The tea seller had already gone on his way early in the morning to do business, and after we washed, we found that the proprietress had prepared a lot of dry food for us, as well as anti-insect herbs, and asked the peacock to show us the way, and led us to the entrance of the cave under the mountain of Shalong, where there was a small bamboo forest, and we could cut down a few large bamboos and make a bamboo row.

We repeatedly thanked the proprietress and took the guy into the forest behind the Caiyun Inn. The main tree species in this vicinity are mostly hairy leaf slope barrier1, followed by fragrant fruit trees and large rhododendrons, and there are also a small number of silver leaf cinnamon, only a pit lower than the flat land grows a large emerald bamboo, and the waterway into Shalong Mountain is not far from here.

When I saw the location, I sent the peacock home, so that her sister-in-law would not be in a hurry to wait at home. The fat man asked me: "Lao Hu, why don't you let this little sister be our guide, she can sing and dance well, and we will not be lonely along the way." ”

I said to the fat man or forget it, let's not go sightseeing, I have a hunch, this time it won't be too smooth, I always feel that there is a huge danger hidden in the tomb of the king in the worm valley, it is inevitable that there will be some big movements, not to mention this little girl, even if it is changed to another guide, we don't need anything, it is enough to have a skin map reference, and it will be troublesome if there are more people.

The fat man nodded and said: "It makes sense, don't let the old zongzi of the king scare the little sister, and there are outsiders present, and it is not convenient to pick up the Ming utensils." There are only three of us, so let's open up and toss, but this big thing is done as soon as possible, and then let's come to Yunnan to play again. ”

Shirley Yang said to me and the fat man: "The clouds in the sky are getting thicker and thicker, and I am afraid that the sky is going to change, so let's hurry up and make a row, and strive to get ahead of the mountain before it rains." ”

At the moment, we didn't have to wait any longer, the fat man and I carried machetes, each went to find the fat bamboo to cut down, and Shirley Yang was responsible for cutting off the branches of the bamboo with a knife.

In the past, when we were in the Great Xing'an Mountains of Inner Mongolia, Fat Man and I both worked in the forest farm, and there were no roads or cars to transport logs, so we put them one by one into the river and sent them downstream. In some places in Fujian where waterways are vertical and horizontal and transportation is inconvenient, there are also discharges, so these jobs are not new to us.

If the bamboo raft needs to be used for many years, it will be quite troublesome to make, and the bamboo needs to be scalded with hot oil before it can be used as a raw material, and there are some other additional processes, and we only need to use it once or twice temporarily, so it completely eliminates those unnecessary troubles.

Shirley Yang went to the cave to explore the depth and flow of the waterway, and estimated that only six large bamboos the thickness of human legs were needed to carry the three of us plus all the equipment.

After all this busyness, I finally tied up a small bamboo raft, dragged it into the cave with a rope, and entered it with my front feet, and thunder rumbled and showers fell outside my back feet.

This is a limestone cave, as soon as you enter the cave and walk down obliquely for more than a dozen steps, you can see that there is a river at your feet, but it is more suitable to say that it is a deep stream than a river, it is nearly a meter lower than the ground, the water depth is about more than three meters, the water flow is very slow, it may be a tributary of the Lancang River, the first half is hidden underground, until the terrain in the cave is low.

The cave is very wide, I used the wolf's eye to shine into the dark depths of the cave, the height difference inside is very large, the wide place can drive a tank, the low place is only more than a meter high, there are many lava rocks formed for more than 1,000 years, all of which are strange. This is only the entrance to the cave, and the environment inside will be more complicated, and it seems that if you want to put a row through the cave, you need to lie on your stomach to get through guò in some sections. Except for the sound of the murmuring water, the whole cave is unusually quiet, and the sound of rain and thunder outside is not heard here at all, like a completely isolated underground world.

We pushed the bamboo raft into the water, and I immediately jumped on it and inserted a bamboo pole into the water from the front of the bamboo raft to secure the bamboo raft and prevent it from being swept away by the current. Shirley Yang then jumped up as well, and when I saw her come up, I took a few steps forward, and Shirley Yang retreated to the end of the bamboo row at the same time, maintaining her balance.

Then the fat man threw up three of our big hiking bags full of equipment and two insect traps, one after the other, and jumped into the middle himself. As soon as he came up, the whole bamboo raft sank down, and Shirley Yang quickly dragged two of the three hiking bags to the end of the bamboo raft where she was, and I dragged the other bag to my feet, so that the balance was temporarily balanced.

On the bamboo raft, we make the final preparations. Since there were a lot of upside-down stalactites and stalagmites in the cave, in order to avoid breaking our heads, we all put on our hiking helmets with tactical spotlights that could be used for six to eight hours.

Finally, I put up a strong searchlight at the front end of the bamboo raft, which consumes a lot of energy and cannot be used for a long time, so I turned it on every one or two minutes to check the condition of the cave in front of me.

