Chiyo Saori played the audio loop three times, and finally heard a trace of low-frequency vibration similar to the chirping of cicadas from the static-like noise.
That was not the sound produced by the vocal cords, but the roar of some high-pressure gas as it passed through the bone seams.
Naka River has been working for thirty days.
The river bed was like a tortoise shell that had been burned by fire, with hideous cracks and open mouths crying out for thirst in every crevice.
The air is so hot that it feels like there are countless invisible files, grinding not only the skin but also the mind.
At five o'clock in the morning, there was no assembly post and no instructions.
Those "new humans" who were supposed to be still in the dormant cabin, like a group of soldier ants that smelled the smell of carrion, opened the cabin door uniformly.
They did not stand, but still maintained the crawling posture that made ordinary people extremely uncomfortable. They were on all fours, and the black mass rushed towards the dry river bed.
Uchiha Xuan Standing at the top of the torii gate of the shrine, the red lacquered wood under my feet was a little hot under the hot sun.
He held a pebble he picked up from the river bed in his hand and rubbed the cracked lines on it with his fingertips.
He didn't even write the following scene in the script.
More than three hundred people were huddled in the mud pit in the middle of the river bed, the last place where there was still moisture.
Instead of fighting for the water source, they made an action that went against biological common sense - everyone arched their backs at the same time.
The third and fourth sections of the genetically modified spine were bulging high, as if a undulating black hill was created out of thin air on the flat ground.
Each person's forehead is firmly pressed against the heel of the person in front of him, connected end to end, forming a huge, concentric array of kneeling.
The sweat slid down their tight back muscles, and before it dripped into the soil, it was forcibly evaporated by the hot body temperature and Cursed Seal.
"Is this mass hysteria?" Chiyo's voice came from the communication headset, with a hint of confusion that could not be concealed. "The data shows that their body temperature is rising abnormally and has exceeded 42 degrees. It stands to reason that the brain proteins should have matured long ago."
"Read on." Xuan threw away the pebbles in his hand.
The stone fell on the river bed and made a crisp sound, but it did not disturb any of the worshipers.
The afternoon sun was extremely hot, and just when everyone thought that these madmen would be dried into mummies, something happened.
There are no dark clouds, no thunder.
Wisps of white mist visible to the naked eye actually emerged from the gaps between those highly arched spines.
It is the product of a mixture of sweat, chakra and Cursed Seal energy.
Three hundred streaks of white gas rose straight into the sky, encountered cold at a low altitude of ten meters above the ground, and quickly condensed.
The next second, the rain fell.
But the rain does not come from the sky, but "grows" from the backs of these kneeling people.
The fine water droplets, with a faint fluorescence, fell accurately on each kneeler's body, and also moistened the dry river bed.
"Chakra property transformation...Water Release?" Chiyo's voice rarely lost its usual calmness, "No, this is not a technique, this is an energy overflow caused by physiological rejection. Their spines became condenser tubes, using group resonance to change the local air pressure. Xuan, this is simply..."
"It's simply a miracle." Xuan interrupted her, with a playful curve at the corner of his mouth.
He didn't care whether it was the difference in air pressure or the principle of condensation. He only saw one thing: these monsters who were deprived of the right to walk upright used the most humble gesture to beg for rain from this desperate land.
For those ordinary people struggling to survive in this troubled world, this is God.
The rain lasted for half an hour.
When the woman who was trying to explain everything scientifically slapped a copy of "Improved Kneeling Rain-Gathering Array Proposal" on Xuan's desk, Xuan didn't even look at it. A black flame ignited on her fingertips and burned the drawing to ashes.
"Are you crazy?" Chiyo looked at the pile of ashes in disbelief, "If this structure is installed on the puppet, it can solve Land of Wind's general drought problem! This is technology!"
"After exposing the magic tricks, the magician is a liar." Xuan blew away the ash on his fingertips, his eyes as cold as ice, "What I want is not an automatic sprinkler system that can make rain. What I want is awe. Once a miracle becomes a technology that can be mass-produced, it is worthless. Block the news, and no one except those blind patrols is allowed to mention the principle of this matter. Let the few people who saw it pass it on, and say... This is the reward of heaven for those who surrender."
