Chapter 36 Thirty-five, Hachiman does not know Yabu

In short, there is no choice but to enter the horizontal cave to determine whether the treasure has been stolen.Let's go back to the Zhuhu mansion first and prepare the supplies needed for the expedition.That is, a few candles, matches, a big knife commonly used by fishermen, long hemp rope (we pulled out the thin hemp rope from the fishing net, connected them all together, and carried them in a ball) and other items.That horizontal hole may be unexpectedly deep.It is described as "six road intersections". It may not only be deep, but may have many branches, just like Hachiman does not know the Yabu.Well, isn't "The Impromptu Poet" about entering the catacombs of Rome?That's why I prepared these twine.This is from the painter named Fei Dili Guo.

Zhuhu defended his exaggerated preparation. Later, I reread "The Impromptu Poet", and every time I read the section on the Catacombs, I recalled the situation at that time and couldn't help trembling again and again. "The passage in the depths was probably left when the soft soil was excavated. It is densely distributed vertically and horizontally, with almost no difference in shape and size. Even people who know the general direction will inevitably get lost in it. When I was young, I didn't understand the hidden meaning behind it. But the painter was ready. First he lit a candle, put the other in his pocket, tied one end of the ball of thread to the entrance, and led me in. The zenith suddenly fell, and there was only room for We both passed..."

The painter and the boy stepped into the underground labyrinth in this way, and so did we. We climbed the thick rope just now and descended to the bottom of the well in sequence.The water was ankle-deep, but cold as ice.The horizontal point is around our waist. Zhuhu imitated Fediliguo, first lit a candle, and firmly tied one end of the hemp rope ball to the stone board at the entrance of the horizontal cave.Then he slowly let go of the tether ball and crawled inside. Zhuhu took the lead and climbed in holding a candle, and I followed behind with a rope ball.We are like two bears. "Sure enough, it looks very deep."

"It seems to be suffocating." We crawled forward slowly, talking quietly. After advancing five or six rooms, the cave became a little wider, and I could walk squatting, but it didn't take long before the first fork appeared next to the horizontal cave. "It's a fork in the road. As expected, it's Yawata Yabubu. But as long as we hold the rope that guides us, we won't get lost. Let's go straight first." Zhuhu said, ignoring the fork in the road, and walked straight ahead, but after walking about two rooms, they found another cave with a big black mouth.I put a candle in and looked at it, and found that this fork seemed to be relatively spacious, and all households bent there.

The path in the cave twists and turns like a writhing snake.Not only bend left and right, but sometimes extend up or down.In the low places, there seemed to be shallow swamp-like puddles. There are too many forks and forks to remember.And it shouldn't be entirely a man-made tunnel, some places are too narrow to climb in, and some places are vertically split like rock cracks.We originally thought that there were only such small fork holes in this cave, but we didn't expect to take a step forward, and suddenly a cave as spacious as a large room appeared in front of us.There are five or six cave passages outside this space, extending in all directions, forming an extremely complicated maze.

"It's really surprising. It spreads out like a spider's feet. I didn't expect it to have such a scale. From this point of view, the entire cave must be extending in all directions, and maybe it can lead to every corner of the island." Zhuhu said with a look on his face. said dejectedly. "There's not much twine left. Can we get to the end before the rope runs out?" "Maybe not. There is no way. If the rope is almost used up, let's go back and prepare a longer rope. But you must not let go of the rope. If we lose the road sign, we will get lost underground."

Zhuhu's face turned red and black under the light of the fire.The candle cast a curious shadow from under his chin, and the cheeks and eye parts were cast in black shadows, making him look very strange.As soon as he spoke, his mouth opened and closed abnormally like a black hole. The faint flame of the candle can barely illuminate the distance in front of me, and I can't even see the color of the rock. The pure white top is uneven, showing strange lines, and some protruding parts are dripping water. Beads, this is a stalactite cave.After walking forward for a short time, the flat road turned into a downhill road, and I felt very nervous when I walked on the road that continued to extend downward.The dark figure of Zhuhu swayed forward and backward in front of my eyes. Under the sway of his body, the faint candlelight of the candle held in his hand was also faintly visible, and the hazy red-black rock walls on both sides rushed back.

