"That's right, but in such a deep place, with high temperature and pressure, and no oxygen, how does life survive?" Sun Ping's mask was covered with a layer of mist, making it impossible for me to distinguish his expression, which made me a little worried about how long everyone's physical strength could last.

"In the past, we thought that life could not survive without sunlight, but later in the deep sea, in caves, we found a biosphere that was not maintained by photosynthesis at all. In the past, we thought that life would not survive without oxygen, but a few years ago, Americans discovered ammonia-breathing microorganisms in deep-sea drilling. In addition, we have always believed that living things must maintain metabolism by eating organic matter, and later found microorganisms that produce energy by breaking down metals in the crater of the deep sea to maintain physiological functions, so I would not be surprised to find anything under this cave. ”

Sun Ping and Xiao Duan were listening attentively, and suddenly there was a faint shout from the Cao team under the cliff.

"It's so evil, how can there be a tree down here?"

We all straightened up, listened intently, and looked at each other quizzically.

"Often, retribution comes quickly, there will be trees in the pit without sunlight, trees that do not survive through photosynthesis? Sun Ping pulled the rope and almost laughed.

I ignored Sun Ping, lay on the edge of the cliff, leaned out, and shouted down, "Team Cao, what's the situation?"

A few dozen meters away from me, in the dark, a flashlight pillar was shining back and forth.

"It's okay, there's something on the cliff below, like a tree, and it looks like it's alive, ignore it for now. I saw Liu Xiaowu, hanging his head down, he must have stepped on the air, the rope was stuck in the crack of the stone, I went down to get him up, you are going to pull the rope. ”

Team Cao's words made me confused, I really couldn't imagine what the tree he saw looked like, in such a crypt, even if there was an ancient tree, it should be a petrified fossil, how could Team Cao judge that it was alive?

After a few minutes, I felt the rope in my hand sink, and then, Team Cao's voice came up again, "Xiao Wu fell unconscious, he couldn't get out of the rope, I tied him to mine, Lao Chang, you pull up with some force." ”

"Be careful, step on it steadily, you move smaller, and we'll pull it." I yelled down, stood up, pulled the rope, and walked towards Sun Ping and Xiao Duan, feeling a burst of joy in my heart, I could find Liu Xiaowu and bring it back, this adventure seemed to be worth it.

At this moment, I heard a loud thunderous sound from the dark abyss, short and shocking, and before I could react, the ground had begun to shake violently. The rope in my hand tensed instantly, and I stumbled, being pulled forward by the tremendous force of the rope.

My heart sank, and although I fell to the ground on my back, the rope still dragged me and slowly slid towards the edge of the cliff.

When the earthquake just now, the Cao team must have stepped on the air below, and the weight of the two people plus the inertia, I was worried about whether the steel drill could hold it.

Fortunately, in the process of sliding, my right foot stepped on a raised stone, and the momentum of the fall slowed down.

"Xiao Duan, you hold on, I'll drag Lao Chang up first. I heard Sun Ping's voice behind me. But then I felt the pain in my right leg, a huge pull, and the leg that was kicking on the stone was completely deformed, and the edges and corners of the stone cut through the skin of my ankle, and I seemed to hear the creaking of the joints, I don't know if it was rubbing against the stone.

Xiao Duan must have used his strength to pull the rope back, but before my right leg could feel a moment of relief, the ground began to shake again, this time even more violently than before, and a large amount of dust and gravel fell from the roof of the cave.

"Lao Sun, come back, the steel drill is not working, help me hold it. A small exclamation was heard as the downward gravity of the rope pulled me forward again. For a brief moment, the only thing I could do was move my numb right leg to make a small space on the rock, and without hesitation, I pushed my left foot up as well, clasping the rope tightly with both hands.

I heard the sound of the steel brazing breaking through the stone wall, and heard the exclamations of Sun Ping and Xiao Duan, I felt that my whole body jumped into a reverse arch shape, and the sharp pain quickly went up along the right leg, reaching the waist, and every bone joint of the spine seemed to have been hammered, no longer biting together, and scattered all around. The pain was only for a moment, and then it was completely numb.

Maybe it was more than ten seconds, maybe half a minute, the ground returned to calm, Sun Ping and Xiao Duan must have found a suitable position to fix their bodies, the force that dragged my body gradually decreased, and I could finally lie flat on the ground.

Through the somewhat blurry mask, I realized that I was looking up at the roof of the cave. The roof of the cave was not dark, it was not static, it was like a sparkling river hanging upside down, and I felt like I was sinking to the bottom. As soon as this thought appeared, the energy in my body seemed to be drained, and I knew that it should be consciousness that would continue to pass after that.