Rumors spread faster than the plague.
In less than three days, the news spread like crazy.
Even the old doctor in charge of logistics changed his eyes when he looked at the experimental subjects.
The old man was usually submissive and would have to read a book for a long time to cure a cold. Late that night, he slipped into the restricted area like a thief. He held a sampling bottle in his hand and lay on the ground trying to collect the "holy water" remaining in the mud.
When the patrol member Kunai put his neck around, he did not beg for mercy. Instead, he tightly guarded the bottle in his arms. A kind of heart-stopping fanaticism shone in his turbid old eyes.
Xuan didn't kill him.
"If you want to see it so much, then watch as much as you can."
Xuanren threw him in front of the shrine without tying a rope, and only gave him an order: watch the experimental subjects praying for rain for three hours every day.
The old doctor is really watching.
On the first day, he still stood and watched. On the second day, he moved a small horse. On the seventh day, when the strange "Spine Rain" fell again, he suddenly threw away his crutch.
At that moment, the old man's knees seemed to have no bones, and they hit the bluestone floor softly.
His knees were worn out from kneeling for a long time, and blood seeped out, staining his trousers red, but his face showed a kind of ecstasy after a profound enlightenment.
He raised his head, letting the fishy rainwater pour into his mouth, and a strange laugh came from his throat.
"Wrong... all wrong..."
The old doctor raised his hands crazily and twisted his fingers into strange angles, which imitated the shape of the test subject's spine.
"People shouldn't stand! To stand upright is to go against heaven! God uses bones as channels to draw heaven's grace into the dust! Only by kneeling can flesh and blood reach the sky!"
That afternoon, Xuan was reading battle reports from the front line in the tea room, when there was a tooth-gripping sound outside the door.
It was the sound of bones scraping against stone slabs.
The old doctor broke his legs.
Instead of using a knife, he smashed his tibia with two rocks, and then used his hands and feet to crawl around and preach in the square in front of the main hall like a cheerful old dog.
Every step he took would drag out a dazzling trail of blood on the ground.
"If all mankind kneels down, then heaven and earth will be at peace."
This is the crazy talk Chiyo found on the last page of the old doctor's notebook that he had previously only recorded herbal formulas when he was cleaning out his belongings.
The handwriting was scrawled, penetrating through the back of the paper, and even scratching the paper.
She stood in front of the puppet furnace, watching the bloody notebook being devoured by the fire.
As the flames danced, the words seemed to come alive, twisting into phantoms of kneeling human beings.
"Is this the result you want?" Chiyo turned around and looked at Xuan, who was leaning on the door frame, "Treat madness as faith and disability as evolution."
"Order is breathing, kneeling is living." Xuan's voice was calm, "This old man is just the first. Soon, this understanding will be engraved into the DNA of this continent like a virus."
At the end of the month, there is no moon.
The familiar Amaterasu black flame emerged from the fissure under the shrine again.
This time, the black flames did not burn any living things, but instead wrapped around the bronze statue cast from the spine like a living vine.
The hard metal quickly softened under the licking of the black flames, turning into a pool of hot copper water. However, it did not flow in all directions, but followed the direction of the earth's veins and slowly seeped into the depths of the ground.
It was as if a dose of black poison had been injected into this land.
At the same moment, thousands of miles away.
The former site of Sunagakure is now only a piece of dead yellow sand.
Even the wind here smells of rust, without any sign of life.
Under a sea buckthorn tree that had been dead for who knows how many years, the originally flat sand suddenly moved.
First, a small sandbag bulged, and then, a pale thing slowly arched out.
That's not a bud, but a human finger bone.
The phalanges are connected to the palm, and the palm is connected to the forearm, but there is no rush to climb out.
The index finger was slightly bent, and the knuckles tapped the sand gently, once, twice, three times.
The movement seemed like a test, but also like some kind of ancient and pious worship.
The camera zoomed out, and the boundless desert undulated and meandered under the night, like countless backs arching at the same time, as silent as prayer.