Chapter 41 Chapter 41: The Great Savior

Nicole could not at all guess what awaited her.However, when she walked over to look at the big hole in the ground, she was not afraid at all.Her curiosity increased greatly, but she was just faintly worried. What if the rescue team came and she was underground? The rectangular cover is large, 10 meters long and 6 meters wide.Ai Yunniao flew into the hole and stood on the third protrusion waiting for her.Nicole knelt down by the hole and looked inside.She saw lights nearby, and lights flickering farther away.She could not accurately estimate the length of the walkway, but it was clearly more than 20 meters, perhaps more than 30 meters.

It is not easy for a person without wings to get down.In reality, the channel is just a large, nearly vertical hole.On the cave wall, there are some wide and protruding platforms, each of which is the same size, about 5 meters long and 1 meter wide; they are one after the other, and the distance between them is two meters high.Nicole had to climb down cautiously. Light for the vertical walkways comes from the square, as well as lights on the walls.Every four platforms in the corridor, there is a lamp hanging on the wall, extending into the depths.The outer shell of the lamp was made of a paper-like, thin transparent substance; inside the lamp, a small fire burned; under the fire there was some liquid substance, which Nicole guessed was oil.

Nicole's friend, the Velvet Evan, has been patiently watching her climb down, and always stays 3 platforms below her.Nicole felt that if she slipped suddenly, it would catch her in mid-air, but of course she didn't want to test this hypothesis. Her mind was spinning rapidly.She has concluded that this Aiyun bird is definitely not a biological robot, but an alien species. "But it's impossible for them to be the Rama people. Their technical level obviously doesn't match the technology required to manufacture spaceships." Nicol speculated. Nicole thought back to the history of the poor, declining Mayans of Mexico.When the Spaniards conquered them, it cannot be believed that the ancestors of these ignorant and weak people built those impressive and magnificent temples.

"Did the same thing happen here?" Nicole asked himself secretly. "Are these iyun birds the survivors of the masters who built this spaceship?" Twenty meters above the ground, Nicole heard the sound of running water.The sound of the water increased as she descended to a platform jutting out along a horizontal tunnel.The tunnel runs horizontally behind her, parallel to the ground.On the opposite wall of the cave, there is also an identical dark tunnel, leading to the opposite direction. Her guide, as before, has been on the third platform below her.Nicole pointed to the tunnel behind him, and the Aiyun bird flew up immediately, jumping and flying regularly on the two platforms below Nicole.It was very clear that it was signaling that Nicole should continue to jump.

Nicole didn't want to just give up, she took out her water bottle, made a drinking motion, and then pointed to the dark tunnel behind her.The Aiyun bird flapped its wings, apparently weighing it up, and then flew over Nicole's head and into the dark tunnel.After a while, Nicole saw a little light in the distance, and it kept approaching.It turned out that Ai Yunniao had returned, holding something like a big torch in its paws. Nicole followed Ai Yunniao forward about 15 meters, and came to a room on the left side of the tunnel, which contained a large water tank filled with water.Water poured from a pipe embedded in the wall into the large tank.Nicole pulled out a spectrometer and tested the water.This is almost pure water - H2O, with impurities not exceeding one part per million.Nicole picked it up with her hand and took a sip. The water was really sweet.

After drinking enough water, Nicole walked deep into the tunnel.Ai Yunniao got angry, it kept singing, flying up and down, saw her turn back to the original direction, and then gave up. Nicole found that the light here became very dim, looked up, and there was a lot of people on the square. The lid is now closed.She thought to herself: "I hope I don't stay here forever." At a depth of more than 20 meters from the ground, Nicole saw another set of dark horizontal tunnels.Still holding the torch in its claws, Ai Yunniao led Nicole into one end of the horizontal tunnel, walked about 200 meters, and entered a large, high circular room.Ai Yunniao lit the lamps on the four walls with a torch, and then went out.Almost an hour passed and it still hadn't come back, so Nicole had to sit patiently and wait for it.At first glance at the dark house, Nicole thought of a cave, without any decorations.There was still no news from the Aiyunniao, and finally, Nicole began to think about how to inform Aiyunniao that she was going to leave.

When her friend Ai Yunniao finally returned, she brought four companions with her.Nicole watched them flap their wings and chatter.The velvet's mate (whom Nicole assumes to be its mate) flew in first with the other two linoleums, and when they landed, they clumsily approached Nicole, studied her carefully, and then backed away. Squat down to the opposite wall. Just then another brown downy aiyun flew in with a small managua in its paws. It put the melon in front of Nicole.All the Ai Yunniao looked at her, expecting.Nicole neatly cut off an eighth of the melon with a scalpel and took a sip of the green juice inside; then, she sent the remaining half of the melon back to the hosts.

The Aiyun birds screamed in admiration, and looked at the half of the melon, as if admiring her clean and tidy incision. Nicole watched them eat.They shared most of the melon and passed it one by one.The two velvets ate gracefully, deftly, and without waste; while the three linoleums were clumsy and ugly, reminding Nicole of animals on Earth.Like Nicole, they don't eat the rind of the melon. While eating, the Ai Yunniao were silent.For a while after the party they were arranged in a haphazard circle.Finally, the brown down-skinned Aiyunniao broke the silence and chirped.It sounded like a song to Nicole.Soon, they flew forward one after another, and after staring at Nicole again from a close distance, they disappeared outside the door one by one.

Nicole sat quietly, trying to figure out what was going to happen next.The Ai Yunniao did not turn off the lights in the dining room, but the corridor outside the door was completely dark.Apparently they intended to keep her here, at least for now. Nicole had not slept for a long time, and this good meal made her happy and satisfied. "Oh, that's nice. Maybe a nap will clear my head," she said to herself. In her sleep, she heard someone calling her name, but it sounded like it was far away. She could not help but listen attentively, and immediately woke up, remembering where she was.Listened again, but there was no sound.Looking at her watch, she realized that she had slept for four hours. She thought, "I better get out, it's getting dark, and I don't want to miss out on getting help."

