“On some ancient excavated pottery and shell-carved human faces, this double-work character symbol has appeared. Speaking of which, shamans were also involved in hunting, praying, healing, and so on. From a certain perspective, ‘shamans’ could be considered the scientists of that era. But all of this is speculation—even some records from ancient times may not be true. After all, people back then loved to exaggerate. Isn’t there a saying, ‘History never has the truth’? Archaeology is just about digging up some fragments, but as for what really happened, who can say?”

“This cave we discovered this time is also related to ‘shamans’—those last few pictures you saw, the rock paintings sent back by the first group who went there, and the double-work character symbol found in that cave. So, it’s speculated that it might have been the dwelling of a shaman. There was a brief earthquake in the village last month, and probably because of that, the cave was exposed. No one had ever mentioned it before.”

At this point, William Grant closed the folder, carefully glanced around, and seeing that the advisor and other senior students weren’t paying attention, he lowered his voice and said mysteriously to Henry Clark, “I heard the first person to discover the cave was a child. And, according to a message from a junior over there, the child who found the cave saw a strange, watermelon-sized bug crawling out of a stone in his own courtyard wall. The kid was bold and followed the bug, which eventually disappeared at the cave. The child then went back and told the adults, and that’s how the cave was discovered.”

“A watermelon-sized bug?” Henry Clark found it absurd—anyone hearing this for the first time would think it was fake. “Was the kid lying?”

William Grant shook his head. “What’s even stranger is, according to the first group who went there, the stones used to build the courtyard wall contained fossils of ancient creatures.” At this, William Grant paused, rubbed the goosebumps on his arm, and continued, “The stone the child pointed out—the one where the watermelon-sized bug emerged—contained a fossil of an ancient creature. It wasn’t complete, just a fragment. But according to experts, if that creature were still alive, it really could be as big as a watermelon, and it would look pretty much like what the child described.”

“…Sounds pretty fantastical, but only the child saw it? No one else saw a bug crawling out of their own wall?” Henry Clark was getting a bit interested.

William Grant shook his head. “No idea. We’ll ask when we get there—anyway, we’re almost there.”

By the time the group arrived at their destination, it was already eleven in the morning. Henry Clark had a simple lunch with William Grant and the others, then returned to the bus.

William Grant and his team couldn’t wait any longer. They didn’t rest after eating and planned to get to work right away.

William Grant had already told Henry Clark what to watch out for here—what not to touch, where not to go, who to look for if there’s a problem—Henry Clark had it all in mind.

“I’ll tell you after we finish today. You go explore on your own for now. The scenery here is nice—green mountains, blue sky, clear water. After being in a smoggy city for so long, it’s good to come out and clear your lungs.”

With that, William Grant took his tools and followed his advisor. Henry Clark couldn’t go with them, nor was he particularly interested in doing so.

Now only Henry Clark was left in the bus. With the doors and windows closed, it was very quiet. Henry Clark hadn’t slept well these past few days, and had spent the trip listening to William Grant’s stories. Now that it was quiet, he started to feel sleepy.

When he woke up again, it was already past two in the afternoon. Henry Clark was about to go for a walk when he saw William Grant in work clothes coming over to the bus to fetch a document. After grabbing it, he had to hurry back to continue working.

But before getting off, William Grant took a stone the size of an egg out of his pocket and tossed it to Henry Clark: “Picked this up in the cave. No one else seemed to care about it, so I took it. It shouldn’t be anything important. I can’t give you any ‘antiques,’ but at least this stone is from the cave. It’s pretty smooth—probably just something someone tossed there. Take it as a souvenir.”

This stone was found near the cave entrance, still some distance from the core of the cave. Its material was clearly different from the other excavated items, and it had no markings. So the first group focused on the Stone Age ‘antiques’ and rock paintings, and no one paid attention to this stone near the entrance. William Grant thought it looked interesting and picked it up on a whim.

Catching the stone, Henry Clark examined it carefully. It felt no different from any other stone—dark green, egg-shaped, fairly smooth, as if it had been deliberately polished. It didn’t look ancient, but even if it wasn’t an ‘antique,’ it was still fun to play with or use as a decoration.

Henry Clark didn’t think much of it and played with it for a while. He kept feeling that the stone wouldn’t warm up—after holding it in his palm for over ten minutes, it was still chilly. Thinking about it, Henry Clark took out a lighter and tried heating the stone. Logically, the part exposed to the flame should have become hot, but in reality, it stayed just as cool as before.

Glancing around, Henry Clark picked up a fruit knife from the table, put down a piece of paper, and planned to scrape off some powder from the stone to have someone in the archaeology team test it. However, when Henry Clark tried scraping the stone with the knife, it didn’t leave a single mark. Even poking it with the tip of the knife didn’t make a dent.

It couldn’t be heated by fire, and couldn’t be scratched by a knife… Truly a strange stone.