Chapter 1: Chance Encounters
My name is Feng Qing, I was born in a small mountain village in Qujing, Yunnan Province, and I am the eldest of three brothers and sisters. There is also a younger brother and a younger sister. Our village is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and there is a winding river at the head of the village, listening to the old people in the village, Zhuge Liang led the army to quell the rebellion in the south, and had fought with Meng Shu in this area.
In the summer, the children of the village like to swim in the river at the head of the village. And I am the most watery one among them, that is because I had a strange disease when I was a child, a red mark grew on my chest inexplicably, my whole body was hot and red, and it didn't work to take medicine and injections, and finally my dad had no choice but to put me in a basin of water to cool down, and after soaking for two days, I slowly got better. Since then, I have had a quirk, I like to take a bath in the river when I have nothing to do, and over time, I can actually hold my breath in the water for more than ten minutes.
When I was ten years old, one day Gui Shengbo of the clan came to me, it turned out that his new daughter-in-law accidentally dropped the wedding bracelet into the river when she was on a boat, and the river was very deep, and several young offspring dived for a long time and did not end up in the end, so they planned to let me try it, and promised to buy me two packets of maltose if they found it. At that time, sugar was a rarity for us children. I readily agreed, followed them to a bay, stripped of my essence, and dived underwater.
It was a river bay, the water flow was not urgent, about ten meters of diving, in the end, the underwater vision was very blurry, I could only hold my breath and grope a little bit under the water, after changing the air twice in a row, I finally touched the bracelet, just when I was about to float, I suddenly saw a ray of light. That's right! I saw a faint light in the dark water, and curiosity prompted me to swim in that direction. It was a concave and convex river wall, a water hole more than one meter wide extended horizontally in the direction of the river bank, and the light was emitted from it. I roughly estimated that the water hole should be very deep, and the time to hold my breath was about the same. I didn't dare to go inside, but chose to float to the surface.
Gui Shengbo didn't break his promise, and happily bought me two packets of maltose. After returning home, I gave the sugar to my second brother Feng Qiang and younger sister Feng Yun, and we happily tasted the milky taste together.
That night, I couldn't sleep, and as soon as I closed my eyes, the green face lingered in front of my eyes, and I had heard from time to time the people of the village told me the story of someone who had picked up a treasure, and how nice it would be if I could get some money and buy a lot of candy for my younger siblings.
After a lot of tossing and turning, I made the bold decision to visit that place again tomorrow.
Early the next morning, I found a knife and a flashlight and went back to the river, I wrapped the flashlight tightly in a few plastic bags, and after making sure that it would not enter the water, I stripped naked and dived into the water hole.
After groping for a long time, I finally dived into the water hole, which still emitted a faint green light, I shone it with a flashlight, and I couldn't see anything clearly from a distance, the glowing face was ethereal in the water, it seemed very close, and it seemed very far away. I dared to swim forward, and saw clearly, it was actually a stone door, and a hideous human face was engraved on the door, and the eyes and mouth of the human face were inlaid with large pieces of fluorite, which looked very strange. It is estimated that it has been soaked in water for too long, and one side of the stone gate has collapsed, revealing a long passage with some mottled and bizarre portraits carved on the walls on both sides of the passage, which extends inward.
I hesitated, but my curiosity drove me and I swam down the passageway. Fortunately, I didn't swim far to reach an upward staircase, and I dived up a little further down the staircase until I finally surfaced. The slippery moss and mud slid under my feet, and I fought back the feeling of nausea and touched the front.
Soon I saw a stone room, and in the center of the stone room was a coffin. I was a little scared and was about to exit the way I came, when I suddenly bumped into something at my feet. When I looked closely, it was a skeleton leaning against the wall. I screamed in fright and ran backwards as hard as I could, slipping in a panic and rolling down the steps naked, slamming hard on the floor.
I screamed, and there was a sharp pain in my ankle, and my foot was dislocated.
I struggled to crawl to the water's edge, but the pain in my heart made me lose the confidence to dive back to the riverbank, and I tried a few times before I finally fell on the wet floor and cried.
I didn't want to die, I thought about my younger siblings, and my mom and dad. Now, I've paid a heavy price for my recklessness and curiosity.
I endured the pain and tried to calm myself down. , the flashlight carefully examined the surrounding situation. That's when I realized that there were several corpses in an inconspicuous corner. The clothes on his body were already in tatters, only Sen Sen's white bones were lying messily there, and there were actually two water rats next to the white bones, which rushed into the water quickly with the light of the flashlight.
After a few hours, my ankles were getting swollen and painful at the slightest movement, and I struggled to lie in the corner, the hollow eyes of the skeletons on the other side facing me, as if to laugh at me for how soon I became like them. The light of the flashlight slowly dimmed, so I turned it off to save power, and the whole passage fell into darkness.
In this way, I cried and regretted it. Gradually fell asleep.
I don't know how long it took? When I opened my eyes in a daze and felt like I was sleeping on the floor, it was pitch black around me, and I tried to move my body, but hunger and pain in my ankles immediately pulled me back to reality.
I took a deep breath, the bend, the waterhole, the green face, the coffin, the dead body. I slowly recalled what I had experienced.
Am I dead? There is still pain, and it shouldn't be dead, but it's almost ......
At this moment, I suddenly heard a rustling sound, although it was small, but it looked very strange in this quiet tunnel.
I groped around, and the flashlight was still there.
The rustling sound never stopped, as if it was getting closer and closer, and I turned on the flashlight tightly and held it in my hand, but I couldn't stop being nervous in my heart.
The sound grew louder and louder, and cracks appeared in the wall on one side of the passage. Then a ray of light seeped in.
With a bang, a small hole appeared in the place where the wall tiles had collapsed, and then I saw a burly man in black emerge from the hole.
As soon as the man entered the passage, he took a flashlight and fired it around, and he saw me in the light of my flashlight, and then he froze.
He hesitated, tentatively walked up to me and crouched down, and we stared at each other with wide eyes, and after a while, the man in black spoke: "You are ...... Person? ”