At this moment, my heart is extremely calm, and I wonder if people feel the same way when they are about to die. But the sparkling light above me seemed to be getting closer and closer, and I thought it was a hallucination, until it "snapped" and landed on my mask, and I suddenly woke up a little from nothingness.

I could tell that the point of light should be very, very small, and the grain of rice was a behemoth in front of it, but the light it emitted was extremely strong, and the reflection of the viscous liquid wrapped around the point of light made it appear the size of a drop of water.

Drop by drop, the droplets of water fell faster and faster, falling on the mask and the suit like a light rain, but the strange thing is that even if the droplets fall on the clothes, they do not slide to the ground, but flow upwards in defiance of the laws of physics, converging in the direction of my mask.

Soon, the droplets merged into a thick layer that covered my mask tightly. Sun Ping and Xiao Duan, who were not far from me, also seemed to notice this anomaly, and kept shouting at me, but when the sound waves passed through the layer of liquid and entered the mask, it seemed to encounter huge resistance, and it became slow and low, and I really couldn't tell what they were shouting.

I tried to lift a hand and remove the liquid from the mask, but I soon found that it was in vain, with no sensation in my whole body, as if the only thing working now was my brain. What surprised me even more was that I didn't have the slightest fear in my heart, I was calm and calm, and even had a little bit of enjoyment. It's like a hard day's work on the sofa, with a glass of old wine waiting to be tasted, and as if you have finally reached the top of the mountain after going through a thousand hardships and dangers, and let the mountain breeze blow with your clothes open, watching the sunset smear the red glow on the sky.

The liquid had gathered a thick layer on the mask, and I thought that in Sun Ping's opinion, the liquid should have completely wrapped my helmet, and the outside sound had completely disappeared. I once felt the rope in my hand slowly pull back twice, it should be Sun Ping and they were making a final effort, but soon, the faint touch disappeared without a trace like those sounds.

The points of light on the mask began to rotate slowly, and I thought that the center should be my eyes, and strangely, the swirling points of light did not form a swirl, but seemed to combine into an image with some meaning.

I tried my best to adjust the focus of the picture so closely, and my eyes seemed to slowly begin to adjust to the bright light, and I gradually understood the meaning of what Cao Team had just said at the bottom of the cliff, it was indeed a tree, a vigorous and powerful tree, it had a trunk that several people could not hug, and it had a well-layered canopy that covered the sky and the sun. There are also unusually developed tree roots that continue to extend downward, but this picture is moving, and the light points converge from the roots to the trunk, and then diverge from the trunk, and slowly extinguish to the edge of the canopy, and the cycle is repeated without interruption.

Could it be that Team Cao, who was in the air on the edge of the cliff, had just seen such a scene and made the same exclamation?

Is this showing me something? Or is it some kind of special way of communicating?

My mind moved, and I began to meditate on the question in my mind, what is going on under this bottomless cavern? Try not to think about the pattern of the points of light in front of me, just repeat the same question over and over again.

Soon, I seemed to get a response, and the light point in front of me turned into a vortex again, slowly rotating around the center, and the image of the big tree disappeared, but this time, I noticed that the light point was no longer the same size, the same brightness, and even I began to slowly distinguish the spatial relationship and distance between the light points. After a few seconds, I finally began to slowly recognize that the points of light were actually a three-dimensional picture.

Huge and complex tunnels are dense, and towering stone pillars support a wide space, and the river is rushing, but above the water is not the waves, but the flames that dance high and low.

In the midst of the waves of flames, there is a huge stone tower-like structure. The stone tower appears to be in the middle of the air, with a circular pedestal buried deep at the base of the River of Fire, with a long narrow tunnel leading straight down.

(There is the Gate of Liberation, which is known as the Gate of Strict Purification of All Buddha Lands and the Subduing of Sentient Beings and the Ultimate Departure; there is the Gate of Liberation, which is known as the realm of full merit that has been cultivated by all Buddhas; there is the Gate of Liberation, which is the Great Sea of Wishes of all the Bodhisattvas; there is the Gate of Liberation, which is the universal manifestation of the Dharma Realm and the number of motes; there is the Gate of Liberation, which is the name of the Infinite Bodhisattva Divine Power Realm in all the motes; there is the Gate of Liberation, in which the name of the three lifetimes of evil things appear in one thought; there is the Gate of Liberation, in which all the roots of the Bodhisattvas enter the realm of each other; there is the Gate of Liberation, in which the name can manifest all kinds of bodies in the boundless Dharma Realm with divine power; and there is the Gate of Liberation, the name shows that all bodhisattvas practice the first door to enter all wisdom and convenience. --Huayan Sutra)