232. Entering the hole

Without protective equipment, the descent process will be very uncomfortable, but at the same time, it can also avoid the trouble of carrying equipment. But on the other hand, their bodies are not tied to ropes, which makes the descent even more dangerous.

"I'll come first, you follow." Lindsey grinned at Mo Lei, her pale blue eyes slightly gray with appreciation. He tied a figure-eight knot in one section of the rope and threaded it around his shoulders and hips and through between his legs. He stepped back towards the edge of the cliff, lifted the rope slightly, split his legs, and walked down the cliff.

Mo Lei looked at the old man hanging in the air, facing the steep wall and slowly swaying back and forth until he found a foothold. Once he had steadied himself, Lindsey tightened the rope and moved his feet down the cliff, and he descended a little more, dangling in the air and swaying back and forth, and then, after a creaking sound, the old man shouted from the cliff, "All right, it's your turn, come down." ”

Mo Lei rode on the rope in the same position, walked backwards to the edge of the cliff, held his breath, and jumped down.

The rope immediately began to slide against the crotch, and despite the coarse cloth pants, the friction caused a burning pain. He remembered that he was also very disgusted with unprotected rock descent back then, that is, because of the pain caused by strangulation.

Mo Lei descended slowly, using his right hand as a brake, leaning back, and pressing his feet on the rock wall, while looking for a foothold, while manipulating the rope to move downward. It felt like it had only been a few seconds before he found what he was looking for—a narrow, dark, oval hole that was the entrance to the cave. Mo Lei moved his feet, descended a few meters, and came to the top of the hole, and kicked his legs hard, intending to swing himself in.

Failed!

I wanted to pick at the cliff with my hands, but I didn't have any focus.

Maybe it's been a long time, or it's a physical discomfort caused by a cold and fever. Mo Lei found that things were not as simple as he imagined, and he could not let his body fall into the entrance of the cave, because the actual situation was much more complicated, and the entrance of the cave was flanked by rock walls that went straight up and down.

"Come in a bit." The old man shouted in the cave, "Come in a little more." ”

Mo Lei looked at it and understood what the old man meant. There was a narrow ridge of rock in the wall of the cave entrance, and he had to land there at a fixed point. There was no room for a mistake, the ridge was not a meter wide enough, and the old man Lindsey crouched on the ridge, clinging to the rock with one hand.

Mo Lei simply let himself sway on the rock wall a few times, and his body slowly approached the entrance of the cave, but after entering the entrance, his body began to shake back and forth, and the feeling of dizziness hit again. Mo Lei immediately stopped his movements and relaxed his body, hanging in mid-air until the swing frequency stopped.

Again!

He manipulated the rope, braked with his right hand, swung his body into the hole and out again, and after several round-trips, his body finally penetrated enough and the distance was enough for him to jump, so he let go and landed on the rock ridge, bending his knees as he landed to slow down the impact.

"Not bad, boy." Lindsey laughed and slipped off the ridge.

Mo Lei grabbed the rope and leaned behind Lindsey into the dark part of the cave, looking down, the sunlight slanting into the hole, enough to illuminate the danger beneath his feet.

From the first 30 meters or so of the cave entrance is a downward ramp, the depression angle is very large, I don't know whether it is groundwater or other reasons, the ramp is wet, it looks very slippery and unreliable.

"I said." After waiting for a few seconds, Lindsey probably thought that Mo Lei, who was observing the terrain, was standing still as a sign of weakness, "We can't come in, let's stay here." ”

"Let's go." Mo Lei smiled.

The two men put on light helmets, fastened them with Velcro, and then assembled the headlamps. Lindsey handed Mo Lei a high-tech charcoal fiber axe and an elbow pickaxe, both of which hung the axes on their wrists, swaying like useless appendages in the dim light.

Lindsey looked down at his wrist, nodded, and took the lead towards the ramp, Mo Lei followed behind, twisting in the first few steps, he tried to keep his body balanced, stabilized his body, and tried to step every step to make sure that he would not slip and continue to move forward. Lindsey had no scruples, and walked in front of her like that, as easily as going down a staircase, and the old fellow was as dexterous as a goat.

By the time Mo Lei found the rhythm of walking fast, the road was over. What appeared in front of me was a stretch of limestone road, and although there was water vapor, it was a flat section.

Gradually, they began to descend, it seemed to be a spiral staircase in the rock, and under the light of the headlamp, Mo Lei saw countless forks on both sides of the road, and if it weren't for Lindsey leading the way, even if he knew that this tunnel led to the manor, it would be easy to take other roads and go around. He found that there were no traces of red paint left on the cedar trees in the cave, and the naked eye could not make out the correct direction from the countless bends, and Lindsey clearly relied on memory.

The air inside the cave felt warmer than outside, but Mo Lei knew that this was just a temporary illusion, the rock walls of the cave were full of wet water droplets, and it would not be long before the perennial flowing water under his feet would make the temperature very low, and the humidity in the cave was extremely high.

The ground was littered with rubble, and there was flowing water meandering through it. Mo Lei stepped on the gravel several times and almost lost his footing. Lindsey walked along the winding path as if she were strolling in a leisurely garden. It didn't take long for the passage to widen and turn into a cavern, and Lindsay stopped and slowly twisted his head, the lights on his helmet illuminating the breathtaking terrain.

