As soon as he walked on the mountain road, Chen Congxian clearly felt that these mountain men were unusual, these people were basically a shoulder shorter than the northerners, but it was effortless to pick and lift, 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 for a while they left these northerners behind.

Hu Boyi is already 45 years old, and he was already out of breath when he walked through a hillside, and quietly laughed 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, no wonder *** suffered a lot in this bandit back then." ”

Chen Congxian hurriedly interrupted Hu Boyi's words and said, "Pay attention to the relationship between the military and the people. "For a long time in Xiangxi, there is no distinction between people and bandits, and it is not allowed that the families of these men have descendants of bandits, and the long-term isolation has developed a strong and tenacious temperament of the people in the mountains.

This Li Shuifa is indeed not simple, he is on crutches, he is the first, he is obviously able to suppress these young descendants. Chen Congxian finally knew why he had to go in person, without Li Shuifa, these juniors probably didn't dare to go up the mountain 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 town 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 concave here, and it can completely cope with the high-altitude reconnaissance of modern warfare. Below is the turbulent Youshui River.

The more Chen Congxian looked, the happier he became, this was simply a place tailor-made for this exploration. 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: "Comrade Chen, this is the top of the mountain, when I was a child, I heard the elders say that this mountain has been sealed for so many years because there are mountain spirits and ghosts living in this mountain, I heard that I don't know how many people in our area went up the mountain to collect medicine and firewood a few lifetimes ago, 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 any cows to Qixing Mountain, and occasionally there were some bones or something, and the big water rushed into the Youshui River, oops, there were people, there were animals, I don't know what kind of monster it was eaten, and it was very evil. ”

Chen Congxian has always been a staunch atheist, and he has received the best higher education, of course, he doesn't believe in any mountain spirits and ghosts, and comforts Li Shuifa seriously: "Lao Li, you are also a party member and a veteran, but you must do a good job in taking the lead." It has been liberated for so many years, but there can be no feudal thinking. ”

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

*

In order to maintain authenticity, the following content is from that exploration notebook, I in the article, is my grandfather Chen Congxian, a considerable part of the data involved here is data and some secrets, so I did a hiding, just to tell the story of the matter:

May 23rd, 1963 20:21 (UTC) Sunny weather

Today is the first day to enter the cave, I told Lao Chen to take people back to the town first, Lao Chen is a good cadre, just because Xiangxi is still in a general semi-closed social state, feudal thinking is still very heavy, I believe that he will become a good leader in the future. It was a deep cave, and the entrance of the cave was located on a cliff at the top of the mountain, and we were put down from the top of the mountain by the villagers who tied us and our equipment to a lob.

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. Although the morphological structure and scale of the horizontal passage are very different, most of them have the characteristics of underground rivers or undercurrent caves in the past, if the estimation is correct, it should be a complex cave system with multiple openings, water and drought coexisting, with a relatively obvious layer-like shape, and the caves at each level are connected by vertical shafts or high-dip oblique caves, and the caves at each level can be compared with the terraces of different levels 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 crawling by one person, the current vertical depth should be about 200 meters from the top of the mountain, the cave is dark, the comrades have fallen asleep after a day's fatigue, Hu Gong had a little accident today, his foot was sprained, but there is no big problem in walking, but he lost a backpack when he fell, resulting in the loss of a radioactive measuring instrument, a geological hammer, and a compass. Recorded by: Chen Congxian

May 24th, 1963 22:06 Weather: Unknown

Today is the second day of entering the cave of Qixing Mountain, Comrade Wang Lan sacrificed, Hu Gong and Xiao Li were burned, Hu Gong was injured a little seriously, and his left ankle was swollen, and he was lucky to be able to walk here today. I can't believe what I saw today, the little girl who came out of the XXX courtyard (hidden) was still so lively, for the construction of the motherland, she hadn't even had time to start a family, and a fresh life disappeared in front of me in 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 of the bat I just saw, I have never seen such a large bat, maybe it is not a bat at all, all this is not known at present, 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 seems to be 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, I lost a radiometer and two automatic weapons, and I reached about 350 meters from the cave.

Recorded by: Chen Congxian

May 25th, 1963 11:31 PM Weather: Unknown

On the third day of exploration in the cave, I don't know how to describe it, I just want to leave here quickly, Liu Dahai, Zhao Bo, Li Conghua three comrades died, Du Jianguo and other 7 comrades 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 comrades to come here to meet, the water temperature here is extremely low, there are deep-water fish growing in it. The three sacrificial comrades Liu, Zhao, and Li seem to have been bitten to death by a small black crustacean creature, and their consciousness before sacrifice is extremely strange. 5.26 In the early hours of the morning, the watch was lost, and 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 comrades 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 Lao Li said, this is a cursed ancient tomb.

Recorded by: Chen Congxian

May 25, 1963 Time, weather Unknown

Now it is about night or early morning, the fourth day of cave exploration or has reached the fifth day, when continuing down the underground river, following the disappearance of Comrade Liu Yulong, encountered an extremely strange group of fish, Comrade Pan Jun is currently alive and dead, at present only Comrade Jiang Wang and me, Comrade Jiang Wang's left leg is injured, walking is already very difficult, today in the water found a large number of scattered bronzes, jade fragments, more judgment This is the possibility of a tomb, but unfortunately so far, We didn't even see the edge of the tomb and there were only two of us left, this is not a suitable base for us, and we hope to get the news out as much as possible. I'm in a hurry.

Recorded by: Chen Congxian

May 26 or 7, 1963 Time, weather unknown

Today and Comrade Jiang Wang separated, all the equipment has been lost, there are currently two spare batteries left, dry food is gone, 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 everywhere is full of indescribable weirdness, I have to think of leaving here quickly.

Recorded by: Chen Congxian

Two days later, my grandfather was found unconscious on the riverbank outside a village dozens of kilometers away from Liye, and he was rescued and sent to Longshan County Hospital, and then transferred to the Army Hospital in Chongqing, where he was diagnosed with a brain injury.