Chapter 7 7. The Expedition Failed

Zama died and only two people were rescued. Norra, tormented by fatigue and grief, was bedridden upon returning home.A month later, she received a letter.The sender is Noah Valley British Army Exploration Department.After opening it, it was found that there was still a letter in the envelope, which was covered with mud and blood.Norra only glanced at the envelope and exclaimed loudly.This is what Zama wrote to her! "To my beloved Norra, Shichiro." She tore open the envelope impatiently. Dear Norra, God has punished me.I couldn't bear to see you suffer from "Lata disease", and planned to push you down the cliff quietly...but I stepped into the quicksand and sank into the dark river of earth with the sand flow.

I don't know how many hours or days passed, but in short, I woke up in the dark, and the surrounding area was extremely cold, which made me mistakenly think that this place was the way of death.I heard the roar of the waterfall and knew I was not dead.It was a while before I started to move my body, the pain from the burn was overwhelming.It took me a long time to stand up and feel that I was carrying a canvas bag.There is a lighter in the bag, and some solidified alcohol... well, the pencil is short, so I won't mention that. I tore up the clothes and fixed them, and lit the solid alcohol again. The faint light of the fire made me understand where I was.The surrounding area was completely white, and things like snow kept falling from the top of the head.I tasted it and it was a bit bitter.I understand, it turns out that this is a rock salt layer.Groundwater has dissolved rock salt out of a cavity.Nora, you can never imagine what it's like here.

It is surrounded by potholes like mountains on the moon, and there are countless stalagmites and stalactites on the zenith.Under the illumination of the light, those floating salt flowers emit a pure light... I am also satisfied to die here. There were cracks in the salt pile, salt flowers fell like hailstones, and my whole body was bathed in the salt powder waterfall.I began to look around, and suddenly I was so frightened by the discovery in front of me that I forgot to breathe.On the rock wall, there was a thick hand covered with black hair. It seemed to want to grab me, and it was exposed outside the wall.

Nora, this is the "Wuzhi Forest Graveyard" in "The Devil's Urinal Pool". Those apes regard this as their final destination.I tried my best to dig this rock salt wall, and there was a loud noise inside the wall.It is "salt collapse"!Norla, those salt flowers were flying in all directions like snow, and the corpses of two gorillas appeared on the wall.Like reliefs, they remain half-squatting and curled up in their dying position.This cave may have a history of thousands of years.Only because of the protection of salt, those bones will not perish for thousands of years.what!I am the only man in the world who has entered the deepest secret realm of the "devil's urinal".

Seeing this, I even forgot that the time of my death was approaching, and I was so carried away by the joy of discovery.This is man's greatest rebellion against nature. The groundwater all ended up seeping into the ground, which was very disappointing to me.If the groundwater can erode through the rock wall, then I can follow the water flow and enter the "devil's urinal" to see what's going on.But this is just my wishful thinking, the loud noise of the water flow in the dark shows that the water flow is deposited in the ground and has not flowed out of the rock formation.The rock formations are tightly connected, and under the erosion of water flow, the caves continue to expand and deform.

Only then did I feel cold.Even beasts with thick fur can't resist the severe cold here, let alone me, a human being, who is in danger of freezing to death at any time.It was ironic that I froze to death in the heart of Africa in the midst of summer. I suddenly had an idea, but the idea made me very disgusted.There is only one way to keep warm.I turned my gaze to the carcasses of the great apes. It seems inappropriate to tell a woman what happened next in detail.When the gorillas came here, they didn't die immediately, so all the fat in their bodies was consumed during the time they were waiting to die.Still curious, I tried to burn their bodies... I poured solid alcohol into the gorilla's mouth and set it on fire.The flames set their brains and eyeballs on fire.The eye sockets exuded orange light, and the cave was dyed with an indescribably warm color.Cracks like ice cracks appeared on the salt wall, and a dark blue light emitted from the cracks.The flames moved towards the abdominal cavity, as if there were countless reddish earthworms spreading in the fetus.The body did not emit any peculiar smell after burning.

