While we were chatting, the car stopped, and the tea seller hurriedly beckoned us to get off, saying that he was going to Shalong Mountain and that he would get off from here closely. In addition to the three of us and the tea seller, there were two other local women, one in his thirties with a child on his back, and the other sixteen or seventeen, both wearing scarves and embroidered aprons. The clothes on their bodies are all white, and the locals value white, so they should all be of the Bai nationality. However, these ethnic minorities are not dressed all day long as we imagined, they are not festivals, they are not dressed in costumes, and there are all kinds of ethnic minorities here, and sometimes it is not easy to distinguish.

I didn't want to go with these people, but the enthusiastic tea sellers told us that it was a local custom to travel in groups and take care of each other in sparsely populated areas.

Shirley Young had often worked with Native Americans, and knew that it was best for outsiders to follow local customs, otherwise unnecessary conflicts would easily occur, so he traveled with the trio.

It is full of high mountains and deep valleys, lonely, heavy mountains and forests, and has walked all over the rugged mountain paths, circling and twisting. It turned out that from the place where I got off the bus, there was still a long way to go from Shalong Mountain, and I was secretly glad that I didn't part ways with these locals, otherwise it would not be easy to find the right path.

After walking in the mountains for more than two hours, I finally arrived at the foot of Shalong Mountain. There are no dwellings here, even some of the stone quarryers live a little farther away, and there is only one inn at the foot of the mountain that provides food and lodging for merchants who come here to do the tea business, and the two Bai women who traveled with us are the owners of this Caiyun inn, who have gone out to buy things and come back. It is not easy to go out of the mountains here, so you have to buy a lot of things at one time, big bags and small wraps with a child, I learned Lei Feng with the fat man, not only carrying dozens of pounds of their own equipment, but also helping them carry rice and peppers, when they arrived at the place, they were already tired and had a sore back and legs.

In addition to the six of us in the inn, there are no other people, the locals are very simple, never lock the door when they go out, there are passing guests, you can live in it by yourself, there is water in the tank, there are bait cakes and rice in the pot, eat and drink enough to sleep until dawn, and put the money in the rice bowl when leaving. It has become a common practice to never give money after no one eats or shelters.

The Bai woman with the child is the owner of the Caiyun Inn, a young widow. The sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl is her husband's sister, a Han nationality, nicknamed Peacock, with big eyes, very lively and cute, wearing national costumes, much better looking than local women. They are the only ones who can rest and stay at the foot of Shalong Mountain. From here to the south to walk a day's journey, produce a kind of fog top gold thread tea, often there are merchants to buy tea there, every time you pass by, you will inevitably have to settle down in Caiyun Inn.

The proprietress was very grateful to us for helping her move things, as soon as she entered the door, she took the peacock to make tea for us to cook tea, and it didn't take long for the peacock to bring out the tea, and the fat man took it and smelled it, and praised: "It's so fragrant, what kind of tea is this?" Is it Pu'er, a specialty of Yunnan? ”

The peacock said to the fat man: "No, this is our local mountain Wuding golden thread tea, brewed with water flowing down the snow line, and every tea leaf looks like gold." Wouldn't it be nice to try it? ”

The fat man said: "If you don't drink it, you will know that it is good, and it doesn't depend on who made the tea." As he spoke, he took out his cigarette and divided it between me and the tea seller, smoking while drinking tea, and waiting for the proprietress to cook for us.

The fat man intended to show off his knowledge in front of the peacock, and took out another bag of Hongtashan, and said to the tea seller: "Brother, do you know, smoking also pays attention to collocation, we just smoked cloud cigarettes, and now change to Hongtashan, this has a different taste, so there is a name in the capital, called Tashan does not fall into the clouds." ”

The peacock was not interested in the fat man's cigarette theory, but he was very curious about the insect trap net we brought, and asked Shirley Yang: "Are you going to catch butterflies on the side of Shalong Mountain?" ”

Shirley Yang didn't want to lie to the little girl, so he had to let the fat man come forward to explain, I was worried that the fat man would not speak well and show his feet, and this kind of work of inciting the revolutionary masses would be more suitable for me, a person with the potential to be a political commissar.

