Volume 6 Chapter 14 Deep Sea

Whether this was true or not, Uncle San said it because the day was not a good one, and also because he wanted to scare Xie Lianhuan a little. If you have an older brother at home, you can probably understand what Uncle San was thinking at the time. The older brother always wants to scare the younger brother to show off his status.

However, Xie Lianhuan was not a fool and was not moved. He just sneered and stopped talking, and Uncle San made a fool of himself.

The reef was not large, and the few rocks that protruded above the water were very conspicuous. Although it was not known where the cave entrance was, it must not have been too difficult to find. Xie Lianhuan rowed the boat, and San Shu lit a lantern and began to search for the cave entrance as they entered the reef group. Soon, they found the cave entrance under a molar-shaped rock on the west side of the reef.

The entrance was about two people wide and bottomless, as if it had grown on the reef. The edge of the rock faintly showed traces of polishing by previous people, obviously this hole had been artificially excavated. The entrance was hidden underwater and concave at the base of the reef. If you didn’t know in advance, you couldn’t see it at all on the surface of the water.

Uncle San put on his equipment and wanted to enter, but was stopped by Xie Lianhuan, who said that the waterways below were complicated. He knew the route, so it would be better if he went first.

This made sense, and Uncle San didn’t want to force his way in. So Xie Lianxian went in first, and Uncle San followed him.

After thirty meters, they could see that this was a naturally formed cavity in the reef, with coral bones and coral rocks jutting out, like giant bone plates embedded in the walls of the cave. However, the ends of the “plate bones” are fused with the surrounding rocks, so it looks more like countless strange sea plates, attached to the rock wall.

Diving in underwater caves is quite dangerous, but the two of them had no experience and had no idea what they were doing.

After crawling in the cave for about ten minutes, Uncle San saw a fork in the road. The reef caves developed like the tentacles of an octopus all over the reef, with passable holes everywhere. Some were very shallow, and you could see the head with a flashlight, while some were so big that they were as big as a truck, and the bottom was not visible. Because there was no sunlight, there were few anemones and corals here, but there were many colorful small fish, as well as sea slugs and sea cucumbers, making this cave not lonely.

Under Xie Lianquan’s guidance, Uncle San swam through this extremely complex and huge reef cave system, like a mouse in a mouse hole. In order to keep a secret, he used a diving knife to carve a mark at each intersection to avoid any changes inside.

After half an hour, they swam out of the reef cave. When Uncle San turned on the underwater searchlight and looked around, he found that he had not entered any ancient tomb.

It looked like a huge pit in the reef, surrounded by pitch blackness. He looked up and saw the coral reef hanging above him, but when he turned on the torch to shine on the ground, he found that he couldn’t see anything.

After all these years, even though the situation was terrifying, Uncle San didn’t remember all the details clearly, so after he had rambled on for a long time, I still didn’t understand what kind of place they had finally arrived at. In the end, I had to find a piece of paper and ask him to draw it roughly.

Uncle San’s drawing was pretty bad, even worse than a scribble, but the meaning was concise and clear. With my imagination and Uncle San’s explanation, I gradually got a little understanding.

According to my understanding, it should be a large hidden cave in the reef, but where exactly it was located, it was impossible to verify. The exit of the cave that Uncle San was traveling through was located at the very top of the cave. From the pitch blackness beneath his feet, it seemed as if he had entered a black void.

When Uncle San and his men reached this point, there was no longer a path to follow, and the void stretched out to the left and right. Under the light of the flashlight, there was a large amount of white seaweed in the water, and below was an abyss. There was nothing to be seen except for the rocks behind them. In Uncle San’s own words, it was like being in outer space.

This feeling is actually quite bad, because no matter where you are, as long as your flashlight can shine on something, you at least have a sense of existence. But there, your flashlight emits nothing in return, except for blackness. You don’t know what awaits you ahead.

At this time, the oxygen consumption is also very large. Cave diving is different from ordinary exploration. It must strictly control the time of activity, because you must leave some oxygen for returning to the outside of the cave. This requires the diver to check the oxygen gauge from time to time, which is a great psychological pressure for Uncle San.

However, Xie Lianhuan seemed to be confident. After turning a few circles in the water, he actually signaled Uncle San to turn off the underwater searchlight.

Without the searchlight, it was absolute darkness. Uncle San was puzzled. He couldn’t find the way out now, and he was going to turn off the light.

But he saw that he was insisting, and it was obvious that this was the way the foreigners wanted it. Uncle San knew that he had no other choice, so he followed Xie Lianhuan’s instructions and turned off the searchlight.

After both searchlights were extinguished, the darkness descended like ink. At the same time, the luminous paint on the handle of the waterproof flashlight in their waists (designed to prevent the flashlight from falling into the water and becoming lost at night when diving) slowly lit up, indicating their respective positions.

Xie Lianhuan, who was standing next to him, seemed to have taken off his flashlight and used it as a pointer. Uncle San saw the light circle waving, indicating a direction.

He looked in that direction and, faintly, he could see a large group of very faint green light points in the darkness far below. It seemed to be the eyes of some creature, slowly moving.

Uncle San’s heart skipped a beat and he became nervous. He had heard many fishermen say that there could be anything in the sea, but these green eyes could not be the eyes of some creature lurking in the darkness.

Thinking about it, he couldn’t help but reach for his knife. At this time, Xie Lianhuan on the side waved his flashlight a few times, and the flashlight’s indicator light began to move, actually heading towards the group of green light spots.

Uncle San cursed in his heart. Don’t look at him being so casual, but after going down to the land, Uncle San’s style of doing things is actually very careful. Xie Lianhuan’s actions like this are obviously knowing what those light spots are, and are signaling him to follow.

Similarly, as a cliché, Uncle San still had to follow him. He was annoyed, but there was nothing he could do.

Without any light, he was diving with only a cold halo, like a person without eyes. This feeling of melting in the cold darkness, Uncle San had experienced the bitter consequences before when he went diving, and now he was experiencing it again, but underwater.

The green light spots were getting closer, but because the light was too weak, he could not see clearly what they were. As they got closer, Uncle San was horrified to discover that the spots were indeed moving, and not slowly at that.

The thought that they were a group of sea monsters became stronger and stronger. But Xie Lianhuan didn’t seem to realize anything, and chased after them very quickly. Soon, the two of them swam to a point thirty meters above the light spots. Uncle San’s fear had reached its limit. He rushed over and grabbed Xie Lianhuan to stop him from getting any closer.

Xie Lianhuan didn’t know what was going on and was also startled. He stopped.

Uncle San was making hand signals with his flashlight, and Xie Lianhuan was waving his back. But neither of them understood what the other was trying to say.

Uncle San was extremely annoyed. He really wanted to turn on the searchlight and explain everything, but he was afraid that if he did so from such a close distance, and if what he saw was really a shark or something, he wouldn’t even have a chance to escape.

Just as he was racking his brains to figure out how to make Xie Lianhuan understand what he meant, suddenly a white light appeared. Xie Lianhuan had turned on the flashlight. It was obvious that he was also frustrated and couldn’t help but ask why Uncle San was holding him back.

Uncle San was startled. He covered the light while looking down.

At the end of the white light, in the darkness below, a white, human-shaped object wrapped in a tattered gauze robe was faintly visible. As San Shu became more and more accustomed to the light of the flashlight, he could see more and more clearly, and his pores all contracted.

It turned out to be an ancient corpse floating in the water, in a strange posture, with a blurred face. The huge white gauze was like a huge jellyfish skirt, drifting in the water, like a huge flower from the underworld.