Chapter 40 Thirty-nine, fog

I closed my eyes, my mind went blank, and I felt like I should have fallen, or died foaming at the mouth, which is a strange feeling to think about now.At the moment of death, I was not thinking about death, which surprised me a bit. Of course, I did not die in the end. Since I am writing these experiences here, everyone must be aware of this. The reason why I am writing this experience so clearly is because this experience has a great impact on my growth or my life. The metamorphosis has helped a lot. It can't be said to be a great enlightenment, but at least it made me mature.In fact, after going through this kind of thing, I finally understood what price to pay for the composure of a person like Lao Mao.

So, what happened then?Why am I not dead? I waited in the mist for more than ten minutes, and then I felt something strange. It was that the cold began to invade my body, my pores began to shrink violently, and the heat was quickly sucked away. I thought it was a harbinger of death at first, but when I got colder and finally sneezed, I realized something was wrong.Then I opened my eyes, and found that the thick fog had thinned in front of me, and I could roughly see the situation in front of me. Ma Zaihai was standing by the door with the deputy squad leader behind his back, also with a puzzled expression on his face.

Not poisonous?My first thought at the time, and then I suddenly felt that it was too ridiculous, how could this be, have we been fighting against our imaginations all the time? But the fog here is very thin, and it's terribly cold, which doesn't feel right. The door was obviously quite cold, Ma Zaihai shrank back, glanced at me, and then slowly opened the air-closed door completely, and then our flashlights shone into the space in front of the door. The fog was so thick that the flashlight could not illuminate anything, only the rolling fog, and nothing else could be seen. The fog is indeed harmless. The deputy squad leader seems to have fainted due to exhaustion. He has been the person with the most mental stress and physical exhaustion along the way. He was injured again. Now he doesn't know what the problem is, and finally passed out .

Ma Zaihai carried him on his back, we packed our equipment, stepped out of the iron cabin one after the other, and stepped into the mist. I can't describe what kind of scene I saw, because the front, back, left, and right were all foggy and hazy, and the flashlight stopped after a few meters, and our flashlight could barely be used at this time. In fact, in this kind of light, even if there is no fog , our eyes can't see too far. Most of this mist accumulates below our knees, white and thick, and then it quickly thins out. As soon as we move, the mist starts to roll, like walking in clouds, and it is extremely cold outside the iron gate, and it is only a few days after the cold. Wonderful, I feel that my lower limbs cannot be still, and I can only feel its existence when it is cold.

This kind of cold is no longer comparable to the cold underground river water. We shrank our bodies and looked around in fear. The cooling temperature made me recover quickly. I just felt that this kind of fog is not the heavy gray fog we see outside, but just the kind of cold water vapor that is common in ice cellars.And the temperature here should be far lower than the icehouse, because it is too cold. We took out our sleeping bags and put them on our bodies, barely feeling warmer. I stomped my feet, and it seemed that my feet were made of wire boards, which were very slippery and frozen with a layer of ice.And the sound of my stomping echoed, obviously this is a relatively empty room.

Where is this?I am more and more confused, what should be the bottom of the dam, shouldn't it be the rotor of the generator?Why does it seem like a huge ice cellar? We walked forward cautiously, the iron sheets and wire boards under our feet vibrated rhythmically, the further we went, the thinner the fog became, and soon I saw my feet, which was a wire board aisle similar to a field ridge On both sides of the aisle, there are huge square depressions poured with concrete, similar to pools. It is a bit like a limestone construction site, but the construction is much more formal. The inside of the depression should be ice, and there are shadows under the ice, one by one. The calf is so big, I don't know what is frozen.

The flashlight couldn't shine at all. I stepped on it and it was completely frozen. The water was at least two meters deep. It seemed impossible to know what it was. Going forward, the colder the more we walked, about 50 meters away, I wanted to go back, and the horse was shivering from the cold in the sea. At this time, we saw the end of the "field ridge" in front of us, and appeared on the top. It is the same iron wall, and there is also an air-closed door opened on this iron wall. However, this door is covered with ice chips, a thick layer, there is a lot of crushed ice on the ground, and there is a pry bar leaning there, presumably someone has opened it with such a simple tool in a short period of time This frozen door.

