Chapter 121 – Fossilized Forest
The “╦╧” line of the tunnel was traced by the trajectory of the flare, you can see the left and right ends, in the asymmetric position, each has a hole, the deepest is not very clear, the two sides of the main road is piled up with white bones, due to the distance is relatively far, can only distinguish a large number of conical curved white tusks, as if there are some other animal bone grids. Animal bones, flare to the end, you can also see the flash of water, judging from the location, should be the “Snake River” underground water system.
Although I didn’t expect that the entrance of the tunnel under the feet was a martyrdom pit with so many white bones, but from the scale of the following, since there is a water system parallel to the deep valley, flowing downward, then this tunnel can definitely lead to the main mausoleum area of “King Xian’s Tomb”.
Fatty and I discussed with Shirley Yang, although this tunnel in all likelihood have powerful organs, but compared with the boundless mountain miasma poisonous fog, risk from the underground tunnel into the “Tomb of King Xian” is still feasible, anyway, these three are not bad, not like the last time to go to the desert in Xinjiang, brought a group of intellectuals, to do things tied up. Doing things tied up very cumbersome, dumping hook is the most appropriate team of two or three people, with the “Chicago typewriter”, “Byung-alkane injector” powerful fire support, plus “touch the gold schoolmasters With the Chicago Typewriter, the Anthracite Injector, and the traditional tools of the “Gold Digger”, we could handle whatever we encountered.
So we do a little rest at the cave entrance, and equipment, due to this no more rafts, if there is underground water, then you need to carry out the “armed swim across”, so all unnecessary things, should be temporarily cleared out, stay within the temple dedicated to the God of the mountains.
First changed into a sharkskin diving suit, wearing elbow pads and knee pads, mountaineering helmet on the spotlight adjusted to the side, replacing the new batteries, helmets and then equipped with scuba diving goggles, simple small refillable oxygen cylinders hanging on the back, each person only with a waterproof carry bag, respectively, with emergency medicines, spare batteries, cold fireworks, gas masks, fluorescent tubes, candles, seclusion of the evil, wolf-eye flashlight, and so on and so forth need to be used to the The items that need to be used.
Fatty’s diving tights were not suitable, so he didn’t want to wear them. I said to Fatty, “It’s okay if you don’t wear them, anyway, you’re a stupid boy sleeping in a cool bed, all depends on the firepower.”
Shirley Yang said, “It’s not okay if you don’t wear it, don’t you remember how cold the water is under Chalong Mountain? When you swim in the water for a long time, you are prone to hypothermia, even if the clothes are a little narrower, you have to make do and put them on, otherwise you will stay and wait for us, you are not allowed to go in.”
Fatty recalled Shirley Yang in Chalong Mountain fell off the raft scene, swim back when the lips are frozen purple, it seems that this neighborhood although humid and hot, but the underground water system is cold abnormal, is not a joke, not to mention that the “dedication of the King’s Tomb” a large number of artifacts is not far away, how to be willing to stay here to wait, had to inhale and collect the abdomen, forcing the wetsuit to wear the suit. Forced to put on that set of diving suit down, put on and then complained: “fucking shoes small crotch short, who is difficult to who own clear.”
Engineer shovels and mountaineering picks, a variety of ropes, as well as water bottles of food, these heavy items, as well as weapons and ammunition, detonators plus sixteen ingots of explosives, can be sprayed with flames of anthracite bottles, all of these are concentrated in a large waterproof bag, tied around the inflatable airbags, so that you can always use the buoyancy of the water to float on the surface of the water, and when we swim in the water, you can also pull it to save some energy.
The remaining things are packed, placed in the temple of the mountain temple hall, until everything is ready, already is the golden crow west, the birds return to their nests, through the twilight of dusk, the three of us went into the tunnel.
Shirley Yang with a “vajra umbrella”, holding a “wolf eye”, in front of the road, I and fat people together, carrying a large pile of waterproof rubber bags loaded into the equipment to walk in the back, down this slightly steep slope slowly down.
Entrance to the pit is obviously man-made construction, both sides are neatly large green stone masonry, stone cracks are sealed with “Dan paint”, the ground is very flat large square tiles, like a tunnel in an ancient tomb.
On both sides of the pit, neat and tidy yard square with the whole elephant bone, is the whole elephant skeleton, obviously in the outside slaughtered and transported, in the martyrdom pit put “whole elephant bone” or “ivory”, is to take “elephant” kaiyin, “kaiyin”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant” and “elephant”. “The kaiyin” “Xiang”, “elephant” this kind of large and very gentle animal, itself also represents the auspicious prosperity, in ancient China, as early as in the Shang Tang period, has been “elephant bone”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant”, “elephant” and “elephant”. In ancient China, as early as the Shang and Tang Dynasties, “elephant bones” and “elephant tusks” were already used as funerary objects, and a large number of elephant tusks were unearthed in the “Yinxu” layer, and in the Yellow River Valley of China, a considerable number of elephant herds existed in those days, but now they have long since become extinct.
