Rainy night.

The dim light of the fire shone in all directions, and the small space of the cave was also covered with a swaying yellow veil. A group of five people sat around the fire in the center of the cave, their faces silent and silent. After a while, one of the middle-aged men in military uniforms looked up at the young man sitting against the wall, opened his mouth to say something, and the middle-aged man in military uniform on the other side pulled at the corner of his clothes, shook his head, and signaled him not to speak. For a moment, the atmosphere fell silent again, except for the crackling of the fire burning fully.

About a quarter of an hour later, the young man against the wall clapped his hands, picked up his backpack, stood up, and said to the crowd: "Okay, at this time, it's not okay to retreat, let's go forward, don't forget our original intention." At this time, the middle-aged man in military uniform, who was already sitting on either side of him, hurriedly stood up and walked to his side.

"Okay, since Mr. Mu has said so, I'll go in with this old bone to take a look, as for whether I can see the legendary fairy thing, it depends on whether the old man has that blessing. An old man with silver hair in a Zhongshan suit on the side stood up and answered. As for the young woman beside the old man, she did not speak, but followed the old man.

The young man Mu Lang nodded, and walked towards the depths of the cave. Chen Zhong, the man in military uniform beside Mu Lang, walked quickly to Mu Lang, took out the bronze lamp in his bag, lit it and said to Mu Lang: "Mr. Mu, the cave has been uninhabited for a long time, no one knows what danger there will be, or I'll explore the way ahead." "Okay, hard work!" Mu Lang said and stopped waiting for Chen Zhong to walk forward three or five meters before he followed, at this time another man in military uniform, Liu De, the old man Cai Shengwu, and the young woman followed, and the group walked towards the depths of the cave. As the figures of everyone moved away, a vague figure suddenly appeared next to the fire in the cave, looking at the figures that were getting away from everyone.

Mu Lang, originally graduated from China Agricultural University with a master's degree, because he admired Yuan Longping, the father of agriculture as a child, was obsessed with the study of plants, and was admitted to China Agricultural University with the excellent results of the college entrance examination, studied for several years, and became a master's student. After graduation, with the support of his father, after four years, he successfully managed the seed company with only one million assets at that time as the leader in Huaguo Seed Company, with a market share of 25%, and laid a great reputation.

Mu Lang can appear here mainly because when a certain big man in the research department of his company was studying ancient books, he found that there were records in ancient books, and there were records about farmers in the ruins of suspected Shennong in a certain place in southwest China. Mu Lang has a great interest in everything about plants, so he is a giant worth tens of billions of dollars here.

As for the old man, he was a local professor in the southwest who had a very high status in agriculture, and this time he accompanied him, which was specially recommended by the boss of the research department of Mulang Company.

The young woman beside Cai Xing'an was his granddaughter, named Cai Haiqi, a student at Southwest Agricultural University.

This time, the Shennong ruins can be discovered, not only the records of ancient books, but also the strange things found by the nearby mountain people recently, and it was found that the trees around Shennong Valley for about 100 miles had the meaning of withering yellow in a short period of time. It was the height of summer, it was the time when the vegetation was lush and verdant, but in the past half a month, the mountain people near Shennong Valley first found that the vegetables planted in their own small half an acre of land turned verdant and yellow within two days, and then within ten days, from the low shrubs to the tall trees, they lost their verdant trees one after another, as if they had lost their vitality in a short period of time, which really made people's hearts chill. There is such a strange thing, in this era of developed networks, the strange incident in Shennong Valley has long been reported on the Internet, although there are relevant departments to block it in time, it still caused a great sensation.

It was through this strange incident that Mu Lang asked the company's ancient book research experts to focus on studying the relevant information near Shennong Valley, and finally made a discovery, so Mu Lang made this trip. The Shennong Valley here is not the famous Shennong Valley National Forest Park in Zhuzhou, Hunan, but in a remote mountain forest in Yunnan Province in the southwest.

