Although Chen Congxian was born in the Wuling Mountains and is a native of his hometown, he went abroad when he was young and is not working locally, so he does not know much about the Wuling Mountains for a long time.

At this time, as soon as I walked on the mountain road, I obviously felt that these mountain men were not ordinary, these people were basically a shoulder shorter than the northerners, but they were picked, and it was effortless to lift, and the most powerful thing was to walk on the mountain road, which was like walking on the ground, with a strong body, carrying heavy equipment, but they were left behind by the northerners for a while.

Hu Boyi is a person who grew up on the plains, and he is older, and he is already out of breath when he walks through a hillside, and quietly laughs with Chen Congxian: "The footboard of the mountain people is really not covered, this slope is 40 degrees, it can really be said that it is like flying!" This Wuling mountain area has been rampant with bandits since ancient times, and officers and soldiers can't fight the bandits. ”

Chen Congxian hurriedly interrupted Hu Boyi's words, for a long time in Xiangxi, there was no distinction between people and bandits, and it was not allowed that there were bandits in the families of these men, and the long-term isolation from the world had cultivated the tough, tenacious, brave and ruthless temperament of the mountain people, and at this time, it was not possible to arouse the disgust of the locals because of a few jokes.

This Li Shuifa is a local robe uncle, and it is indeed not simple, he is on crutches, he is a leader, he is obviously able to suppress these young children. Chen Congxian finally knew why he had to go in person, without Li Shuifa, these young babies were estimated to be picky halfway through.

The elevation of Qixing Mountain is not the highest in the eyes of the surrounding mountains, but the terrain is very peculiar, the mountain is an inverted slope, the village is behind the mountain, the high mountains on both sides clamp the mountain, extend forward, squeeze the Qixing Mountain in the middle, and the mountain is high and densely forested, from the sky, it is impossible to see the mountain recessed here, and below is the Youshui River with the river turbulent.

More than 20 people split the mountain to open the way, all the way up the difficult climb, at noon finally reached the top of the mountain, Qixing Mountain seems to be as Li Shuifa said, it is estimated that no one has been here for many years, there is no sign of human activity at all.

Li Shuifa quietly came to Chen Congxian's side and introduced: "Mr. Chen, this is the top of the mountain, when I was young, I heard the elders say that this mountain has been sealed for many years, and there are mountain spirits and ghosts living in this mountain, I heard that I don't know if it was a few lifetimes ago that many people in our area went up the mountain to collect medicine and firewood, and then some people disappeared completely, and some people went crazy even if they went down the mountain, sometimes we didn't dare to go up the mountain to find which cow ran to Qixing Mountain, occasionally there were some bones or something, and the water rushed into the Youshui River, oops, there were people, There are beasts, and I don't know what kind of monster they eat, and they do a lot of evil. ”

Chen Congxian has always been a staunch atheist, and he has received the best higher education abroad, of course, he doesn't believe in any mountain spirits and ghosts, and comforts Li Shuifa seriously: "Brother Li, now that it is the Republic of China, there can be no feudal thoughts. ”

Li Shuifa grinned and said, "This is nature, this is nature... ”

*

In order to maintain the authenticity, the following content is from the exploration notebook, I in the article is my uncle Chen Congxian, and a considerable part of the data involved here is data, so I did it redacted, just to tell the story of the incident:

May 23rd, 1915 20:21 Sunny weather

Today is the first day to enter the Qixing Mountain Cave in Liye Township, Longshan County, this is a very deep cave, the entrance of the cave is located on a cliff on the top of the mountain, we are relying on the villagers to tie us and equipment in the pocket from the top of the mountain.

The coupling of abundant precipitation and neotectonic movement in Xiangxi has caused the unique scenery of "no mountains and no movement, no movement and no strangeness", the cave formed by this gently dipping rock layer is quite stable, from today's exploration results, this is not a simple cave, but should have 3-4 layers of caves. If the estimation is correct, it should be a complex cave system with multiple openings and the coexistence of water and drought, with a relatively obvious layer-like shape, and there are vertical shafts or high-dip oblique caves connected between the caves of each layer, and the caves at each level can be compared with the terraces of different grades of surface rivers.