So I told the peacock that all three of us were from the capital, working at the Museum of Natural History, specializing in collecting the world's rare butterflies. This time, I came here specifically to catch butterflies, and then I want to make them into specimens and bring them back to Beijing for exhibition, so that those foreigners who come to our great motherland can open their eyes and see what butterflies in Yunnan are like, which can not only fill the gaps in the research field of butterfly specimens in our country, but also add glory to the country and generate income for the country. We will strive to realize the four modernizations at an early date, and create one brilliant achievement after another on the new Long March of reform and opening up...... From all angles, this work is a great cause for the country and the people, and it is a cutting-edge scientific research work with a strategic height, and its practical significance is no less than that of mankind's moon landing program.

Unexpectedly, my words not only made the peacock very excited to hear it, but even the fat man and the tea seller were stupid. The tea seller asked, "Buy, buy, buy, and sap, this is a neat thing...... I mean, Master Hu, this butterfly is still so valuable? Then I won't sell tea, can I catch it with you? ”

Shirley Yang on the side was wearing sunglasses, listening to my nonsense about the peacock, forcibly holding back her laughter, looking at her really like a female spy of the Kuomintang, as if she was laughing at me, see how I ended.

I secretly said that it was not good, this time I overtalked it, and hurriedly said to the tea sellers: "Well, there is no distinction between high and low in revolutionary work, only the revolutionary division of labor is different. We are all screws of socialism, if you put down your job to catch butterflies, then we people across the country can't just look at butterflies and not drink tea, right? In fact, foreigners also like to drink tea, tea culture has a long history, there are a wide range of tea culture lovers all over the world, Chinese old friend ——— Prince Sihanouk likes to taste tea very much, so it is also a very important and meaningful work to pour tea. ”

At this time, Peacock's sister-in-law beckoned Peacock to help with the meal, so I took the opportunity to stop talking. After eating some indiscriminately, he went to the inn alone and used a telescope to watch the shape of Shalong Mountain. I saw that the highest mountain reached into the sky, and on both sides it were all steep cliffs, undulating and undulating, and there was no end to it, and it was impossible to tell whether the top of the mountain was gathering white clouds or snow. There are really a lot of clouds and mist here, and the layers are distinct, there are wisps of green smoke and mist on the mountainside, the higher the clouds, the thicker the clouds, are stopped by the high mountains, condensed together, the main peak of the entire Shalong Mountain, like a white-crowned and green-armored warrior, stands in the forest sea.

The forests and seas under the mountain are vast, and the waterfall forests are in a variety of forms, creating a beautiful native natural scenery. The mountains and rivers in this vicinity are roughly the same as those drawn on the human skin map, and in the depths of the valley behind the mountains and forests, is the tomb of the king we are looking for.

Thinking of the evil hemorrhoids, as well as the dense maggots in the stone figurines seen on the road, I can't help but have a little fear of the tomb of the king in my heart, but if it comes, it will be safe, and it has arrived in front of the Shalong Mountain, so there is no retreat, and the only thing behind is to pray for the blessing of the ancestor of Jinzu.

The tea seller will set off early tomorrow morning to buy tea, and after dinner, he will go straight into the room and take time to sleep and rest. After the fat man and Shirley Yang had finished eating, they also went out for a walk, and looked up at the mountains ahead with me. If you want to dedicate the tomb of the king, how to climb over this towering Shalong Mountain, is a big problem, seeing this steep and majestic mountain, the three of them are worried.

At the beginning, the blind man and others found a local guide, after a difficult trek to cross the snow-capped mountain, if there is no guide to go up the mountain, it is very dangerous, but we just asked the proprietress of the Caiyun Inn, the locals who have been on this Shalong Mountain have long since died, these years, the legend is that the mountain is haunted, and no one dares to go up at all.

When we were at a loss for what to do, we heard the peacock say: "If you want to go to the valley on the other side of Shalong Mountain to catch butterflies, there is a tunnel under Shalong Mountain, which can be put down and passed through the mountain without going over the mountain." But there are a lot of dead people over there, and it's often haunted. ”

How to enter the Worm Valley, there are two routes marked on the human skin map, one is to cross the tuyere on the Shalong Mountain; The second is to go along the Snake River around the Shalong Mountain, this route has to pass through a dangerous primeval forest between the Lancang River and the Nu River, although the distance in a straight line is not far on the map, but anyone who has entered the primeval forest should know that it is actually ten or twenty times longer than the expected trip, and there are swamps in some places, which is simply a green hell.

