XXII. The Underworld
The pitch-black cavern swirled at high speed in my fall, and the rapid air was compressed into wind blades that swept past my ears, am I not dead yet? I lamented.
But soon I felt myself fall on something, and it was rustling and very soft, "Is it a tree?" "The resistance to falling has been reduced a lot, but I am still falling, the leaves and branches scratching my mask one by one with a crisp sound, and I roll into a ball with my hands and knees. Because I know there are more branches and leaves down there.
"Poof" I landed on the ground before the loss of a lot of speed so that the fall in the air did not cause me much damage, I touched the backpack and found that my equipment was still there, I hurriedly turned on the flashlight, and found that this was actually a huge underground forest. As far as the eye can see, oak trees are lush and pine trees are forested. The black sky was filled with gray trails, like gray rain, and I touched my hair to realize that it was volcanic ash.
This is a volcanic forest, I am surprised, how can there be such a place in Shennongjia? And it looks like it's supposed to be underground? "By the way, what about the girl?"
I was just thinking about it, when I suddenly heard the sound of leaves above my head, and the light of the flashlight reflected a figure falling, and it seemed that her foothold should not be this thick tree pole, I had no choice but to jump and hold her as a meat pad, and fell to the ground first.
"Oh my God, I'm not dead yet." She got up and said, then looked at me and said, "Why are you here?" ”
"Nonsense." I lay on the ground and looked at her in a very strange position: "Don't you think you didn't fall hard?" ”
"That's right!" "Because there's all ash down here!" she said. She gracefully stood up from the ground, flashed her flashlight, and shone through the area, "This is deep underground, huh?" "A little bit of sporadic sunlight was shining through.
"yes!" I gave her a blank look, "Of course this place is deep, it's enough to leave you without anything." "But then again, how did I not know that there would be such a volcanic forest in Shennongjia? And if it is discovered, there will be traces of man-made and even developed into a new tourist attraction. So in this case, this is also an unexplored virgin land? I can't help but feel sad when I think about this, how can we get out of here?
But if it's a volcanic forest, there must be a way out, right? I thought about looking up at the fading sunlight, "Light, light? ”
This is the vast Shennongjia underground forest, all kinds of strange trees compete to grow here, but no matter how completely dark the place is absolutely not so many trees, even if it is adapted to the environment, there will not be so many species, I suddenly thought that there must be a little light penetrating somewhere here, even a little bit is enough. Because I found that the trees here are not as thick as the outside world, but very dense.
"Turn on the light for me, and I'll see what these trees look like." As soon as I finished speaking, there was a sudden heavy rain in the sky, which was a combination of fog and ash, and the ash that was blown down from the upper layer by the wind met the mist, and because the water adhered to it, it became heavier, and naturally it became rain. I watched all this under the tree in amazement, and it was no longer enough to say that it was a miracle to express my inner admiration, this is nature, light and rain, which is what the trees here rely on, no wonder there is such a big fog on it.
"What, what, what's a flashlight?" The girl hid from the rain and handed me the backpack, "You can find it yourself." ”
I casually took her backpack and took out all her light sources, and shone towards the tree, only to see a huge tree standing there in the rain, its head high in the sky, the branches and leaves, the shade area was the size of half a basketball court, but as my light moved I soon found that the whole direction of the tree was inclined to my right, and many trees here were growing in that direction.
"What's going on? What did you find? She asked.
"Wait a minute." I said, "Wait a little longer, and we'll see if there's really sunlight when the fog clears." "I just sat under the tree and waited for the black and gray rain to end.
It took five minutes for the spectacle to pass, but it was still pitch black at the farthest point of our view. "What are you waiting for? Sunlight? In this kind of place. ”
"The plants and trees all grow towards the sun, and the inclination of these trees is a good illustration, and I think there must be an exit somewhere in that direction." I pointed my hand over and said, "I was waiting for the fog to recede to see if there was any light, but I seem to be wrong. ”
"Hah! Why are you so cautious. The girl smiled and said, "Didn't you climb the mountain and cross the water before?" ”
"It's different now, and now our problem is that we can't even see the light." I sat down, steadied my flashlight in my mask, and flipped through the food in my backpack.