After a while, as we continued to move forward, we felt that the top of the head and the rock walls on both sides were getting farther and farther away from us, and we walked into a large space underground.At this time, I suddenly remembered something, and when I looked carefully, the rope ball in my hand was almost used up. "Ah, the rope ran out." I couldn't help but screamed out, I don't think it made much noise, but the echoes from all directions made me feel deafening.Finally, a faint echo came from far away: "Ah, the rope is gone." It was an echo from the ground.

Hearing the sound, Zhuhu turned around in surprise. "Hey, what did you say?" He held out the candle to me. The flame swayed from side to side, illuminating his whole body. As soon as I saw the outline of his figure, I heard an exclamation of "Ah", Zhuhu's body disappeared from my eyes, followed by the candle flame. up.In the end, only the cries of "ah, ah, ah..." from the households were left echoing in the air, and the voices became smaller and smaller, one after another, overlapping one after another. "Brother Daoxiong, brother Daoxiong!" I hurriedly called Zhuhu.

"Brother Dao Xiong, brother Dao Xiong, brother Dao Xiong, brother Dao Xiong..." Echo replied with a prolonged ending, as if mocking me. I fell into extreme panic, fumbling with my hands in the air for a while, trying to catch up with Zhuhu, but before I could react, I stepped on the ground and fell forward. "it hurts!" Zhuhu cried under my body. How could this be?The ground dropped two feet here, and we fell together.When Zhuhu fell, he hit his elbow so badly that he couldn't answer me in pain. "It's so miserable." Zhuhu said in the dark, and then he seemed to get up, and after a while, there was a sound of "swoosh", and Zhuhu's figure emerged as a silhouette in the darkness.

"Are you hurt?" "It doesn't matter." Zhuhu lit the candles and went out again.I also followed behind him. After walking a room or two, I stopped abruptly, my right hand was empty. "Brother Daoxiong, lend me a candle." With my beating heart beating wildly, I called out to Zhuhu. "What's wrong?" Zhuhu stretched out the candle in amazement, I snatched the candle, and ran around like an ant on a hot pan. "it's okay no problem." I keep repeating these two words. But no matter how I looked, I couldn't find the slender hemp rope with the help of the dim light of the candle. I kept searching in the huge cave without giving up. Zhuhu seemed to have noticed something, and suddenly ran over and grabbed my hand, with an unusual tone: "Did you lose the rope?" "Ok." I replied dejectedly. "It's over! Without the rope, we may have to go around in circles under the ground for the rest of our lives!" We panicked and searched desperately. We fell where there were steps on the ground, as long as we found a place with steps, we searched carefully by the dim light of candles, but there were steps everywhere, and this spacious cave led to the narrow hole outside. There were more than one or two side roads. We finally couldn't find where the road we came from was, and we were looking for it. It seemed that if we were not careful, we would get lost again. The more we searched, the more uneasy we felt. Later I remembered that the protagonist of "The Impromptu Poet" had the same experience.Mori Ogai's translation vividly describes the psychology of juvenile fear. "At this time, there was a dead silence around the two of us, so quiet that you could even hear a needle drop on the ground, and the water droplets between the rocks hit the rocks intermittently, making lonely echoes... I looked towards the painter, strangely , the painter was out of breath, and kept going around in circles... His appearance was very different from usual, and I got up and cried too... Grabbing the painter's hand, I shouted, "I want to go up, I don't want to stay here." The painter said: "Good boy, good boy, I will paint for you, give you candy, and here is some money." Then, he fumbled in his pocket, took out the wallet, and gave me all the money in it. When I took the money , found that the painter's hands were as cold as ice, and his whole body trembled violently... He lowered his head, kissed me again and again, and said, "My dear child, you should also pray to the Holy Mother." Lost the ball of string?'" The improviser soon found the rope and left the catacombs without incident.But, will we also be favored by the god of luck?