Volume 9 Chapter 18 The Pit
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know, it’s just by the edge of the pit.” The fat man looked at me and suddenly said to me, ”Thieves don’t go empty-handed. There might be something good. I have to go down and take a look. Wait for me for a few minutes.”
I was furious, but now I was alone, and he wouldn’t listen to me. I had to hold the oil lamp while he went down to look for it. I had no choice but to tell him to hurry.
But this was not easy. Most of the tiles were buried under the debris. It was not like in the sea, where the sand was relatively soft. Here, the tiles were sharp on the one hand and on the other hand, they were at the edge of the pit. If you moved a tile, it would slide down into the pit, and it was not easy to maintain balance. The surface was okay, but it was very difficult to dig deeper. Sometimes, when you saw a piece of pottery that you wanted to turn over, you couldn’t get it up, as if it was growing inside.
After a few digs, the fat guy seemed to have found his target. After surfacing to take a breath, he dived back down, inserted his hand into the hole he had dug, and pulled. After a few pulls, the fat guy suddenly shuddered, pulled his hand back, and blood began to flow from his hand.
“Oh no!” I thought to myself, ‘I hope he hasn’t been bitten by a turtle king.’ But the fat man didn’t seem to be poisoned, just that the wound seemed quite deep. He took a mouthful and then used his other hand to pull the bone out.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Damn, there seems to be a thorn in this bone, it hurts me to death.” The fat man sucked his finger while shaking off the skull he had fished out, and beckoned me to shine my miner’s lamp over.
I muttered, “Look, you’re reaping what you sowed.” I walked over to give him light. Just as I got to him, I suddenly heard a series of muffled “gurgling” sounds coming from under me, followed by a series of bubbles rising up.
The fat man and I both froze for a moment. The bubbles stopped for a moment, and then a series of bubbles came up again.
“Damn, you really can’t help but be impressed. Your fart is as powerful as a rocket launcher, and it’s still going. It’s too loud.” The fat guy covered his nose and said.
I was also puzzled. I looked around and said, “Damn it, I didn’t fart.”
“If you didn’t fart, why does it smell so bad? What is this smell? You’ve killed the feces with your fart.” The fat man frowned.
There was a stench all around, but I was shocked when I smelled it. It wasn’t the smell of farts, and although I couldn’t think of what it was for a moment, I had a bad feeling in my gut that something was about to happen. I was about to say, “Let’s go,” when suddenly I lost my balance. The water splashed and I felt like I was stepping on air. I fell into the water.
It was so sudden that I almost lost my footing in an instant. My first reaction was that I had slipped, and I immediately tried to kick my legs to regain my balance. But then bubbles began to rise from the entire underwater area, and the ceramic tile beneath my feet began to move, sliding straight towards a certain place, making it impossible to stand still.
I was shocked and immediately realized what was going on. I quickly tucked my legs up and rolled over to dive underwater. The fat guy also dove down, and we both sank into the water.
I looked down at the mine lamp and saw that the water under my feet had collapsed, creating a large pit that was connected to the one on the side, forming a very large, deep hole. Looking back, I saw that the oil lamp had been pulled into the bottom of the pit by the collapse, and its feet were wrapped in the pottery and could not be pulled out. It seemed that something was grabbing its feet and dragging it down, trying to drag it into the bottom of the pit.
I had not thought about the oil bottle. In fact, it had been taking care of us all along, and we were not used to taking care of it. Looking at his legs, which were stuck in the debris and had already wrapped around his thighs, it was obvious that he had been wrapped up in the moment of the collapse. He did not resist in any way, and just let himself sink down along the tiles.
Seeing that he was about to be buried in the pit, Fat Man and I quickly went over to help. One of us grabbed his hand and pulled him up. Fat Man couldn’t use his free hand, so he bit down on his miner’s lamp and used both hands. The two of us pushed hard against the water and pulled him out.
If he had been alone, he would have died. But if there were two or three people, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. The suffocating oil bottle was lifted and he began to cough.
The fat guy said, “I told you your farts were powerful, they even blew a hole in the water. From now on, remember to say hello before you fart, so as not to hurt others by mistake.”
I gasped and yelled, “You’re still picking on me at this time? I’ll fight you later.”
“Look at you, you’re not even open to advice!” The fat guy took the miner’s lamp and shone it down into the water. The collapse below slowly expanded, but some of it stopped, and soon a hole about half the size of a basketball court appeared in front of us. It was dark and gloomy, like a big mouth, about to swallow us up. From time to time, some bubbles rose from below, and a stench filled the air.
I remembered that this was the stench of marsh gas. This hole must have existed from the beginning. Perhaps there was a wooden beam or something on top of it before, and after it decayed, it still maintained a fragile balance. When there was no external force, this balance could last for thousands of years, but once there was any damage, the wooden beam would collapse. The collapsed pit may have been caused by the fracture of the wooden beam. The fat man was digging tiles at the edge again, which caused a chain reaction.
“Shit,” said the fat man. ”It looks like it’s all hollow underneath.”
It shouldn’t be too deep, but the water just stirred up the dirt and made it hard to see the bottom. I said, “It’s probably a false floor built to prevent the ghost head from falling.” I saw him walking to the edge again, so I said, “Be careful. It was solid just now, but suddenly it collapsed. It’s probably all hollow underneath this place. If we step on it again, it’ll cause a chain reaction and form a vortex, and we’ll all be finished.”
“As long as you don’t fart, you’ll be fine,” the fat guy said. ”Hey, what is this?”
I looked at it with his flashlight and saw that something had actually floated up from the pit.
“Stay back,” the fat man warned. I reflexively stepped back a little with the lantern in my hand, and the fat man focused the miner’s lamp on the object.
The things came up quickly, and soon they floated out of the hole. At this time, we could already see clearly that they were all rotten wood and branches, with a lot of indistinguishable cotton-like trash in between. These should all be the sediment that was pressed down in the mud below, stirred up by the falling pottery shards, and followed by a large amount of dirty water. For a while, the visibility near the hole became worse and worse.
The fat man picked up a few, all of which were branches wrapped in garbage, and got his hands dirty with the stinking mud. He threw it away from him, saying, “Damn it, I’ve turned over the old mud foundation of this mud pond, and it stinks to death!
I said, “Your family only uses such a big pit. If you slip and fall while shitting here, you could die. Can you even shit in it?”
The fat guy is too good at talking. If this is a cesspool, shitting is more stressful than bungee jumping. I don’t think even elephants would dare to use it. The ancestors of the Xiwangmu country would never torture themselves like this, would they?
“Maybe it’s because the queen wants to cultivate the concept of living in peace and security in their children, so that they can remain very vigilant when they shit.” The fat man said seriously.
I urged him to leave, saying, “It’s too dangerous here!” We covered our noses and were about to leave when the fat man pulled something out of the water. It wasn’t a branch. He exclaimed, “What the hell is this?”