box?'
Zhu Haowen's Bubble: 'If it's really a treasure, it doesn't matter where I put it.' " "
Although Zhu Haowen said that, he still opened the box, and what he saw completely terrified him—
the lion was gone.
Qin Ci stared in disbelief at the empty cage in the box, picked it up and looked at it. The cage wasn't locked, there wasn't even a door; it was clearly a cage that couldn't be opened.
How did the lion get out?
Where did the lion go?
Zhu Haowen's bubble: "..."
Qin Ci's bubble: "Could it be that this box is a treasure that can turn monsters into a thick liquid?"
Zhu Haowen's bubble: "But, there's no thick liquid inside..."
Suddenly, a lion's roar came, startling the two of them. The sound clearly came from inside the box, but there was no sign of the lion.
Qin Ci's bubble: "Don't you think the lion's roar has merged with the original sound of the waves inside the box?" Zhu
Haowen listened carefully, and it was indeed so. The sound of the lion in the water plants earlier had a clear difference in distance compared to the music box, but now it seemed to have completely merged into the same "audio".
It was really strange.
Zhu Haowen picked up the box and examined it closely, trying to find any clues. Suddenly his eyes lit up, and he hurriedly showed the surface of the box to Qin Ci.
The box itself was covered with ancient, abstract sea wave patterns, but now, a new pattern appeared on the side of the box—within the sea wave patterns, there was a strikingly ancient lion!
The whole thing was so bizarre that neither of them could speak for a moment.
Qin Ci pondered for a long time, then slowly exhaled a perfectly round bubble: "In other words, this lion has become the pattern on the box. Could we compare it to this box being a treasure bowl, collecting its own 'patterns'?"
Zhu Haowen nodded, agreeing with Qin Ci's statement: "The pattern on the box is a carved painting, so it should be considered a painting. What just happened to the lion, wouldn't you say, is it a kind of 'entering the painting'?" Qin Ci,
upon hearing this, couldn't exhale a bubble for a long time.
Zhu Haowen (bubble): "Maybe I've gone off-topic. Let's talk about the pattern on this box. This lion only occupies a small part of the wave pattern; there are clearly many 'empty' areas, indicating that other patterns are needed to fill them—just like you said, this box is collecting its own 'patterns.'"
Qin Ci picked up the box and examined it closely: "Have you ever heard of the 'Sea Beast and Grape Mirror'?"
Zhu Haowen (bubble): "Old Qin, you collect antiques?"
Qin Ci (bubble): "No, I just happened to see a Tang Dynasty 'Sea Beast and Grape Mirror' in the Palace Museum. The patterns on that bronze mirror were very mysterious, and experts called it a 'mirror of many mysteries.'"
Zhu Haowen (bubble): "How so?"
Qin Ci (bubble): "The grape pattern on that bronze mirror was laid flat as a background, with some animal-shaped knobs embossed on top, distributed above the grape pattern, all of them 'sea beasts' in various poses."
"What are sea beasts?"
"That's exactly what I was thinking. The sea beast is the Suanni."
Zhu Haowen paused for a moment. One theory is that the Suanni is an ancient lion, while another theory is that the Suanni is a ferocious beast that looks like a lion but can eat tigers and leopards. Whether it is a lion or a Suanni, it is clear that this box has some connection with the "sea beast grape mirror" that Qin Ci mentioned.
Zhu Haowen's bubble: "Why is the Suanni a sea beast? It's clearly a land animal."
Qin Ci's bubble: "Probably because the Suanni is a species from overseas."
Zhu Haowen examined the strange box. On the ancient and beautiful sea wave pattern, the leaping lion was particularly eye-catching: "How many Suanni are there on that 'Sea Beast and Grape Mirror'?"
Qin Ci exclaimed apologetically: "I didn't pay attention to the number, maybe seven or eight? There are also some high-relief birds as decoration on the outermost ring."
Zhu Haowen's bubble: "What is the significance of this 'Sea Beast and Grape Mirror'?"
Qin Ci's bubble: "This pattern of grapes and auspicious beasts together is said to have come from ancient Persia. The Tang Dynasty's foreign trade was very prosperous, and it is very likely that they created this kind of auspicious overseas pattern for their own use."
Although Zhu Haowen... Unable to figure out the connection between this matter and the world of water and fire, he still said, "That means that what we need to do now, besides finding the fragments and the Dragon Girl, is to find other sea beasts."
Qin Ci's bubble said, "If all sea beasts exist in this way, it doesn't seem difficult to find them. We can find them by following the roars of these lions. Moreover, these lions are caged and small, so they don't pose much of a threat to us."
Zhu Haowen, however, was not optimistic: "I don't think there can be another lion within dozens of miles. Just this one lion caused the riot of the submerged cattle herd. If there is another one nearby, then the seabed will never have peace."
Suddenly, the entire sea surface was illuminated by a light, an orange-red light, very fast and fleeting.
The sea surface was illuminated as if it were daytime in an instant, and then extinguished in an instant.
Qin Ci swam a short distance upwards, exhaling a bubble: "I felt like that light was fire."
Zhu Haowen safely stored the box and swam up as well: "Let's go to the surface and take a look."
Author's Note:
Welcome Dr. Qin Ci to our "Painting Fear" live stream!
[Xingyue]: Dr. Qin, many readers have commented on your lack of knowledge about QQ bubbles, and our lovely readers have generously shared their bubbles.
[Light's Shout]: My bubble is a light blue-purple long grass emoticon dumpling~
[230.]: My bubble is a blue hippopotamus~
[Wanqi Yezi]: My bubble is a white emoticon dumpling~
[Meat Soup Dumpling]: Old Dr. Qin uses WeChat…
[Falling star.]: WeChat and QQ seem to represent a generational gap~
[Sword and Heart of Qin]: That's right, I've been using QQ since my student days, but I always use it on my computer, so I neglected the bubble issue… Wei Dong kept saying he'd install a bubble for me, but I think having both QQ and WeChat on my phone is a waste of resources?
[Xingyue]: ...Everyone, feel free to ask Dr. Qin anything~
[Little Fairies]: Does Dr. Qin's appearance in the live stream mean he didn't die in this painting? Huh? Dr. Qin didn't die?!
[Sword-Hearted Qin]: ...