Chapter 14 Chapter Fourteen Entering the Pai Lane

We stayed at the entrance of the cave for a long time, discussing the possibility of this cave, during which Chen Pi Asi suddenly froze for a while and then miraculously recovered.We were puzzled, but Chen Pi Asi didn't seem to want to mention what happened just now, and had no choice but to shift his attention to this strange ice cave. We gathered around the cave to discuss the specific issues of going down the cave. Although we have experienced many cave explorations, we are all in the plains and mountains, which are quite different from here, and we need to think long-term. At the beginning, this hole was going down at an angle of about 40 degrees. The bottom was very deep and it was not easy to walk. Just now the fat man and the others fell down. If they couldn’t control their posture, it would be very dangerous. If you fall low, your head may be flattened.

Pan Zi threw down a fluorescent stick, and the yellow cold light quickly rolled down, bounced a few times far away, and disappeared. If Monk Hua's statement is correct, recalling the trend between our two snow-capped mountains, this cave must be a "V"-shaped route that goes all the way down and then up. Because the two snow-capped mountains belong to the same mountain range, the distance between the peaks The altitude of the canyon is also very high, and the distance of this "V" route should not exceed 5 kilometers. Of course, if the craftsman at that time liked to dig in a "Z" shape, then we have nothing to do, but such unreasonable things should not be considered.

Since it is a tunnel excavated manually, there is no need to worry about the oxygen problem. After we discussed it, we decided to let Pan Zi explore the cave first.This time the weapon is ready, if the corpse is still inside, it will be eliminated on the spot. Pan Zi dragged it in just now, feeling very shameless, spat on his hand and pulled out the climbing rope.While tying it around the fat man's waist, he threw it down the hole and climbed down first.After a cigarette, I heard his cry, let us go down. We also climbed down the hole one after another.The tunnel was very rough, and the rocks went in and out, and the buttocks were cut painfully when they slid all the way down.As I climbed, I observed the rocks on the side.These are basalts that gushed out during volcanic eruptions, with a large number of air bubbles on them. The density of these stones is very unstable, some are as hard as iron, and some are as soft as tofu.I don't know what it was like when it was excavated.

We went down one by one, and the fat man was the last to come down. Suddenly, a bunch of people crowded at the end of the slope of the stone path above, panting heavily.We see a lot of black liquid here, which must be the body fluid of the corpse, but there is no shadow of the corpse, and it may have gone deeper into the cave. The ice-covered narrow hole slanted down, and when it reached the turning point below, it became erect and narrow, and further inside, the height of the cave seemed to continue to increase. Suddenly, the space seemed to become larger, but it was pitch black. The flashlight won't go in.

At first I thought it was because they deliberately set up a wider tunnel when they were digging the tunnel. This is also very particular when we dig the hole. It is called the pigeon room. This place is used to store air and place "soil" Yes, of course the method among the pigeons is complicated. There is a very, very ingenious trick for you to dig such a large space in the ground that two people can turn around without digging out a little Saturn from the hole. But as soon as the flashlight was on, we were stunned. It turned out that the road had already come to an end here, and it narrowed rapidly when it reached the front. In the end, there was only a stone gap that could only be entered sideways by one person, like a road. The irregular sword marks pierced deeply into the rock.

Pan Zi asked: "Didn't you say that this is the secret way for the craftsmen to escape? It has become a slit between people? Is this still passable?" Monk Hua thought for a while, then suddenly made an expression of enlightenment, and said: "I think this road may use natural volcanic caves. Volcanic caves are very common in rock formations in volcanic areas, extending in all directions. The longest volcanic caves are all It can be thousands of kilometers long, and it is densely covered underground like a spider web. Maybe this volcanic gap can lead all the way to the opposite Three Sacred Mountains. Because of this, they can dig such a long secret path. The pre-established passages of nature."

The fat man said: "Then is it possible that we also have to enter this gap? You are all fine, I am in good shape." The fat man talked about losing weight in the tomb under the sea, but it has not been effective until now, looking at him The figure is still really tight. Monk Hua said: "Don't worry about it. This kind of volcanic caves are all dendritic structures. These holes should all lead to larger gaps. This is called an underground corridor in geology. Some underground corridors are very large. , It will even form its own unique ecosystem inside, and I believe that the gap will definitely widen soon after entering, because this kind of geological destruction starts from the inside."

Monk Hua spoke convincingly, but I didn't really believe him, but at this time there was really no reason to refute him, so everyone rested for a while, straightened their equipment, and continued to crawl towards the gap with the fat man at the head. It was pitch black inside the gap, and flashlights were useless because the blackness was omnidirectional.In Europe, people believe that all such gaps are passages leading to hell, and Tibetans also believe that caves are the territory of demons and never enter.Although I have had many such experiences, the moment I entered the gap, my heart still beat uncomfortably.

One by one, we entered the gap with our stomachs closed, and we walked sideways like crabs. There were no artificial traces on the cave wall at this place, and it was almost impossible to turn our heads inside. Karst drops of various colors cover all the rocks, covered with crystalline and transparent frost, arranged evenly like condensed water columns. I studied a bit of geology when I was an architecture student, and I have a vague memory of what I saw as a volcanic eruption, the same volcanic crevice we took refuge in during a snowstorm.The formation of this landform is different from common volcanic caves. This kind of gap is formed at the moment of volcanic eruption, and then it is rushed out by pyroclastic flow at a very high speed. It is characterized by the extremely long volcanic gap. , but the tunnel is single, and will not form a labyrinth of caves like volcanic caves.