The fat man endowed a bamboo pole horizontally, sat in the middle to keep his balance, and saw that I had installed a searchlight in front of me, and I didn't finish it for a long time, so he couldn't help asking: "What's wrong with Lao Hu, can't we leave today?" I can't wait to dig out the Ming Vessel dedicated to Wang Lao'er. ”

I still have two fixing bolts left uninstalled, so I turned back to the fat man and said, "What are you urging, then the tomb of the king is in the worm valley, if you go a few minutes late, can it still run with long legs?" ”

Shirley Young, who was on the back end, said to me and the fat man, "I said you two stop arguing. I have a mention, Americans are used to putting an action code name on every military operation, so let's go to the fight of the king this time, it is better to take an action code name. Of course, this is not meaningless, and it can appear that we are more planned and purposeful. ”

The fat man said to Shirley Yang: "This is our Chinese territory, and your old beauty will not work." However, since the commander of the American advisory group has proposed it, then I think it might as well be called Operation Enlightenment, which seems straightforward and not hypocritical at all, and will go to the Enlightenment. ”

I had already installed the last bolt of the bright searchlight, turned to the fat man and said, "You are too direct, it looks vulgar." However, this mention is very good, the Allied Overlord Operation broke the Atlantic barrier of the Third Reich, thus shortening the course of World War II. We can also think of a nice action code, a good luck, and strive to be able to win and succeed. This time, we are under the guise of going into the Worm Valley to catch butterflies, which I think is called Butterfly Action. I announce, Operation Butterfly, start now! ”

Regardless of whether Shirley Yang and the fat man agreed, I turned on the strong searchlight first, saw the terrain in front of me, reached out and pulled out the bamboo pole inserted in the water, and under the impetus of the slow current, the bamboo row moved forward and slowly drove into the depths of Shalong Mountain.

When he encountered a narrow place, the fat man set up a horizontal pole and used the bamboo pole with me to support the bottom of the water to balance the bamboo raft. A small bamboo row zigzags drift in the hole, but unfortunately it is pitch black all around, and if you don't turn on the searchlight, you can't see anything, otherwise you can really roar two mountain songs.

Unlike the hot and humid weather outside the mountain, the deeper you go down the mountain, the more you feel the cool breeze hitting people, and from time to time you will see a group of phosphorus fires flickering in the distance, which indicates that there are animal corpses, and it seems that this is not a lifeless world.

Sitting on the bamboo raft, I could still feel some water snakes and small fish swimming, I put my hand into the water to try, the water here is even a little biting, in Yunnan where the four seasons are like spring, such a low water temperature is really rare, maybe there is snow water flowing down directly from the top of this Shalong Mountain.

Shirley Yang said that it is not because of the snow and ice, because the temperature difference between the cave and the outside is relatively large, and the human body will have an illusion, and after adapting, it will not feel so cold. In addition, there are no traces of artificial construction and excavation in the caves, and they seem to have been completely natural.

The speed of the water changed as we spoke, and suddenly it increased a lot, and we all began to get nervous, and a careless little bamboo raft might fall over. Shirley Yang also picked up the short pole and barely managed to maintain his balance with us, and the river was more tortuous than before, with big turns from time to time.

I couldn't spare my hand to turn on and off the searchlight, so I had to let it stay on, I couldn't think of it, I could see it clearly in the distance, the scenery in the depths of the cave was unimaginable, and the beam of light of the strong searchlight swept by, and those jagged and weird stalactites only flashed and disappeared into the darkness, which made us feel that we had entered a strange dream labyrinth.

Suddenly, the river widened, and several thinner tributaries joined it, and the speed of the water slowed down, and the searchlights in front of it did not shake as much as before.

I saw that under the illumination of the light, the cave walls on both sides of the front were full of rows of naturally formed smooth lava terraces, which were stacked like waves of the sea, and it really looked like a solidified silver ocean. A huge vermilion natural stone bead hung upside down in the middle of the river, behind the stone bead, the river water flowed into the mouth of a huge beast's head, the huge stone beast was like a tiger and a lion, as if it was opening its bloody mouth, roaring wildly, revealing a mouth full of sharp fangs, wanting to swallow the stone bead. And time is frozen in this moment, and its posture is frozen, I am afraid that it has been maintained here for tens of thousands of years.

The river just opened through the mouth, and we were faced with a gate to hell, our hearts racing, our breathing becoming heavier, and our grips on the bamboo pole that held our balance tighter.

Why haven't I heard the proprietress of Caiyun Inn mention it in such an obvious place, could it be that the river has been diverted and forked in the road? Through the pillar of light of the strong searchlight, you can see countless ancient figurines hanging behind the beast gate, that is, when taking a long-distance bus, the stone shell was crushed by the car and filled with maggots.

The three people on the bamboo raft were speechless, I don't know what Shirley Yang and the fat man thought when they saw such a scene, anyway, I suddenly had a very uneasy premonition, as if as long as we passed through here, in this dark and deep cave, our hands would touch a thick fog of ancient times.

1. Hairy-leaved slope barriers, tropical trees, an important part of China's Yunnan tropical rainforest, an endangered species.