The construction of the ten major cities began on the third day.
Jiang Ye was taking a nap, his head resting on Cen Yemeng's thigh, while Cen Yemeng quietly read a novel.
Suddenly, the phone on the bedside table rang.
Jiang Ye stirred, without opening his eyes, "Bring it here."
Cen Yemeng leaned back, reaching for Jiang Ye's phone in a difficult pose, and glanced at the caller.
"It's Xu Yan," she placed the phone on Jiang Ye's ear.
"Hello? President Xu?" Jiang Ye mumbled groggily.
"They're digging the foundation at the construction site and unearthed something incredible," Xu Yan's voice was excited.
"What?" Jiang Ye opened his eyes.
"Fossils, a lot of fossils, all sorts of strange creatures. My subordinates sent me photos from the site, I'll forward them to you," Xu Yan said.
Jiang Ye sat up and looked at his phone.
Cen Yemeng pulled a tissue from the side, wiping the sweat from her thigh. Jiang Ye had a peculiar trait: whenever he was busy and physically exhausted, no matter how cool it was, he would sweat profusely while sleeping. Every night, she would touch her husband's head to gauge how hard he had worked that day.
"Hiss—" Jiang Ye gasped, staring at his phone.
Dozens of photos had been sent from the construction site.
Human and robotic workers stood by the foundation pit, watching. Excavation machinery had been withdrawn and shut down. Several people and robots who appeared to be leaders were walking back and forth in the foundation pit, hands clasped behind their backs.
At their feet lay vast expanses of gray-white slab stones, embedded with dense white fossils.
There were coin-sized insect fossils, clustered together like freshly laid frog spawn, so numerous they were dizzying.
There were also fossils of creatures with enormous skeletons, their bones shaped strangely. At least, Jiang Ye couldn't imagine any animal he had ever seen that could grow such bones. They had triangular skulls and more than a dozen arms, almost like centipedes, but these centipedes were as large as horses.
Each photo showed different fossils, and some even had twin heads, separated at the cervical vertebrae, along with various visible deformities, as if it were a large-scale ritualistic poisoning site.
Xu Yan: "How should this be handled?"
Jiang Ye stroked his chin and thought, "Let's halt construction at that site for now. I'll send the army's biologists to examine the scene."
Xu Yan: "But the construction schedule is very tight, and we've already used instruments to measure the fossil area. It's quite vast, so vast that we haven't found its boundaries yet. I have a feeling that as our city expanded, we stumbled upon a fossil kingdom. If this area isn't excavated, the entire city's construction will have to stop, and the city's planning will be completely ruined."
Jiang Ye's brow furrowed deeply. "Why wasn't this surveyed during the initial site selection for the city?"
Xu Yan was speechless for a moment before apologizing, "This was an oversight on our part."
"How about this," Jiang Ye said, "Since the fossil area is so large, you should carefully extract the fossils from the construction site and preserve them as they are in a designated location."
Xu Yan: "Alright."
Jiang Ye issued orders to the army's biologists and then called to seek advice from Li Nannan.
Li Nannan seemed to be a person of leisure now, answering the phone while sunbathing on the beach in a bikini. Jiang Ye recalled that in previous years, his calls to her either went unanswered or she was preparing for a meeting or a battle.
After hearing Jiang Ye's description, she didn't react much. She said that Birong Star originally had a rich biosphere that evolved over millions of years, so it was normal to find fossils. Such fossils weren't usually very valuable; if they weren't rare, they could be donated to other planets, and if they were rare, a museum could be built to preserve them. It was that simple.
Jiang Ye thought the same. If this were ancient times, fossils would be precious items, as they could advance the progress of evolutionary and biological studies. But now, related fields had been thoroughly researched, leaving these fossils with only ornamental value.
Therefore, neither Li Nannan nor he paid much attention to the matter.
However, the subsequent developments forced them to take it seriously.
Five hours later, Xu Yan called again, her voice filled with terror.
"Jiang Ye, we've removed the fossils from the surface foundation, but the fossils underneath haven't decreased; instead, they're increasing, like a mass grave."
"Most importantly, we've dug out a lump that looks like a mechanical part."
Jiang Ye looked at the photos Xu Yan had sent.
The metal piece was embedded in the soil and stone, fused with the surrounding rock. It was dark gray, about the size of a human head.
The surface appeared unremarkable, but Xu Yan's construction team had scanned the interior of the metal with instruments. It was hollow, showing signs of artificial processing, with pipe diameters that contracted and expanded.
"Are you sure this thing was excavated, and not a part that fell off one of your construction machines?" Jiang Ye asked.
"No, we dated this metal."
"When?"
"About a million years ago," Xu Yan said.
"Is the result accurate?" Jiang Ye gasped.
"Yes, we initially suspected it was a part from a robot. Then we used several different instruments to measure it, and all results indicated around a million years," Xu Yan said. "We analyzed the subsurface and found more metal about five hundred meters deeper. If it's not ore, it's likely a large quantity of metal parts."
"Halt all work," Jiang Ye said. "I'll report this matter to my superiors."
"Okay." This time, Xu Yan didn't mention the tight schedule. She also realized the gravity of the situation.
Discovering metal parts was no small matter.
Discovering fossils was also no small matter.
When fossils and metal parts were found together, the matter became bigger than the sky.
Jiang Ye sent the photos of the metal parts and the analysis results to Li Nannan.
Li Nannan was also surprised. "I'll report it immediately. Don't touch anything over there; stop construction."
Jiang Ye waited with unease, and that night, he dispatched a force of 100,000 robots to scan the ground in a circular pattern around the construction site.
The scanning results were terrifying: a large amount of metal parts, along with a dense silicon layer, so thick that its full extent could not be scanned. The characteristics of this silicon layer were clearly not natural; there were obvious signs of artificial creation.
Forty-eight hours later, the military's archaeological team landed on Birong Star.
A total of 40 spacecraft arrived, carrying a scientific team of over five thousand people.
The scientists began to direct Xu Yan's construction team in the excavation.
Meanwhile, a location in the newly built urban area was converted into a research institute, with over a dozen sub-laboratories, each with numerous research directions. The military scientists claimed that if anything extraordinary was unearthed, more research teams would be dispatched to staff all the laboratories.