There are stalactites formed by carbonic acid, which are slender and delicate, breaking at the touch of a finger, and their tips are as sharp as the tip of a needle. There are also stalagmites of calcite texture, and occasionally stalactites and stalagmites are combined to form stone columns. Water oozed from the stone walls, and the tops of the stalactites were dripping, and the never-ending ticking sound was the only sound in the eerie silence. Hardened flowstones form terraces, and translucent calcite hangs from the roof of the cave like a curtain, with uneven edges as sharp as a knife blade. The pungent smell of ammonia from bat waste filled the air.

"Hey, look, this is something for I don't know how many years it has been."

Lindsey said suddenly, Mo Lei turned his head, and looked in the direction Lindsey pointed, and what caught his eye was a well-preserved bear skeleton. Suddenly, there was a loud roar like the friction of a piece of paper, and hundreds of bats flapped their wings at the same time, and a group of resting bats were awakened by them.

Mo Lei felt a chill. He hated this animal, the soft, temperatureless thing.

"Come on!" Lindsey said, "Go this way. ”

He led Mo Lei into a narrow passage, and the passages that left from this cave all looked similar. The ground in front of him slowly rose, and the distance between the two walls became closer and closer, and finally a bottleneck was almost formed, and the top of the cave was about to overwhelm the top of his head, if Mo Lei's height was more than 180 cm, then he would have to bend over and walk. The water on the road was quite deep, and the place where it was immersed in the shoes was cold and bitter.

Mo Lei stumbled in the passage, but Lindsays's movements were still flexible, walking in the rock gaps with increasing slopes as if walking on flat ground, and Mo Lei, who followed behind, stepped on the craggy rocks, becoming more and more cautious. He knew that if he stepped on the air and fell in such a place, the consequences would be very serious.

The ground was finally flush again.

"We're on the same plane as the manor now." Lindsey stood in place to rest, in fact, Mo Lei knew that this old guy was afraid that he would not be able to keep up.

After walking more than ten meters, the passage ahead came to an abrupt end without warning, and they walked in front of a blank stone wall, in front of which there was a large pile of rubble, probably the result of a collapse many years ago.

"We're lost?" Mo Lei looked at the pile of rubble and asked confusedly.

Lindsey didn't speak, he kicked the rubble off the ground with his boot, revealing a rusty iron rod about one meter and two long. He happily lifted it up.

"No one has touched it." Lindsey looked at Mo Lei and stroked the iron rod in his hand, "Good news for you, no one has used it for years, and the people inside obviously haven't noticed it." ”

"What do you mean?"

Lindsey took the iron rod and plunged it under a boulder, weighing down all his body. The stone slowly moved away, revealing an irregularly shaped entrance with a small opening, less than 0.8 meters high and less than 1 meter high.

"During the war, we moved these stones around to block the last passage." Lindsey pointed to the trench scraped out of the rock. Mo Lei guessed that it should be the mark left decades ago, "You can walk the rest of the road yourself, I will break up with you here, this road is very narrow, very low, only for one person to crawl, I think you can do it." ”

Mo Lei leaned over to take a closer look, feeling a little confused and uneasy, but eager to try. It's just that he is still a little uneasy about this strange old man.

"You need to walk ......, yes, you need to walk about two hundred meters, it's basically a flat road, but there's an uphill section at the end, I was young when I last came, and if there were no landslides over the years, you'd end up in front of a hole with a keyhole." Lindsey didn't care about Mo Lei's thoughts, took out a rusty master key from his pocket and handed it to Mo Lei, "I've always carried this thing with me, it's hard to say whether it's still useful now, but it was okay last time." ”

"The last time you said was sixty years ago." Mo Lei took the key.

"I'm afraid it's more than that!" Lindsey admits, "I don't bother to bother with it, the quality of things was much better back then than it is now." All right. It's time to say goodbye, and I wish you good luck! ”

"What the hell is Fuxing?" Mo Lei grinned, took out another stack of banknotes from his pocket with his backhand and handed it to Lindsays, "I said, why are you willing to help me?" ”

"You've asked enough, this question." Lindsey took the money and patted it on the palm of his other hand, "I said that for the sake of the money, you must not believe it." Well, by chance, I liked José very much, but unfortunately he died. Since you chose to sneak into that house, you definitely won't be giving Cole a gift, I want to see that, you know? Lindsey paused, "He's a demon, and I want you to be a knight, a knight who can defeat him." ”

"You're going to wait at the bar for someone to help José get his revenge? Do you know I can beat him? ”

"Hehe, you're wrong, you found me, not me." Lindthis smiled like a fox, "Besides, I still have money to collect." Young man, if something is wrong, go back the way you came, and I will wait for you on the hillside for two hours, and in two hours I will probably be waiting for you in the bar. That's when I knew if you could beat him. ”

"You blatantly brought me here, not afraid that someone would tell Cole? Sorry, that's the last question. ”

"Oh, my child, I've lived long enough, can't one do as he pleases before he dies?" After Lindsey said this with a serious face, he returned to a slick smile, and before turning to leave, he turned back and said, "You have to be careful of the army, a nest of snakes and rats, Barranquilla is rotten to the top." ”。

Mo Lei thanked the old man, looked back at the small hole in front of him, and sighed.