The beginning of the gap was so tight that we had to break dance to move around.Within fifteen minutes, I was already sore from exhaustion, thinking of those artisans who fled back then, it was not easy to climb out.But as he walked, the gap really widened as Monk Hua said, and finally he turned around and moved forward. It was pitch black inside the gap, but the surrounding glass and melted mica reflected our flashlight, which made the surrounding light produce a magical effect, plus a large area of ​​volcanic debris covered lava spines, rope crusted lava, The lava stalactites are dizzying and very beautiful.

As we walked, we gradually discovered some signs of human activities.For example, abandoned rusty tools and traces of campfires are all very old. Didn't come across anything weird along the way.The inside of the gap is very clean. After walking for nearly six hours, we have reached the tunnel of the scale of the underground corridor that Monk Hua said. The gap inside is already very, very wide. When the gap came here, I found a lot of signs of man-made construction. On one side of the gap wall, many simple steps were cut out for repair, and they went up. These steps are called steps, but they are actually just some protruding stones. If you are a fat person, you may faint after walking a few steps. We stopped to rest, I calculated a little, the distance we walked and the slope we went down, and found that our altitude at this time was already lower than the snow line, and we might already be under the canyon between the two peaks.If these two peaks are walking on the surface, even if they are walking in a straight line, it will take at least eight hours. Now walking underground, we save a lot of time, and if the border defense line above knows that there is such an underground corridor, Sure to be eye-popping. When we get here, if we continue to walk at the bottom of the gap, then we may have to go to the center of the earth. These simple steps probably indicate that this tunnel has entered the second stage. The end of the steps may be Yunding Tiangong mysterious underground palace. After resting for a while, several people couldn't hold back their emotions, so they set off again immediately, but this time, the road was not so smooth. The few of us were connected to each other with climbing ropes, and then we tried our best to stick to the cliff on one side, stepping on the "stone steps" like a joke, and walked up bit by bit. I feel like a rock climber, but I don't have any experience in rock climbing. Don't panic about this feeling. The fat man's feet are big, and he stepped on these steps like he was on stilts, so after a few steps, his feet began to tremble. I saw him reciting Amitabha. Fortunately, I walked carefully along the way, almost like a woman doing needlework, climbing up bit by bit.Soon, there was already a pitch-black abyss below, and it was impossible to estimate the height, and I would feel dizzy when I saw it. If we hadn’t come up from below, I would have thought that the bottom was leading to hell. In the next few hours, we walked higher and higher, and in the end we couldn't judge where we were, nor could we judge the time. Several people entered a state of bewilderment.But no one proposed to rest. I don’t know if it’s because of the natural greed of the tomb robbers, or because the environment here really makes it impossible to rest. You can imagine that one of your feet is stepping on a stone the size of a palm, and the other foot is hanging in the air. Below is the cliff, how can you rest in it? As I was walking, I suddenly heard the sound of water from all around. I turned on the flashlight and saw that there were several springs and waterfalls flowing along the cliff, with different sizes.Seeing the water vapor above, it looks like it's still a hot spring. I don't know where the hot spring water comes from, but the sound of the water is very loud. It seems that there are activities of underground water veins nearby. The fat man asked us to climb over to wash our faces and feel comfortable. The nearest hot spring was only one hand away from him. In fact, we were already very tired from the journey. In addition, we had the memory of resting by the hot spring last time. We stopped here for a while, but Shunzi shook his head and said, "No way!" He pointed to the rocks beside the hot spring, we didn't find anything at first glance, but when we looked closely, we almost shuddered . I saw a lot of very strange lines on the rocks by the hot spring. I thought it was volcanic lines at first glance, but when I looked closely, my hairs stood on end. It turned out that these lines were not on the rocks, but one by one. An arm-thin scorpion gnawed on it.The color of these gnats is exactly the same as the glazed volcanic rocks on the side, and it is impossible to tell them apart unless you look carefully. We looked around, only to find that the rocks here were almost covered with these things, motionless, as if they were all dead. We all fell silent for a while, and the fat man said softly, "What's going on, how did we get into the bug's nest?" Shunzi said softly: "The creatures on the snow-capped mountains are usually concentrated near the hot springs, so don't just think about going down to be comfortable as soon as you see the hot springs. Some hot springs are even full of leeches. But the temperature is still cold now, and these things are here. They are in a half-dead state, and they won’t wake up without a particularly strong stimulus. Let’s go quickly, and we’ll be fine after this period.” Several people started to move immediately, and the fat man stood on tiptoe and asked as he moved, "What do you mean by particularly strong stimulation?" Before the words finished, Shunzi waved his hand suddenly, and told us all to stay still. We didn't know what happened again, so we immediately stopped and stayed there like wooden men, all staring at Shunzi, but Shunzi was looking at a dark cliff and abyss. After a moment of silence, we gradually heard a hair-raising "squeaky" sound, as if countless feet were rubbing against the rocks of the cliff, approaching us. "Turn off the flashlight." Shunzi said softly. We immediately turned off the flashlight, turned our heads and saw, damn it, almost the entire cliff around, as far as we could see, were full of faint green light spots, large and small, as numerous as a sea of ​​stars.In this darkness, these billions of lights are like magic, and we are like being in the universe of stars. The magnificence cannot be expressed in words. However, when I looked down, I suddenly found that the scene around me was nothing at all. I saw a green Milky Way meandering away in the emptiness and black under the abyss, like a gorgeous emerald tassel on a dark black curtain, passing through the boundless darkness. From one end of the sky to the other end. I opened my mouth wide, and couldn't believe what I saw. The number of gnats down here is probably in the hundreds of millions. Just when we were shocked by this magnificent scenery that could be described as a fairyland, suddenly from the light spots below, several huge red fluorescent lights flashed, and those fluorescent lights twisted and moved in the sea of ​​stars , and disappeared into the darkness at once. Obviously, some of the gnats below are not too small...