We entered the first layer of the top of the mountain today, the entrance is relatively dry, we slope down along the entrance, sometimes spacious, sometimes claustrophobic, the narrowest place can only be a person crawling through, the current vertical depth should be about 200 meters from the top of the mountain, the cave is dark, everyone has experienced a day of fatigue has fallen asleep, Hu Gong had a little accident today, the foot was sprained, but walking is not a big problem, but the loss of a backpack when the fall is injured, resulting in the geological hammer, the compass is lost each one.

Recorded by: Chen Congxian

May 24th, 1915 22:06 Weather: Unknown

Today is the second day of entering the cave of Qixing Mountain, Ms. Wang Lanzhi was unfortunately killed, Hu Gong and Xiao Li were burned, Hu Gong was slightly injured, and the left ankle was swollen, and it was lucky to be able to walk here today. I couldn't believe what I saw today, a living life just disappeared in front of me in front of that terrible fire. When I came over, I saw someone artificially made of wood, the wood has rotted, there is an inexplicable smell and some dry bones in the road, is there a large ancient tomb in this mountain? Or is it some kind of palace made by the ancestors of Xiangxi? And the animal that I just saw seems to be a bat, I have never seen such a large bat, maybe it is not a bat at all, all of this is currently unknown, today in the corridor found a yellowed old book, maybe it will play a role in solving today's mystery, but unfortunately the text on it is quite strange, it seems to be a minority language, everyone is exhausted today, the atmosphere of panic is spreading in the team, I must stabilize everyone's emotions. Today, we reached about 350 meters from the cave.

Recorded by: Chen Congxian

May 25th, 1915 23:31 Weather: Unknown

On the third day of exploration in the cave, I don't know how to describe it, I just want to get out of here quickly, Liu Dahai, Zhao Bo, Li Conghua three young people are more difficult, Du Wang and other 7 exploration team members are missing, I am now with Hu Gong and other 5 people are now camping in a deep underground pool in a hole, marking along the way, looking forward to the missing team members to come here to meet, the water temperature here is extremely low, there are deep-water fish growing in it. Liu, Zhao, and Li seem to have been bitten to death by a small black crustacean creature, and their consciousness before death was extremely strange.

(2nd Record) 5.26 In the early morning, the watch was lost, and just now Hu Gong was dragged into the water by an unknown creature by the edge of the deep pool, and it was too late for several of our team members to go to the rescue. Now that the whole exploration team is only four people within me, my intuition tells me that this cave must be a strange ancient tomb, and as Brother Li said, this is a cursed ancient tomb.

Recorded by: Chen Congxian

May 25, 1915 Time, weather Unknown

It's about night or early morning, the fourth day of cave exploration or the fifth day, when continuing down the underground river, following the disappearance of Liu Yulong, I encountered an extremely strange group of strange fish, Pan Jun is currently alive and dead, only Jiang Wang and I are together, Jiang Wang's left leg is injured, walking is already very difficult, today a large number of scattered bronzes and jade fragments were found in the water, and it is more judgmental that this is a tomb, but so far, we have not even seen the edge of the tomb and there are only two left, It's not a good base here, and I want to get the news out as much as possible. I'm in a hurry.

Recorded by: Chen Congxian

May 26 or 7, 1915 Time, weather Unknown

Separated from Jiang Wang today, all the equipment has been lost, there are currently two spare batteries left, there is no dry food, I don't know where I have gone underground, the mountain is still going down, maybe I have entered the depths of the underground river, I feel that everything is full of unspeakable weirdness, and I have to think about leaving here quickly.

Recorded by: Chen Congxian

Two days later, on the bank of a river outside a village dozens of kilometers away from Liye, local fishermen found my uncle, who was unconscious, and was rescued and sent to Longshan County Hospital, and then transferred to the Sichuan Army Hospital in Chongqing, where he was diagnosed with severe brain injury.