These two routes are not easy to walk, in comparison, only the more feasible to climb over the Shalong Mountain above 3,000 meters above sea level, but it is not a joke to venture over the snow-capped mountain without a guide.

At this time, I heard the peacock say that there was a shortcut, so I hurriedly asked for details, and the peacock only knew a rough idea, so we had to go to the proprietress to inquire again. The proprietress told us that at the bottom of the mountain (the locals call it Aiteng, which means tailless dragon), there are many caves as dense as spider webs, and the legend is that the ancestors dug them in ancient times, and there were rebel bandits who occupied it to fight against the officers and soldiers, and the officers and soldiers were helpless against the complex terrain in the mountain, so they had to build all the holes with stones, and the people inside were trapped alive inside. In the future, whenever you put your ear to the rock of Shalong Mountain, you will hear the desperate cry in the mountain.

Of course, this is just a legend circulated by local folklore, as for which dynasty and which generation the cave was built, who built it, what it was used for, who the bandits in it were, whether it was the local ethnic minorities who resisted oppression and exploitation, and rose up, or what it was, no one can say clearly to this day.

But it wasn't until a few years that someone quarried stones and discovered a cave with lava rocks and an underground river, which ran through the mountains and flowed into the Snake River at the other end of Shalong Mountain, where the water was deep enough to exercise bamboo rafts, and with this waterway, there was no need to worry about getting lost in the criss-crossing caves. Because the terrain is gentle, the water flow is not urgent, you can put the drain down the river when you go, it is very labor-saving, and when you come back, you need to spend some effort to hold the pole back, in short, it is much more convenient than turning over from the mountain.

In the end, the proprietress instructed us that although it was a shortcut to go from there, there were many strange-shaped corpses on both sides of the cave, and no one knew when they died in it, and the faint of heart would be frightened when they saw it. There have been a few times when people have passed through the cave, but first, there is a lot of miasma in the worm valley over there, and secondly, there are no people, so there is no point in going there, and no one has passed there for a while. If you want to cut corners, you need to be more careful.

I said to the proprietress and said, "Don't worry, we go to the valley over there to catch butterflies for taxidermy to serve the people, we are all materialists, how can we be afraid of the dead." Since there is a shortcut, it would be a fool not to go, not to mention that someone once successfully passed through, which means that there are no ghosts in it, and it may just be a relic of the tombs of ancestors in ancient times. ”

I remembered that I had just seen the sign of a martyr's family on the door, so I asked the proprietress again, and it turned out that Peacock's brother was a martyr who died on the front line. This time I came to Yunnan, if I have the opportunity, I should go to see the cemetery of my comrades-in-arms, but I can't always forget my roots when I think about getting rich.

In addition, I also discussed with the hostess if there were any people in the vicinity who had shotguns, and we would like to rent a few for self-defense. The proprietress asked the peacock to turn out a "Jianwei" air gun from the back room, which was an air gun that hit steel balls. The hostess was very good-hearted and willing to lend us the gun for free, without a deposit, and to return it to her when she returned.

I was a little disappointed, I thought that at least I had to get a double-barreled shotgun, this kind of bird-fighting gun is similar to a toy, but I took a look, and found that it was really a good gun, very well maintained, and it was not an ordinary small caliber, it could hit medium-sized steel balls, the range was long, and the gun body was calm and stable enough, not to mention fighting birds, it was no problem to fight wolves, the only drawback was that it was a single shot, and after each shot, it needed to be reloaded.

Now something is better than nothing, and I can't get a better gun nearby for a while, so I threw the gun to the fat man, so that the fat man can familiarize himself with the gun, and the "sword power" will be used by him for the time being.

I thanked the hostess, and the three of us spent the night in the Caiyun Inn that night. That night, I slept soundly with the fat man, didn't think about anything, and completely threw away the hard work along the way. It was really a dream to let go of the heavens and the earth, and it was not until the third pole of the day that Shirley Yang pulled our ears and woke us up, and then he got up with great reluctance.