She walked into the corridor, turned on her small lamp, and within a minute, she came to the straight well.She immediately began climbing up the first-tier platform.Down the horizontal passage where she drank hours ago, she heard strange noises in her head.Nicole stopped, held her breath, and leaned against the gap in the platform, shining the light upwards.Where the sound came from, something very large was moving back and forth.Look carefully, it is where the horizontal corridor extends. Nicole carefully crawled under the horizontal passage and crouched.No matter what it was, it flung itself back and forth at the entrance of the corridor, protruding out of the hole every five seconds, occupying more than half of the center of the platform.Nicole couldn't avoid it.Moving on, she couldn't have climbed to the platform of the horizontal passage and up another level in five seconds.

She moved to one end of the platform, and when the thing retracted into the hole, she stretched out her head to take a look. The thing retracted very quickly, and it looked like a tank from behind.At this glance, she also saw the upper half of the "tank" turning back quickly, preparing to pounce back. "One thing is for sure," Nicole said to herself, "the 'tank' is a guard." She wondered, did the "tank" have any sensors?Apparently, there was no indication that it had heard Nicole coming.This, Nicole realized, was unverifiable: "How can it be a guard if it can't see intruders?" Nicole descended slowly to the corridor level of the restaurant, feeling very disappointed.Now, she was angry with herself why she came to this crypt.She pondered, but couldn't see any sign that she was being treated as a captive by those Ai Yunniao.After all, hadn't he invited her to be his guest after Nicole had saved his life? But Nicole is puzzled by the existence of "tank" guards.It's a mystery, in complete contradiction to the level of technological development of everything else in this cave.What is its purpose?Where did it come from? "Strange, strange," thought Nicole. When returning to the floor below, Nicole looked around to see if there was another way out.On the other side of the shaft, there is a series of platforms exactly like this one.If she can jump over, maybe... Before seriously considering this plan, Nicole had to make sure that there was also a guard on the opposite side.From where she stood, it couldn't be seen, so, whining to herself, she climbed up again.Fortunately, there was nothing at the entrance of the corridor opposite. Climbing up and down, Nicole was tired.She observed the corridor platform on the opposite side, and then lowered her head to look at the dimly lit abyss below. If she fell, she would definitely die.Nicole accurately estimated the distance to the opposite platform, "It's 4 meters, at most 4.5 meters. Considering that there must be room for footsteps at both ends, it is obvious that I need to jump 5 meters, and I am wearing a flying suit. Clothes and a backpack." Nicole recalled a Sunday afternoon four years ago.In Beauvais, when Geno Viève was just ten years old, mother and daughter were watching the 2196 Olympic Games on television. "Can you jump far, Mom?" asked the little girl, who in her mind was still an Olympic champion. Dad persuaded her to take her daughter to the playground of the adjacent middle school for activities.She hadn't done the triple jump for a long time, so after half an hour of warm-up practice, Nicole managed to jump 6.5 meters.Geno Viève was not surprised, and as they rode their bicycles home across the fields, she said: "Mom, Daniel's big sister can jump that far, she's a college student!" The memory of Genevieve made Nicole extremely sad, and she wanted to hear her daughter's voice again, touch her hair again, and go rowing with her on their little pond again. "We never realized how wonderful it was to be together, and now it's so far away!" she thought gloomily. Nicole walked towards the restaurant in the tunnel, and she had to see if she could jump over it.It's too dangerous, if you stumble... "Nicole de Jardin—where the hell are you!" Hearing a faint cry in the distance, Nicole froze suddenly. Could it be her hallucination? "Nicole!" she heard another cry.Obviously, it was Walkerfield's voice.She ran into the shaft and was about to speak loudly in response. "No," she thought quickly, "that would wake up Ai Yunniao. I can climb it in five minutes, and I can jump over it." Her adrenaline was released and increased rapidly in the body.She silently counted the steps she ran, jumped up and jumped over the abyss.She breathed a sigh of relief, the distance she jumped was more than enough.She scrambled up those platforms with incredible speed.On the way, she heard Walkerfield calling her again from above. "Here I am, Richard! Below you," she cried, "under the square." Nicole climbed to the top platform and began to push the manhole cover.The manhole cover didn't budge. "Damn it!" Nicole cried.Richard walked around in bewilderment. "Richard, this way. Tap the ground where you hear my voice." Richard tapped on the lid.They called to each other very loudly. Nicole heard the flapping of wings deep below.Aiyun birds were flying up from the shaft, screeching and chirping. "Help me!" Nicole pointed to the manhole cover above and shouted at them as they flew closer, "My friend is outside." Richard was still tapping on the manhole cover. The two ivans that had found Nicole in the deep well flew to her first.They flew around her, flapping their wings, and turning their heads to say something to the other five iyun birds still on the floor below.Apparently they were arguing, and twice the black-haired evan that Nicole had rescued stretched its neck and screamed menacingly at its brethren. The manhole cover popped open.Richard scrambled away to avoid falling.He peeked into the cave and saw Nicole and two giant birds.As Nicole climbed out of the well, one of the ivans flew to his right. "What a scary place!" he yelled, staring at Ai Yunniao. Nicole was overjoyed that she had finally escaped bad luck.She threw herself into Walkerfield's arms. "Richard, oh, Richard," she kept going on, "how glad I am to see you!" He grinned and hugged her tightly. "If I had known you were so happy, I would have come sooner," he said.