So I got warm and ate their flesh.But the meat only has fiber left, no moisture and fat, and it is very astringent to chew.Norra, I think you can understand my situation. As I set fire to the third and fourth ape carcasses, the rock formations overhead suddenly collapsed.Countless dust floated up in the cave, making it extremely dark.But somewhere in the depths of the cave there was light.It's a cave!After some climbing, I finally came to the entrance of the cave.There are four or five ape corpses at the entrance, which seem to have just died.Norra, I finally climbed out of the cave and got some fresh air.I finally came to the inside of the "devil's urinal"!

It was night, and the moon was shrouded in mist, giving off a dark red light.It was beautiful, the moon surrounded by a halo, such incredible brilliance as I had never seen before.The moon is in the middle of the sky, exuding a bewitching dim light, but the ground is still dark and boundless. In this deathly silence, a roar came from afar.The voice was far and near, with sadness.Not long after that, dawn began to emerge from the horizon.Suddenly a dark object appeared in front of my eyes. After I took a closer look, I couldn't help but take a few steps back. Norra, can you guess what that is?That guy is taller than Kako and fatter than your father.With one hand on its head, it was walking slowly.Occasionally, it would bend down and sweep the ground with its long claws like the wind sweeps fallen leaves.It's a gorilla!I found myself facing a gorilla, and the chill rushed up my neck.Jaw clenched, legs weak, I turned and fled back into the cave, hiding in a hollow.But the entrance of the cave was very shallow, and the gorilla squatted at the entrance of the cave and did not leave.It's troublesome now, when the sky is completely bright, the gorilla will definitely slap me when it sees me, and then I will die.

Nora, you say I'm not ridiculous.I actually forgot the purpose of the gorilla coming here.When the gorilla saw me, he didn't react at all. It is about seven feet tall, indicating that it is an old orangutan.An old orangutan came to this ghost place, what else could he do but wait to die?Most of the beasts have lost their fighting consciousness after coming here, so there is no need to be afraid of them.The gorilla didn't eat or drink, just sat there quietly, waiting for death to come.Norra, it is my companion on the road to hell. Soko, I tried to greet the gorilla softly. "Soko" is the native language of Congo. This is the name I gave it. I called it a few times and it didn't respond.Then I shouted to it the way I would greet a gorilla in a zoo. "Wakhe, Wakhe" yelled a few times, but the old beast never turned its head.

In the distance, what appeared to be relatives of the gorilla let out a mournful roar.That cry lasted for four nights, and I thought it would respond, but let alone action, it didn't even move an eyebrow.I lived with this gorilla for about ten days.We were relatively silent.He doesn't care about his cohabitants. There are probably few unfeeling men like me in the world. Alas, the pencil is almost finished, let's write a few short strokes for the next thing. I began to observe the gorilla from the perspective of a psychiatrist, hoping that this account would be seen by Professor Okrodi.The gorilla hasn't moved since he sat down, and just looks at me lazily every day.Maybe it's weak, it doesn't have the strength to get up.I gave it a pulse, and it didn't resist.It wasn't instinct that drove the gorilla to the forest cemetery, but a congenital form of depression—the term is called "depression proneness."Ah, the pencil lead is about to break... I am dying, and I want to show my love for you and my friendship for Kako.These days I can only eat meat, so I got sepsis, and now my gums are bleeding, which is getting worse every day.Yes, the cause is the inability to take in vitamin C, and you can't even see a little green in this "devil's urinal".The worm cloud covered the sun, and even in broad daylight, the sky was extremely dark.As far as the eye can see, there are only lowlands full of salt crystals and wilderness piled up with dead tree roots.

