Chapter 40 Begins the Expedition

In a basement near Place Danfer-Rochelow in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, eight members of the expedition stood in unison, praying silently to the cross on the wall.

I am not religious, but at this point I am even more religious than the average Christian. Imagine that anyone who is about to enter the tomb of the heart where 6 million bones are buried, 300 kilometers long, will urgently need a little psychological comfort.

If only Yuan Meng and Qingfeng of the eight belong to temporary opportunism like me, the other five are indeed true devout believers.

By the way, except for An An, the other four are all members of the "Hell Puller" community. They were: the Mole, the Medusa and the Boss of the Society, and George, a black man. This man is very strong, but a little wooden, basically does not speak, from the time I saw him until now, this thing seems to have only said one word, "Hello"!

Prayer is a ritual performed by the bats every time they enter the catacombs. It was evident that they were very religious, and seemed to be sincerely praying for God's protection.

I thought to myself that a place where millions of bones were buried, even if it was as noble as God, probably wouldn't care about this gloomy place.

After reciting the prayer, the bat and his team members finally ended the prayer with the sound of "Amen". And I was refreshed and had the motivation to give it a try.

The bats were the first to carry the backpacks on the ground, and then everyone was carrying their equipment. Our supplies and equipment are carefully distributed. Everyone brought enough water and food for five days, as well as some medical supplies for first aid.

Bat estimated the route of the march, and if the round trip went well, two days would be enough, but just in case, he asked everyone to bring more than double the food and water. When I raised an objection, this thing actually looked at me like a stupid ~ child, and then said, "There are as many accidents below as mice, if you want to die, you can not bring it." Then he walked away.

The guy was embarrassed, and the mole came over and whispered to me that the bat boss's best friend had an accident down there, so he would be very serious every time he went down, so I wouldn't be surprised.

I'm not a child, so naturally I won't blame him for this incident, on the contrary, after knowing about it, I have a little respect for this person.

I understand that the reason why he is so nervous is probably because he is afraid that the tragedy will happen again is that he is overly serious.

All of us were ready to go, and then the bats clapped their hands and gathered everyone together, and once again admonished, "Except for accidents, no one is allowed to leave the team and act on their own, OK?"

“OK！” Everyone shouted.

"All right, warriors," cried the bat, "now the game begins!" ”

In the corner of the basement there was an empty floor, and an iron door was installed, and the bat took out the key to open the lock, and slammed it open, and the iron door flipped over, making a clang.

A black hole ~ a hole in the ground appeared in front of our eyes.

"Are you ready?" The bat said loudly as he leaned against the entrance of the cave.

"Ready!" Everyone replied in unison.

“go！” The bat was the first to jump into the black hole. As soon as he jumped, three of his team members jumped down one after another.

The four of us looked at each other, and I nodded and followed.

My body left the hole, and almost in the next second, my feet were on solid ground, in a treacherous, dark tunnel.

It turned out that I had overestimated the height of the shaft. I hurriedly straightened up and walked forward, the bats and his team had turned on the miner's lamp above their heads and were waiting for us in front.

Behind him, Peng Teng fluttered a few times, and Sister Yuan Meng and An An followed.

We meet up with the bats and move on. As I traveled, I discovered that this tunnel was actually a previously abandoned sewer, which may have been left over from the renovation of the city and discovered by bats.

It was dry and stuffy in the tunnel, and after only a few moments, my forehead was slightly sweaty. Fortunately, this abandoned sewer is very short, and it is only a street away from it, and a brick wall appears in front of it to block the passage.

Is it a dead end? I thought to myself in the back.

I saw the bats walking in front skillfully stepped forward, removed a few bricks from the brick wall, and then pushed it, and with a bang, the seemingly solid brick wall showed a hole large enough for one person to squat through.

The bat bent directly into the hole, and his team members followed in turn, and this time the mole who walked last turned around and waved at us, meaning that we should follow, not fall.

I nodded and followed, learning them to squat down and enter the hole, and as soon as I got in, my body suddenly cooled, as if I had entered an air-conditioned room. The hot sweat that had just been smothering in the sewer was gone.

I stood up and made room for the beautiful woman behind me.

However, as soon as he turned around, he was suddenly startled, and a two-meter-high and three-meter-wide white wall made of white bones in front of him was inlaid in the black tunnel. In the middle of the wall is a cross made of human skulls and skeletons as a decoration.

I've seen a lot of pictures of the catacombs on the Internet, but the real ones in front of me still shocked me a lot.

