Chapter 70

Mei Ziqing had just left Bella International Convention Center to go back to the hotel. When she crossed Bella lawn, she saw a man standing up on the bench, smiling and waving to him.

Mei Ziqing was stunned. This man is so handsome! He looks a bit mixed. He should have 80% of East Asian descent and 20% of Western descent. He may be Italian or Greek. Anyway, he looks classical, elegant and very sunny.

Suspiciously, she pointed to her nose and asked in broken Japanese English, "are you calling me?"

The man said in fluent Japanese, "are you Professor Mei's assistant?"

"Ah, yes! Who are you? Is he looking for a professor? He's still in the center for a meeting!" Mei Ziqing said politely with a bow when she heard Japanese.

"Oh, I know," said the man, taking out an envelope. "I want to trouble you to give this to the professor."

Mei Ziqing took the envelope in doubt and asked, "can you ask what this is? I can't..."

"Please don't worry, it's just a very ordinary personal letter."

The man's voice was as warm as the spring breeze, and Mei Ziqing couldn't refuse.

"All right!" she put away the envelope. "But can you tell me who you are?"

"My name is Xingzhi, and you can also call me situ." the man suddenly changed to Chinese.

……

In the second conference room on the third floor of Bella Center, more than 60 top scientists are whispering to each other and listening to the news about why the conference suddenly changed its agenda.

On the rostrum, in addition to the host Frederick, there were several initiators and conveners of the meeting. Their faces were clean and dignified, as if the Third World War had happened.

"Everybody! Please be quiet!" Frederick adjusted the microphone. "I'm sorry, something happened and we had to adjust the agenda of the meeting. In addition, I'd like to tell you two very unfortunate news."

The meeting was quiet and waiting for him.

"One of the most important items on the agenda of this meeting is the archaeological demonstration of the submarine relics found in the South Pacific Basin. All of you here are important scientists, and I believe everyone has heard of it. However, just the day before yesterday..." frederickston said in a heavy voice, "our research ship is missing."

"My God..." everyone in the meeting shouted in surprise.

"There are 27 scientific researchers and 46 crew members on board, including 7 scientists as great as you here. They are all my friends and friends of everyone. Up to now," Frederick looked at his watch, "they have been lost for 63 hours."

"How did you lose contact? Was there a storm? How was the search and rescue?" someone asked.

"In fact, we don't know exactly what happened. The exploration ship met Mr. Robbins and Mrs. Larry in Auckland port, New Zealand. When going to sea, it encountered a heavy snow and delayed a day's journey, but everything on board was normal at that time. Then, according to the established route, the exploration ship went to the sea area near 150 ° west longitude and 30 ° south latitude for scientific research, but it passed Mary We have two weather satellites to monitor the changes of air flow over the South Pacific Basin 24 hours a day. On the day of loss of contact, everything in the nearby sea area was normal and there was no storm. "

Frederick rubbed his nose and eyebrows. It was obvious that he had been having a headache for more than a day.

"Please rest assured that we have applied to the governments of the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Argentina for search and rescue support. Please also believe in the sincerity of these governments. There are their scientists on board and they will do their best."

"If there were no storms, would there be an undersea earthquake? Tsunamis are more terrible than storms!" someone said.

Frederick shook his head "No, No. according to the monitoring report of wwssn, 79 monitorable earthquakes occurred in 23 places around the world, including only one in the South Pacific Basin, with a magnitude of about 4.5. The epicenter was more than 300 nautical miles away from the scientific research ship, which was not enough to cause any harm. The seismic networks and monitoring stations in New Zealand, Chile and Argentina also did not detect strong seismic signals from this sea area Moreover, our research ship is fully equipped. In case of an earthquake, they have at least a few hours to respond and contact us before the Tsunami engulfs the ship. "

"Is there something wrong with the research ship itself?"

"It's not ruled out, but it's very unlikely," Frederick said, "This ship is made by Japan's Taihe shipbuilding industry, with a tonnage of 4800 tons and a seating capacity of 80 people. It has class 13 wind resistance and a endurance of 18000 nautical miles, meeting the requirements of unlimited navigation area. Moreover, scientists have modified and upgraded the ship and have the most advanced electronic communication and experimental equipment. There has been no mistake in the past 20 missions."

"Did you search the nearby islands? Didn't you find any debris?"

"No." Frederick shook his head. "In fact, it is not just our research ship that is missing. The four ghost islands, including Maria Teresa reef, which was repositioned exactly a month ago, and the two conventional islands and reefs in the south of tubuai group, as well as the underwater relics being explored, are all gone."

……

Mei looked at Frederick, carefully recalled every detail of what he said, distinguished the doubts and thought about the possible causes and effects behind it.

He knew Frederick was telling the truth. He couldn't lie about such a big thing.

As the world's top scientist, he can accept any mysterious and strange things, which is the exploration spirit necessary for science.

But it happened so suddenly!

It's good to say that even without earthquakes and storms, it can't be explained. After all, the South Pacific Basin is so large. Maybe the signal equipment is out of order, maybe there is a temporary new discovery, or maybe the magnetic field interference makes them lose their direction. Anyway, there are many explanations.

But how did the islands and underwater relics disappear?

Most of the people were thinking about the same problem as Mei Wang, and the meeting fell into a dead silence.

……

I don't know how long it took, someone finally remembered that the host Frederick hadn't finished.

"You just said there were two unfortunate news. The first one we already know. What is the second one?"

Everyone is upset. Is there anything more unfortunate than the first news?

Frederick's expression suddenly changed from dignified to mournful. He choked and said, "our beloved and great Mr. Evans Lester died this morning."

His grief was not a sham, and those who sat close could see that the corners of his eyes were wet.

His words were like throwing a bomb at the meeting. After a brief silence, the bomb exploded.

Oh，MyGod！

Some people scream, some hide their faces and cry, some beat their chest and feet

Mei tried to feel a huge hammer sweeping from the void and hitting him heavily on the chest.