Cao Daring prepared a few machetes for us before leaving, saying that after entering the Guanmengou, it would no longer be as easy to walk as the mountains and forests in the village, and the Guanmengou was overgrown with weeds, and there may be some places where we need to open our own way.

"Did the people who entered the gate ditch before bring machetes?" I asked Cao Daring.

"Bring it, how could I not bring it to them." Cao Daring continued: "Don't look at this machete as inconspicuous, but it is an indispensable thing to enter the mountain, in addition to facilitating the opening of the road, it can also be used for self-defense when encountering wild beasts."

After listening to Cao Daring's words, I couldn't help but smile a little.

I've been thinking about a question last night, how to determine the direction of the senior brother after entering the gate? After all, no one knows how big the gate ditch is, so I don't know if I can find the place where the senior brother is going.

This question has been bothering me almost overnight, and now it seems that I have complicated it. If it is really as Cao Daring said, there is no road in the gate ditch and I need to open the road by myself, that would be a good thing, and it may have helped me a lot. As long as the elder brother uses a machete to open the way, it will definitely leave traces, and as long as we follow the route they have taken before, we will definitely find the place where they are going.

We followed Cao Daring into the col behind the village, and then along a mountain path.

At first, the walk was quite smooth, and when I looked at the surrounding mountains and forests, I knew that these were all forests contracted by the villagers, and the trees were planted in a regular manner, so it was not difficult to walk. But after passing a few hills, the forest in front of me has completely changed, and the pine trees on both sides that were originally regular and upright have become a chaotic variety of trees. I can't even name some of the trees, but they look like old trees in the forest, and I guess they are no longer the forests contracted by the villagers from here.

The trail after that was a bit rough and much more difficult than the previous one in the forest. The growth trajectories of the trees here are varied, causing the paths we take to become winding. Cao Daring said that the trail was walked by people who went into the mountains to hunt and collect mushrooms, and that villagers rarely walk so far.

Along the way, the old prostitute and the thin monkey talked the most, and they were on the right track, and the conversation was endless. It's all about the world, the sea and the north, and there is not a word related to this.

I also chatted with Wang Jingang, it turned out that he was from Guizhou, and he also knew a little about the deep mountains and old forests here. He said that the Qiannan jungle is also well-known in Guizhou, and in the early years there were foreign explorers who came here to seek excitement, but in recent years it has been rare to hear of people exploring here. As for why the number of people has decreased in recent years, he can't say why.

My first impression of Wang Jingang felt very good, I felt that he was not pompous, he had something to say, and he didn't look like an opportunistic person. As for He Mancang, he didn't say a word along the way, giving people the feeling of being very old, probably because he was a little older, so I think he should be a thoughtful person.

After walking for two hours, I don't know how many mountain beams we crossed, in short, the deeper we walked into the mountains and forests, the more spectacular the wonders of the mountains and forests became. All kinds of ancient trees in various shapes come into view, which is dizzying. Some of the towering trees have aerial roots from their trunks and branches that penetrate into the ground and gradually thicken to become pillar roots that support the canopy, forming a peculiar landscape of a single tree forest. Some of the aerial roots are entangled in other trees, growing thicker and thicker, longer and wider, and finally connected to hang the attached trees, forming a unique strangulation scene.

Although it is winter now, there are still a lot of green vegetation in the mountains and forests of Guizhou, towering thousand-year-old trees, the branches of the trees are staggered, and the flourishing branches and leaves stretched out, like turquoise clouds, cover the blue sky tightly. If it weren't for the cool breeze, it really wouldn't feel like winter right now.

Starting from 7 o'clock in the morning, we walked for more than five hours on the mountain road before we came to the front of Guanmengou Mountain. It is true that the two mountains on the left and right of the col are like two gates that are about to close. Outside the gate, you can only see tall and upright trees, like sharp swords, straight into the sky.

It was already noon, and we had a short rest outside the gate ditch and had something to eat. Cao Daring pointed out to me and the old prostitute where to pick up the turquoise, which was on the path we were on.

My wife and I took a closer look, and the results were predictable, but we found nothing. However, I thought that since the turquoise appeared here, it must have something to do with the gate ditch inside, so I didn't let the old prostitute look around.

After Cao Daring sent us here, he went back. Considering the rugged mountain road and the long distance, he was afraid that we would not find our way back when we came out, so he brought some rags with him so that when we came out, he would follow the path he had tied the strips of cloth, and he would tie them every time we walked along a ridge or fork in the road, so that we could follow the instructions of the strips of cloth and walk back to their village.

I always thought that Cao Daring was a mountain village man, but I didn't expect to do things carefully, and I thought so thoughtfully, some strips of cloth guided us on the way back.

While everyone was resting, my wife and I tested the walkie-talkie they had brought from Yunnan outside Guanmengou. Luckily, the walkie-talkie works well here, so we don't have to worry about someone getting separated.

After everyone rested for a while, they began to enter the gate ditch.

As soon as we entered the gate, we found that this place was completely different from the outside. Although the old mountain forest that I have just passed through, it is completely different from the one in the gate, and it is purely trivial. This place can be called a primeval forest, the trees are exceptionally thick, and there are many ancient trees that are surrounded by ten people, and they may not be able to hold it.

Fortunately, everything was expected, after entering the gate ditch, I didn't walk fifty meters away, and I saw a path that someone walked on. Actually, it wasn't a path, but there were weeds and some branches that had been cut down, and you could see at a glance that those people had walked down this place before.

We walked where someone had walked, all the way to the depths of the gate. Because of the thick trees and the high weeds, it was impossible to see too far, except that we were walking between two mountains, and it was impossible to judge the surrounding mountains. There are weeds and fallen leaves deposited by ancient trees, and it feels soft and insecure to step on the fallen leaves.

I don't know how far I walked forward, but I knew that after an hour, the road in front of me changed, and two paths opened by machetes appeared.

One is straight forward, and the other is a hillside that leads to one side. This was a bit unexpected, and when there were two paths, one of them would inevitably be the wrong route. As for which one is right, it is impossible to tell from the weeds that have been cut down alone.