I went up to check the situation of the crushed ice, and I was sure it was caused not long ago. I let out a sigh of relief, and said to myself, did Yuan Xile really escape the way I deduced?Did she open the door? I picked up the pry bar and was about to insert it into the latch to open the door. Suddenly, I saw the latch click and turn by itself. I was startled. Then, the latch began to rotate slowly, and I instantly Realized that someone was opening the door behind! At that time, I was taken aback by the sudden change, and Ma Zaihai and I took a step back. Reflexively, I raised the iron rod in my hand to defend, while Ma Zaihai leaned sideways and stuck to the door. on the wall.

The door was pushed open slowly, and while I was still guessing whether it would be Yuan Xile or Chen Luohu who came out of it, a big dark face poked out from the inside, looked at us, and then we All of them, including the owner of the pie face, were stunned. It took me a full minute to recognize the black face protruding from the door as Wang Sichuan. It wasn't because of my slow reaction, but because he had changed so much that he seemed to be from a slaughterhouse. Like the one that came out of it, his face was covered with blood eggplants, and the skin on his forehead was turned up.Moreover, the dark face is very unnatural.

He looked at us and seemed unable to react. After a long time, he yelled, "Old Wu, you are not fucking dead!" I hugged him as soon as I went up, and tears came down immediately, and then Ma Zaihai also recognized Wang Sichuan, and immediately cried too.Wang Sichuan was probably injured, and he cried out in pain as soon as I hugged him. For me at the time, it was really great that Wang Sichuan was not dead, just like winning a lottery, but it is disgraceful to shed tears. I quickly stopped the tears and wiped them off with my sleeve. Ask him what happened. His body was not much better than his face, his clothes were burnt, and when I hugged him, he smelled a burnt smell, and he cursed, saying that he stepped on a broken cable in the motor room and almost burned up.