An An, who followed closely, immediately exclaimed "Wow" when he saw this wall!

The bats and his team members looked at us playfully as if they were watching a flock of rookies.

I hated the way they looked, so I looked left and right.

The miner's lamp on my head is the most advanced LED miner's lamp, which uses a high-brightness LED light source instead of traditional lamp beads as a light-emitting body, with a lithium-ion battery, which is small in size, light in weight, and energy-efficient. The main light source of the miner's lamp can be lit for more than 11 hours, which is really a powerful tool for tunnel exploration. The snow-bright light illuminated the nearby ten meters.

It turned out that we were at a T-junction, with a tunnel on the left and right stretching on both sides, and there was no end in sight. There was a jet-black heating pipe that didn't seem to be in use at the top of our heads, and there were some old cables left next to the pipe, which I don't know why it hadn't been cleaned.

I was about to ask which side to go, when the bat suddenly jumped, grabbed ~ a cable sticking out of the top of the bone wall, lowered its head, and drilled directly into a hole above that was just big enough for a person to pass through.

The bats are very agile, and they can't see people after a few movements. After the bat entered, it was Medusa and George the Negro, and the mole stayed at the end this time, and he let us go first, claiming to be the queen.

I can't help but feel warm in my heart, it is really difficult to pass through such a terrifying white bone wall without a certain amount of concentration. And no one wanted to be the first and the last to pass, I stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder, learning to climb the wall of bones like a bat, but when my hand touched ~ the cold and rough bones, I couldn't help but have an unspeakable resistance, although I knew that they were not any threat, but it was still very uncomfortable.

The passage on the white bone wall, dangerous like a dog hole, I tilted my head and crawled through a pile of big ~ leg bones, fortunately, this wall is not too wide, only more than four meters, I have not reached the limit of bearing, and I have reached the end, the bats and black George on the side of the white bone wall are answering us.

Sister Yuan Meng and An An climbed over in turn, and finally the mole slipped and got over by himself without help.

Passed through the wall of white bones, An An was fine, the Yuan sisters obviously did not look good, and obviously had some insufficient mental preparation for the expedition, in fact, I was too, who would have thought that I would have to roll in the pile of white bones just at the beginning.

We turn again and then move on.

This time it was a downward curve, and the ground was full of broken bones and slag, like grains of sand. However, the width of the tunnel is good, more than three meters, and cars can pass through. The tunnel is lined with limestone and is full of traces of artificial excavation.

This time, the bats were at the forefront, but the order changed slightly, Medusa followed closely behind the bats, I followed Medusa, the Yuan sisters and An An followed me, and the black George and the mole broke behind.

We went down the winding tunnel, and at first there was a thick white scum, but it was soon gone, and after a sharp turn, the tunnel was clean. The soles of your feet are all hard limestone.

We went down the spiral tunnel into the ground, I estimate that we had gone at least twenty meters down, and the tunnel finally became gentle. A large exit appeared ahead.

Here, the temperature is getting a little cooler again.

Standing at the exit, the bats turned around and told us to change into water shoes, because we had to wade through the water to get through.

This time I realized why the bats let us tie our water shoes around our waists, and it turned out to be this reason. There's nothing to say about this, hurry up and put it on.

As soon as we get out of the water, the coldness of the water is instantly transmitted to our bodies through the water shoes. "I'll go, it's so cold!" I couldn't help but say.

Luckily, the water wasn't deep, so we waded carefully behind the bats.

This section of the waterway is very narrow, and we have to wait in a long line to pass through it.

After walking for about ten minutes, we walked out of the ~ waterway and came to a junction that extends in all directions. Switching back to light hiking boots, the bats told us that it was only now that we were actually entering the catacombs.

As he spoke, he made us look around, and it was a natural stone cave, and the black walls around it were all moldy and blackened bones. Because of the tight placement and the fact that the upper rocks had collapsed several times, I thought it was a natural rock wall with uneven shapes.

In front of us, there were five tunnels of different sizes, and I didn't know how to get there. Because it's not quite the map we have. Before coming down, the bat said that there was a shortcut to a marked spot on the map I had in hand, and that it could be more than an hour's walk closer than the entrance on the map.

Since he said so, of course I will not go down the wrong path again.

The bats let everyone take a break here and move on.

He led us out of the second tunnel on the left, and suddenly he stopped, and he reached out and picked up a small candle from a gap in the rock wall beside him, and said, "It's still warm, it looks like someone just stayed here!" ”

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