I asked Shirley Yang rhetorically, "The three of us are getting smaller and smaller?" Where does this begin? ”

Shirley Young said to me, "The objects that can be referred to in the vicinity, including plants and insects, as well as a large number of fossilized ancient trees, are all unusually large, so I wondered if there was something mysterious in this gourd-shaped cave that made the bodies of the people who came in gradually smaller." ”

It sounded like an unbelievable thing, but now that we were drifting in the endless groundwater, and it was difficult to determine for a moment, I said to Shirley Young: "Even if the body may be smaller, can even the clothes and shoes be smaller?" I think that due to the special environment, the ecosystem formed here is larger than the outside world. ”

But I am not sure what I said, this cave is really like the red gourd in the temple of the mountain, the entrance of the cave is small and the belly is big, and it is a horn arc, the wall of the cave will gradually expand when you go deeper, and there is no trace of human processing and construction, it is completely natural. Maybe this is a more ancient relic than the tomb of the king, the local people may have regarded the gourd-shaped cave as a holy place, so they enshrined a gourd statue in the mountain temple, as for whether this cave really has anything special, it is really difficult to say, after all, we are now blind, the range of what we see, but maintain a distance of about 20 meters, it is difficult to detect the changes in the environment of ourselves or a little farther away.

The insects in the vicinity are much larger than normal, especially the fossils of trees in the primeval era are even more terrifying, and the trees poke out of the water with their teeth and claws, tangled with the vines hanging down above, like the strange claws of an old dragon.

I think we should find some targets such as plants and look at them as a reference object, so that we can make sure that our bodies are not getting smaller because we have entered this gourd-shaped cave, otherwise we will not be able to move on, so we will have to go back the way we came and then pay attention to it.

However, the thickness of those old vines is almost the same as the human body, in the jungle outside, there are also such thick vines, so it is impossible to use vines and plant rhizomes as references, the most direct way at present is to dive into the water to see the size of nearby aquatic plants, those algae have their own unique properties, will not grow because of changes in the environment, no matter what kind of environment, almost the same.

But when I thought of the ghostly female corpse that suddenly appeared and disappeared under the water, I felt a little frightened. At that moment, I had to hang the safety lock on the airbag, say hello to the fat man and Shirley Yang, and ask the two of them not to move forward for the time being, and wait for me to find out the situation when I go into the water.

I put down the diving goggles on my mountaineering helmet and plunged head-on into the dark water, the tactical spotlights on the mountaineering helmet, there should be a lighting range of fifteen meters even in the water, but there are a lot of impurities in the groundwater here, there are a lot of plankton and microorganisms, as well as algae aquatic plants, and the visual range is reduced to the limit, only less than five meters.

The water is very deep, and I can't touch it to the end, and I feel that it is not yet time to use oxygen, so I just rely on my own water nature, hold my breath and continue to swim underwater, and through the diving goggles, the underwater world is even more blurred. In the darkness, I could faintly see a large black object floating slowly under the water, due to the lack of light source, I could only see that it was the size of a wheel, and I couldn't see whether it was an animal or a aquatic plant at the bottom.

At this time, the black mass at the bottom of the water came closer to me, and I thought that the fish did not have such a body shape, it should be some kind of aquatic plant, could it be that the aquatic plants were tangled together and grew into such a big mass, if the aquatic plants were also so big, then we would really be in big trouble.

Thinking of this, I stretched out my hand to the pitch-black object, ready to grab a handful and take a look at it, whether it was a large mass of aquatic plants, but as soon as I stretched out my hand, the thing suddenly jumped forward, bounced out of the water surface on my head, stopped at a distance of one or two meters from the water, and lurked there quietly.

When the wheel-like object was moving under the water, I could see it clearly, it was not a large mass of aquatic weeds, it looked round when it was shrunk together, and when paddling, it stretched out two arched hind legs and forelimbs, and there were a lot of aquatic plants wrapped around it, it turned out to be a huge red-backed toad, and there seemed to be more than this one around, and there were many others, all gathered about a meter away from the water surface, and it was difficult to tell how many such large toads there were. I don't know if there's something bigger.

How could there be such a big toad, I was shocked, I almost drank a mouthful of groundwater, I felt that this breath was a little unbearable, and I had no intention of diving to the bottom of the water to look for algae plants, so I hurriedly floated up and poured out the water. As soon as I got out of the water, I took a deep breath and said to the fat man and Shirley Young, "There's something under the water, we have to get out of here quickly, and climb to the big fossil tree that has fallen sideways." ”

On the surface of the underground cave here, there are fossils of the entire ancient forest, and the fossils of some of the big trees, due to natural reasons, collapsed and broken, and those fallen fossil trees were laid across the surrounding fossils without sinking to the bottom of the water, forming a natural stone bridge in the dense fossil forest.

Not far in front of us there was a fossilized old tree trunk that had fallen across the water, stuck in the rest of the fossils, and there were many branches on the trunk.

The three of them hurriedly put the weapon they had just taken out back into the waterproof bag, and quickly swam towards the fallen fossil tree, and when we swam close, Shirley Yang first reached out and grabbed the branch of the fossil tree, and the fat man and I supported her feet, first assisted Shirley Yang to climb the body of the fallen fossil tree, and then I also climbed up, hanging down the climbing rope to the fat man, and the fat man who stayed in the water quickly cleared the air of the inflatable bag, and hung the backpack on himself with the climbing rope, and I even pulled the strap and dragged the fat man to the trunk, Finally, he hoisted the equipment backpack up.