"And when are we leaving?" She seemed to have a sense of being at ease, not afraid to run back and forth with a flashlight in the forest underground. There are many different kinds of trees than the trees above, and there are many kinds of trees that I have never seen before, and the bark feels like a piece of hard iron when you touch it.
Especially the tree I was leaning back to, its leaves were like a small umbrella, and it was green. "Something is wrong here! It seems that many trees have been precipitated by ancient years, and if the forest above is a primeval forest, then the forest below is a fossil forest! "I had eaten and drunk enough to find that there was no light in the distance I had been looking at, and I guessed that maybe there was no light all year round, but only under special circumstances, and we had forced the stake to push it open, so the fog filled again before it could shine in.
"Let's go!" I said to myself, I can't wait if the light doesn't shine here, and then I picked up the girl's backpack and walked over to her, and she was crouching in a place looking at something, and I walked over quickly, and saw a dark brown stone on the ground. The stones are basically spindle-shaped or spherical, black, egg-like, and of various sizes. Although some of them vary greatly in shape, most of them are not round like water droplets.
"It's a volcanic egg." She said to me without looking back. "Volcanic eggs are volcanic eruptions when magma is ejected into the air with hot lava, spinning and falling into the volcanic ash, the surface cools, and the magma becomes a spindle or spherical shape."
"This was once a volcano?"
"I don't know, but at least this is within the range of the volcano**, and the volcano is likely to be near here."
"That's fine." I handed her the backpack and said, "Let's go, go that way." ”
The underground forest is not very big, but it is only relative to the ground, we have walked for more than half an hour, and we have not seen the head, but the space on both sides is much narrower, and some bare soil layers are revealed, the geological changes are very obvious here, and the cracks are like the chimneys of the houses leading to the ground, no wonder I heard that there are often some smoke and strange sounds in the land of Shennongjia very early, presumably they are all illuminated in this huge underground world, right?
The wind is getting louder and louder, although there is no light, but we can still feel that we are not far from the end, and after walking for more than 10 minutes, the female man is finally hungry, she found a soil layer and sat down, and began to eat, I took advantage of this time to look around, I dare not go into the interior of the forest, since I see the edge of the area, then I will walk along here. I poured a little water on the ground, and it was clear that we were on an uphill course, and at this pace we could not go wrong.
And I also heard a little sound of running water, I tightened my clothes, and suddenly felt that the air was very cold, although it was a volcanic forest, but it couldn't be related to the heat of the volcano, I looked at some branches on the ground, I thought it would be better to pick up some and go back, the woman estimated that it would be colder now. In these places where there is a lack of resources for tree growth, the branches of the trees do not have enough water in them, and they should be easy to ignite if they are dry like firewood.
I picked up some branches and went back, and sure enough, I saw the woman there shivering with cold, and the sudden stop during the long journey could easily lead to a rapid cooling of the body, especially in such a place, and the wanton wind was even worse. "You can make a fire yourself, right?"
"Yes, yes, thank you so much." As soon as she saw the branch in my hand, she jumped up, she took the thing and put it on the ground, fell silent suddenly, and asked, "Can we go out?" ”
"Finished eating?" I naturally thought of this.
"I accidentally didn't control it." She said a little embarrassed.
"I'm wondering how you're not a dead fat man." I glared at her.
"I've lost weight." Her voice is very small, and it has a bit of a cute taste.
"You *** have amnesia, remember this." I threw a pack of compressed cookies to save some ha!
"Yes, I see. Let's make a fire! Messire. She snapped.
I shuddered, and hurried back to "You give me less!" Stop! I sold myself a pack of biscuits, so I didn't want a bargain. ”
"It's just a." She giggled.
"Hey, what kind of thinking do women have now?" I had to take out a box of outdoor fire tools out of my pocket, but the wind here was too strong I could only find a shelter from the wind, the set of fire tools in the backpack was a box of lighters, this kind of thing seems to be the military, anyway, I haven't used it, after thinking for a long time, I found out that this thing is actually magnesium, which means that I have to scrape some magnesium chips down and then use it to rub to make a fire.
The wind grew sharper and sharper as the fire was lit, and I heard a strange sound.