The situation after that was similar to what we experienced, but he should have climbed to the other side of the dam, where there was a concrete tower about three stories high, with a searchlight on the top of the tower, which should be a building for lighting. There is an iron bridge leading to an iron gate on the dam. Inside is the same electrical room as we saw. Unlike us, the machine room he entered seems to be a power distribution room, and there are countless huge old buildings lying in it. The cables and their insulation were frozen and cracked. He never thought that these cables would still be electrified after so many years, and he would be knocked down with his foot. At that time, he described it very interestingly. He said that he first smelled the smell of burning meat, and then he felt that he was floating, numb from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, and then he was bounced directly, and fell to the ground. Logically, it should be very painful. , But at that time, only the smell of burning meat was in his mind, he was too hungry. I looked at the thickness of the cable that Wang Sichuan gave me, and felt incredible again. In my mind, this is just a temporary dam, and only a small generator set can meet lighting or other needs. I gestured at the thickness of the cables, and it was obvious that the power of the generators here was quite high. This made me wonder, why do we need so much electricity here?Where does the excess electricity go?However, there are too many strange things here, and I don't have time to think about it. Fortunately, Wang Sichuan was not electrocuted to death. Afterwards, the dam flood alarm and other things were the same as what we experienced. There was also an iron wall in the power distribution room. After the electric shock, he felt sick and vomited. In the state of chaos, I had to hide in the iron cabin to rest, and then I experienced some things, until now, I met us when I opened the door. After I listened to it, I patted him, feeling that his fate is great, and thanks to his burly body, if it were me, he would have been completely charred, and it would take almost a day to die. Several people expressed their feelings again. To be honest, after seeing Wang Sichuan, I suddenly relaxed. In the current small group, I am very worried about new recruits like Ma Zaihai, and the deputy squad leader is wounded. , and obviously have a sense of responsibility but not strong adaptability. In fact, I am the person in charge of this group in a disguised form. I have a lot of invisible pressure, but now I meet Wang Sichuan. I feel that he can share a lot of pressure and responsibility for me, so I My mood suddenly changed for the better. When Wang Sichuan met us, he was naturally in a good mood. After he asked about our situation, I told him everything. After hearing what happened to Yuan Xile, he was in a daze. He really didn't believe what we said was so mysterious. But in this case he had to believe it. I don't know how to explain it more clearly, because in fact, I am as ignorant as he is about Yuan Xile and Chen Luohu.He told him that the most important thing now is to find out where we are. Judging from his description, I feel that the dam should be a symmetrical structure, with a "caisson" lift on both sides, indicating that there are underwater machine rooms for motors on both sides of the dam. One is the master, one is the vice, and there are also four. At that time, China's industry was extremely backward, and there were almost no electric lights (you can check the urban and rural areas of Xiaobing Zhang Gazhong, which is very real. It is a long time after liberation. The environment is still the same, especially farmers), such power can support a town. Ma Zaihai said that such a dam should be built from both sides and finally closed in the middle. He had heard of this method when he followed the Soviets. Wang Sichuan was puzzled and asked where are we at the dam now? I thought that the lowest level that the caisson can reach should be the base of the dam, where the motor is filled with concrete, but when I walked over to see it, it was obviously not. The huge space outside seemed to be a huge ice cellar. Don't know what's frozen. But Wang Sichuan is not our savior. Although he can relieve me a lot of pressure mentally, he has not brought much change in terms of business.But with him here, I really calmed down to the greatest extent.Start wondering what to do next? All the people here, those who were injured, those who were dizzy, and those who were not injured were cold and hungry. It is not alarmist to say that the situation we were in at that time, if we were replaced by the current young people, they would have collapsed long ago. The tiredness and hunger we mentioned were bearable at the time, but for the current quality of life, it was quite serious fatigue, and the surrounding situation was unknown. Looking back, our so-called guesses and inferences, Who knows if it's right, who knows if this is the bottom of the dam, maybe this is already hell. My first thought when I calmed down was that we must go back to the dam. When the poisonous gas must dissipate, think about the place where we found Yuan Xile, so close to the entrance of this underground river, we should also Sure, as long as we don't lose our minds like she did, there's a good chance we'll get back to the cave entrance. My idea is that since the caisson sinks, it can go up naturally. At that time, I asked Wang Sichuan how he activated the caisson, but he couldn’t tell. At this time, I realized that I had neglected this question—how did the caisson Started?Any elevator has an electric switch, but the bare iron cabin inner wall obviously does not have such a conspicuous device. Of course, there is another possibility, and it is a more reasonable possibility, that is, this kind of caisson is the same as the elevator used in large old mines in the old society. Miners at that time generally had no human rights. In order to control the activity space of miners or what was called bonded workers at that time, they had to be prevented from escaping. But if this is the case, then who pulled down the switch for the descent? I feel cold sweat when I think of this. Could it be that there are people other than us in this dam? This is really creepy, because this person exists, then he must be able to see us, but he did not show any contact with us, but quietly sank us into the dam after we entered the iron cabin bottom, what is the intention? If this problem cannot be solved, then this other possibility, I don't want to admit it.But if we can't ascend, I don't need to say what our ending will be. We hesitated for a long time in this iron cabin, and in the end, what Wang Sichuan said reminded me. He said, according to what I just said, the only materialistic explanation for the disappearance of Yuan Xile and Chen Luohu is that they ran away. They went into the huge ice cellar outside, but they didn't enter this No. 2 iron cabin, so they should still be outside.We cannot leave them alone. Wang Sichuan’s sense of responsibility is the character I admire the most in my life, and it’s probably because of his essential character that I feel safe, but under the circumstances at the time, I didn’t think it was right to look for Yuan Xile Yes, because of my thoughts, it's not that we left them, it was they that left us. But assuming that the iron cabin cannot go up, no matter what we think, the only thing we can do is to search the space at the bottom of the dam outside.See if there is a way out there. Wang Sichuan finally convinced me that the behavior of Yuan Xile I described indicated that Yuan Xile must have experienced what happened here, and her mind was not clear, so her behavior just now was probably repeating her last time. During the escape, if we can find her, maybe she can lead us out! These words are indeed quite reasonable, and we decided now, according to Wang Sichuan, to search for Yuan Xile and Chen Luohu and find out what this place is.Then make plans. At this time, the deputy squad leader was still unconscious. We knew that he could no longer suffer from the cold in this state, and I felt inappropriate for Wang Sichuan to stay and take care of him, so we asked Ma Zaihai to stay, and Wang Sichuan and I went.The speed is faster with fewer people. After agreeing, we roughly ate something, wrapped our sleeping bags tightly around our bodies, collected a few flashlight batteries, and started off officially.