These martyrdom white bones, are purposely half buried, rather than like the martyrdom ditch as the whole earth buried, this is to show that the owner of the tomb of the great line, is for the Taoist Immortal, already not too much care about secular things, martyrdom half buried, said with the driving ascension of the intention.
I counted, alone a martyrdom pit, there are a total of 64 pairs of “full elephant bones”, “ivory” is not counted, there are also some scattered small animal bones, due to the age of the long time, are decayed as dirt, can no longer distinguish what animal it is! According to Shirley Yang, it could be hound and horse bones, as well as human bones of slaves.
We once again appreciate the “dedication of the King’s Tomb” large scale, the luxury of the burial goods, I said to Shirley Yang and the fat man: “like the ancient Dian such a small country of the southern border of the King’s Tomb, are so arranged, in order to a person, hundreds of thousands of people suffer from the suffering of the downfall of the people’s blood and sweat with the people to build such a large-scale tomb, in the end, that the end, that is, the people’s blood and sweat. Tomb, in the end that after death to ascend to heaven to become immortal, to protect the mountains for ten thousand years, but also is just a dream, these things also stay in the mountains, with the sun and the moon with the rotten, now it seems to be how ridiculous, like this with the people’s fat and wealth to build the tomb, should have how many will pour it how many.”
Shirley Yang said, “I also did not expect to dedicate the tomb of the king alone, there will be such a large martyrdom pit.” While talking, Shirley Yang was already walking to the intersection of the “╣”-shaped pits, only to hear her wonder, “What are these for?”
Fatty and I then walked to, with the “wolf’s eye” flashlight to the corner of the place a light, only to see the inside is not a pit, but only in the main pit on the stone wall concave part of only a few meters deep, scattered a few long pole, it seems to be connected to the together, I also think it is strange, I would like to reach out to pick up and see, who knows that these poles, but the long pole is not in good condition. Look although intact, a touch, it is rotten into thin mud like, because there is an underground waterway, the interior did not take sealing measures, two thousand years ago, a touch both rotten.
This pit in the stone wall of the pit, seems to be specifically used to put these long poles, is it used to measure the depth of the water? Three people do not understand, can not think of what is used, this “King Xian tomb” within the mausoleum area there are too many strange and bizarre things, compared to these items is nothing, had to ignore, continue to move forward.
Walked to the end of the pit, that is, we fired flares, see the water reflections of the area, along the tilt of the pit to walk here, has been about tens of meters from the ground difference, from here onwards, is not in the artificial excavation and construction of the pit, but the underground natural cave, has been completely flooded, want to continue to move forward from here, you have to go into the water to swim.
On the stone wall beside the water, there were several ancient wooden boats arranged, probably the people who went to Minglou to pay homage to the king’s tomb had to take these boats to go there, but the age was so long that all these wooden boats were rotted to the point that almost only the frames were left, and it was difficult to use them any more.
We pulled open the airbag tied to the big backpack, let it fill up with air, floating on the water, assault rifles and other weapons are placed on the top, in order to take out and use at any time, put away the “wolf eye” flashlight, turn on the helmet tactical spotlight illumination, and then also followed into the water, holding on to the backpack on the airbag, wading into the water.
In the water out of more than ten meters, feet can not reach the ground, cold and bone-chilling groundwater, deeper and deeper, I looked at the compass, the location of the water flow is exactly parallel to the direction of the Valley of the Worms.
Here in the cave, there are many huge natural stone pillars in the water, as if the coral at the bottom of the sea, thousands of branches, due to the darkness of the cave, it is not very clear to see how these strange stone pillars are formed.
The top of the head is very low from the water, it looks extraordinarily depressing, I raised my head to look like up, there are a lot of huge roots of the plants in the valley, they all grow down from the top, some of the longer ones, even stick directly into the water, forming a rare plant cave top.
With the swim farther and farther, the terrain also gradually become lower, filled with groundwater cave, the distance between the water surface and the roof of the cave is also gradually pulled up, breathing smoother than just now a lot of, and overhead hanging down the roots of plants, and those strange stone coral, but more and more dense, I also found that the cave water, there are some fish, from time to time in the submerged encountered our body, and then far away from the swim, I was secretly grateful, fortunately, not a I was glad that they were not piranhas.