If only I could climb branches of trees and move around like a gorilla, but I'm human, and I'm dying.If I still have the strength, maybe I can find the man with a tail, and I can also find the carrion of the giant elephant and the cloud of insects that are devouring the carrion, but I lie here and cannot move. I only know that this is a forest cemetery, and everything in the world is here waiting to die.I can only see what is happening around me. Today, I was lucky enough to catch a pelican.I remembered how you trained Duoduo to send letters in the post box, so I planned to put all the content I wrote before in an envelope and tie it to this pelican to send it out.There may be a one in ten thousand chance for you to see this letter.If you do get it, I believe it is the power of love.. I am the first human to die here.. and the first man to enter the "demon urinal".. well, the only one with the gorilla Men who live in peace...this is my greatest boast, please take these honors as a gift to you...It's thunderstorms, let me write a few more paragraphs, until tomorrow, I will let the pelicans out . Norla, the time of day has changed me a lot.Now I am no longer afraid of death.Suddenly, nothing seemed to matter anymore.The love for you, Kako's friendship and the thrill of conquering the "devil's urinal" are all gone with the wind and turned to dust. What exactly is going on?I have been asking myself and telling myself that the past cannot be denied.But that kind of power is like a curse, which makes me see nothing.Norra, it must have been the "demon urinal" that took my soul.After all, human beings are just a kind of animal. After coming to the cemetery in this forest, lovers, friendship... everything is empty.Perhaps from the very beginning, the gods in this "devil's urinal" summoned me to come here.Taboo!Those who trample on taboos will be punished!So, starting today, I will respect the commandments of the cemetery, no, I will respect the commandments set by this terrifying force. After two weeks, the gorilla died this morning. When I took shelter in a cave next to the salt pond, I heard a very strange sound, intermittent, which seemed to come from the previous cave.So I went back to the cave and saw the dying gorilla beating its chest and surrounding stones.It plays the song of death in a strange time.I have heard that gorillas can play music, and now the voice is like saying "I'm leaving, I'm leaving, I'm going far away..." There is an inexplicable sadness.Unable to contain my grief, I decided to send it one last ride, and carried it in my lap.To my surprise, it was very light and I picked it up easily. The so-called turning grief into strength is probably like this.In fact, the gorilla was already skinny after a long hunger strike.My situation is not much better. With my sickly body, it is incredible that I can still hold a dying beast.Has my physique changed during this time?Something weighing more than two hundred pounds can be picked up easily.I stared at my hands, inexplicably. I hugged that gorilla, and felt that those things in human society were irrelevant.What fame and wealth, even love is nothing but fleeting images.Norla, this is the iron rule of the "Devil's Urinal Pool" cemetery.Beasts lose their bestiality, humans forget their humanity... I am just a dying beast. I conquered the "devil's urinal" and was conquered by it at the same time.Farewell, Norra. This is the end of Zama's notes. He obeyed the iron rules of the forest and was overwhelmed by the evil spirit of the "devil's urinal".Even if Zama is alive, he is still a person from another world.Miraculously, Norra did not cry because of him. She picked up another letter from the British Army Exploration Department. Dear Miss Norra, I must tell you a strange thing.We found the previous letter in the hands of a skeleton that was dumped by a mailbox in our military garrison.The skeleton was very peculiar, about four feet high, and looked neither human nor ape-like.The local ants are very ferocious, and when we found the carcass, the carcass had been gnawed down to the bones.I think it is necessary to tell you about this corpse. "It's Dodo!" Nora shouted. Dodo fell into the crack with Yang, but he didn't die.It was the one who caught the pelican sent by Zama, and when it found the letter, it remembered that Norla had taught it how to put the letter in the mailbox.There is no post box around, so it will travel hundreds of kilometers, trying to find a post box to post letters.But when he finally found the mailbox, Duoduo fainted from exhaustion, and unfortunately was eaten by ants and died. Norla seemed to see a lot of skeletons blown by the hot wind on the grassland.After watching Zama's transcendental experience, Norra did not shed a tear.But by this time she was in tears. She kissed the envelope stained with Dodo's blood lightly: "To Dodo, who is more noble and pure than human beings." Norla put a cross mark on it with her lips.