I stepped on the stone under my feet, and my heart felt a little more stable, but the three of us still didn't dare to slack off, and took the weapon out of the waterproof bag as quickly as possible, and the fat man asked me: "A Li Xiangyang scared you like this, what is there under the water?" ”

Shirley Yang also asked me, "Did you see the female corpse sunk under the water?" ”

I pointed to the water surface and said: "There is no Li Xiangyang, there is no female corpse, there are big toads under the water, that is, big toads, as big as the wheels of the car, and the small ones are also big, ***, there are many poisonous glands on the pimples behind these guys, and you must not come into contact with them, otherwise once you are poisoned, there will be a danger of one hundred and twenty points." ”

Shirley Young raised his wolf-eye flashlight and swept the beam of light towards the surface of the water where we had just stayed. It was already quiet, only the water ripples caused by our rapid swimming just now, under the dark and dreary water, Y Yang looked at it twice, then turned to me and said, "When I used to do experiments, I often used toads. I remember that this animal should hide in the mud during the day, under rocks or among the grass, and only come out at dusk and at night, how can it appear in such a deep place of water, have you seen it wrong? ”

I shook my head and said: "To be honest, such a big toad, today is the first time I have seen it, but I will never be mistaken, I think your book is not suitable for use here, I am only three meters away from the big toad under the water, I can see it very clearly." They're all floating not far from the water, and I don't know what to do, and I'm worried that it's not good for us, so I'm going to let you climb here. Anyway, let's take a look at it first, I always feel that something is not quite right in this fossil forest flooded by groundwater. ”

The fat man suddenly made a silent gesture and asked us to look not far ahead. The place where the mosquitoes gathered, countless large dragonfly-like mosquitoes are making a "buzzing ......" piercing noise, which is very close to the place where we settled, and the light of the wolf's eye flashlight can also be seen very clearly, because those insects and mosquitoes like the wall have no eyes, they are not sensitive to the light of the wolf's eye flashlight, and still circle around the most dense place of plant rhizomes like headless flies.

Shirley Yang whispered to us, "The plants on the ground are too dense, causing a lack of nutrients and water, so the plants that extend down are desperately growing down in order to grab water, so that they can come into direct contact with the groundwater here, and those flying insects...... They seem to be gathering there to lay their eggs. ”

When I dived into the water just now, I found that there are a lot of big fish, which are different from the blind fish that always live in the underground environment, they all have eyes, which shows that although this groundwater flows through the underground cave, it is an open water and communicates with the outside world.

However, the environment here is too unique, and the plants and insects are independent ecosystems, so as long as there is clear water that can be connected to the outside world, we should be able to follow the water flow and enter the vicinity of the main tomb of the king.

The top priority now is to find out whether this gourd-shaped cave will gradually become smaller the deeper we go, or whether the gourd-shaped cave will gradually become smaller the deeper we go, or whether the gourd-shaped cave will have the illusion that our body is getting smaller as we go further inside, as well as the large plants and insects that grow in this special environment.

Suddenly, there was a commotion on the water surface, and a large tongue several feet long stretched out from under the water at a lightning speed, attacking the big toads on the water surface, and the long tongue rolled up, enveloping ten insects, and countless large mouths appeared on the water surface, swallowing the insects that were wrapped in the blood-red long tongues, and it turned out to be those big toads floating under the water surface When the time was ripe, they all jumped out of the water one after another, preying on the large groups of insects that were gathering together.

At this moment, the water surface in front of the fossil tree became a pot of porridge, and when the toad's mouth closed one by one, countless mosquitoes had lost their lives, and each of those strange toads was amazingly big, and their eyes were like two red lights, dense, and it was impossible to count how many there were.

The three of us lay down on the fallen fossil tree, and when we saw the pimple glands on the backs of the big toads, we felt so sick that we really didn't want to look at it anymore, so we had to keep our bodies crawling on the trees as low as possible, and put our heads down for the time being to look at the water, hoping that the toads would be full as soon as they were fed and disperse, so that we could go into the water again, and leave this strange cave as quickly as possible, and reach our final destination before dawn.

When I lowered my head, I found that there were many tiny sand holes on the body of the fossil tree, which had been soaked in water for thousands of years, and had been washed out of countless sand holes by the current.

So I turned off the wolf-eye flashlight in my hand, turned on the more energy-efficient spotlight on my hiking helmet, and then beckoned Shirley Yang and the fat man, gestured, and led the two of them to a relatively flat stone platform on the left.

This stone platform on the left side, very solid and stable, the area is not small, more than enough to accommodate three people, in this fossil forest of branches and horizontals, this square stone platform looks a little different, the square is quite neat, it is obvious that there are traces of man-made repair, but the surface and all around are crawling with vines, and there are a lot of wet moss.

I said to Shirley Young and the fat man, "I wonder if this place is a relic left over from the construction of the king's tomb, and if so, what is it used for?" Could it have something to do with the female corpse we saw underwater? ”

The fat man said: "No matter how clumsy your eyes are, you can see that this is an artificially built stone platform, we saw a burial ditch with ivory before, and this place is also where valuable artifacts are placed." With that, he pulled out the sapper shovel and shoveled the wet moss and plants off the stone platform, trying to see if there was any dark pavilion with bright tools below.

Shirley Yang and I saw that the fat man had already started to do it regardless of it, so we had to help him illuminate, and the big toads not far away were still devouring the mosquitoes, stirring the water loudly, and it seemed that it would not be done for a while.

The fat man shot like the wind, and in a blink of an eye he had cleared out a small half of the stone platform, only to see that there was no stone box below, but a series of reliefs, and the composition was complex, containing a lot of information, but just a glance will know that these reliefs record a certain secret sacrificial ritual in ancient times, which is a very bizarre and mysterious ancient ritual that we have never seen, the ceremony is carried out in this gourd, and this stone platform is a special altar.