In order to further confirm the direction of advance, Shirley Yang let the fat man take out the flare gun, once again fired a flare to the front, the fat man counted the number of remaining flares: “There are still eight rounds, this time with too little, have to take it easy with.” After saying that, he loaded a round in the flare gun, adjusted the range and fired it forward.
The flare drew a shining arc, and finally hung on the intertwined plant vines not far away, in this instant, the white light illuminated the surrounding caves with snowy brightness, and a rare and terrifying natural landscape was presented in front of us.
It turned out that those coral-like stone pillars are the fossils of forest trees in ancient times, and the so-called “ancient” here, not modern people can trace back.
Fossil is buried in the stratum of ancient relics, buried by millions of years of sediment formed, the most common is the animal fossils, because the animal’s bones and teeth, less organic matter, more inorganic matter, buried by the sediment, the degree of decay will slow down, by the slow flow of groundwater in the sediment gaps, will be excess minerals precipitated, the formation of crystals, in the bone before the complete decomposition of the crystals, if the minerals can completely replace the organic matter, will form a true fossil.
But the fossils of plants are very rare, due to the fact that the speed of decay of plants is much higher than that of the bone grids of animals, Shirley Yang said excitedly, “Chalong Mountain was probably a huge active volcano hundreds of millions of years ago, and in the course of the last apocalyptic eruption of the volcano, at the same time mudslides took place in the vicinity, and the magma engulfed the forests under the mountain, and the high temperatures carbonized the The trees, before they could be destroyed, were immediately engulfed by the ensuing mudslides, and the temperature cooled in an instant.”
After a long period of time measured in millions of years, with the changes of nature, and after repeated scouring by the underground water system, the forests, which had been sealed in the mud and sand for countless years, were again revealed underground.
I do not think that these stone trees have what can be strange, when I also dug out in the Kunlun Mountains, but recently Shirley Yang has been looking worried, always with a melancholic air between the colors, but also rare to see her happy, then Shirley Yang said: “We came to Yunnan this way although not less scared, but also see some real mountains and water, see some Usually people can not see things in a lifetime, it is also considered to be a worthwhile trip, and get a lot of harvest.”
The fat man interjected: “only look at some broken stone, not inevitably appear to be insufficient, and then touch on a few pieces of shocking Mingqi back, in Panjiayuan shocked big gold teeth gang of grandsons together, and then killed out of the Panjiayuan, march into the Liulichang, only almost is considered to be a success.”
I just wanted to speak, that hanging in front of the flare but exhausted energy, and then darkened, the cave gradually turned into a black, only the weak column of light from the tactical spotlight on our helmets, I feel as if we are drifting in a black ocean, the world is left only the three of us, with the last trace of light from the flare is slowly being taken away by the darkness, a kind of sudden loneliness and depressing feeling. spread through the nerves of my brain.
I felt very strange that I would develop such a feeling, during that process of going from light to darkness, it was as if I was hit by a weak electric current, and then I had this inexplicable sense of loss, and my mood became depressed, I looked at Shirley Yang and Fatty, and the two of them seemed to have sensed that there was something wrong, but how did this subtle change come about, and what exactly did it what it signaled, and why did they suddenly feel a wave of panic?
At this time that was fired to the front of the flare, finally has been completely extinguished, but we found in the flare last line of light completely disappeared at the same time, in the darkness of the depth of the underground water, slowly appeared a faint white silhouette, although the cavern is very dark, but that silhouette on the body of the white light but more and more clear, I’m sure that it was a full-bodied onyx female corpse, she seems to be from the water to float over, with the female corpse, I’m sure it was a full-bodied onyx female corpse, she seems to be from the water to float over. Floating over, with the female corpse closer and closer to us, the female corpse’s frosty face can be seen clearly, my heartbeat began to speed up, the nightmare panic feeling is also more and more intense.
Ahead of the water on the surface of the water there are a lot of floating water plants, blocking us in the water ahead, had to take out the engineering shovel, and constantly these floating water plants to set aside, duckweed and water plants on the growth of a lot of mosquitoes, water spiders, locusts, and constantly to the face of the people to pounce.
Just when we are not winning the moment, suddenly heard a burst of buzzing insects in front of the wings vibration sound came, I subconsciously the sub-machine gun from the waterproof bag out, in order to see what is something, fat man had to play a flare, the light only to see the front of the hanging down the roots of plants and vines, blocked tight, countless huge black flying insects, looks like a small dragonflies, just no Eyes, the number of thousands, such as black cloud transit, hovering back and forth around the plant roots.
This kind of insect no one has ever seen, may be underground humid special environment only exists, insects are the world’s largest group, there are still about one-third of the varieties, has not yet been recognized by mankind.
However, this kind of flying insects that seem like black dragonflies do not look as if they will attack people, but such a huge group of them can’t help but look scalp-scorching.