This unknown ancient book is very interesting, recording that Shennong's death was not in the tea town of Hunan, but in the southwest of what was then called the land of barbarians. And why he appeared in a place that seemed to be very remote at the time, there is also a record in ancient books: "Shennong's hunting in Huayang, now limbs like branches, head like a tree, considerable facial features, fire with him, two people tall, as fast as the wind burning." The emperor was confused, chasing for several months to the barbarian, and he was nowhere to be found in the cave. "Huayang Zhihua should refer to the current Huashan, and the limbs recorded in the ancient books are like branches, the head is as pale as a tree, and the facial features are considerable, but it seems that it is not a tree man now? Shennong had never seen such a creature, so he followed it for several months, and came to the southwest of ancient times, in a cave, Shennong disappeared with the monster without a trace.

The topic is a little further away, looking back into the hole. The longer the crowd walked into the cave, the more uncertain their hearts became. I have walked for two quarters of an hour, this cave still has not seen the bottom, but the more you go inside, the larger the space in the cave, if it is only a bronze lamp, you can not see the cave walls on both sides for a long time, but fortunately with a flashlight, you will not worry about the lighting problem. Along the way, the group of five people was silent, and the atmosphere was very depressing.

After walking forward for about a quarter of an hour, the space in the cave opened up again, and the strange rocks that had been scattered everywhere before became very few, and the field of vision suddenly widened.

Mu Lang is very puzzled in his heart now, this mountain near Shennong Valley is actually not high, and it is really rare that this cave has not been able to see the bottom after walking for so long. The longest recorded cave in the world today is the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, USA, with a total length of more than 600 kilometers.

Continuing forward, Cai Xing'an found a dry cave plant moss under his feet, he bent down to pick up the dry moss, and with a force, the moss in his hand immediately turned into powder and floated to the ground along his fingers.

Seeing this, Cai Xing'an said with a surprised face: "This moss seems to have dried up for a long time, but according to the nearby mountain people, it has obviously dried up recently, but it can be ground into powder at will, which is really incredible." ”

The others also had doubts in their hearts, but they didn't know why this situation had happened, so they didn't speculate and continued to walk forward.

Seeing this situation, Mu Lang suddenly had a thought in his heart, could it be that what they were looking for was already close at hand? With such a thought, Mu Lang's steps forward became more and more determined.

The further I went, the more dense the dry moss that appeared at the beginning, so dense that everyone stepped on the dry moss, and looking back, the different footprints of the five people in a group could be clearly seen. The long footprints seemed heavy, like their mood, heavy.

"Mr. Mu, there is a situation! It seems that the space in the cave in front has become larger!" Chen Zhong said to Mu Lang with a surprised look on his face, and walked briskly to the front.

Mu Lang didn't care about talking back to him, nodded and ran forward with his footsteps, and after a while, he came to the strange place that Chen Zhong said.

The crowd ran to the huge empty crater and remained silent for a long time.

As far as the eye can see, the cave is not visible at all, the walls of the cave in the distance are not visible at all, and the light of the flashlight disappears in the distance. The location where they are now is still more than ten meters from the bottom of the pothole, and it will take a lot of effort to go down. The enormity was not what surprised everyone, but the fact that this huge cave was full of dry tree trunks, shrubs, and vines, and the ground was covered with leaves, and this gloomy and sad silence was what shocked them. What's going on here? Why did all the vegetation dry up to death, and what caused all this?

After a long time, everyone's mood calmed down. Chen Zhong took out the rope from his backpack, found a fixed position, threw down the rope, and slid down the rope, easily reaching the bottom. From this neat posture, it is not difficult to see his proficiency. After Chen Zhong went to the end, he first looked around, and only after feeling that there was no danger did he make a safe gesture. Liu De is Chen Zhong's old comrade-in-arms, and he knows Chen Zhong's habits well, and after receiving Chen Zhong's safe instructions, he helped the other three to go down and his own palace.

When I came to the bottom of the pit, I felt a smell of decay, the smell of decaying trees. The dead leaves all over the ground, perhaps the humidity in the pit is very high, and the leaf mesophyll has been eroded after landing, and most of the leaf veins are left, and maybe not a few days later, this leaf vein will also return to the embrace of the earth.

"Miracle, there are still such tall trees growing in this cave, but unfortunately they have all died, it would be good to have discovered this place earlier, and the scientific research value is immeasurable. "Cai Xing'an is worthy of being a professor of agriculture, and the first thing that comes to mind is the value of research. And the first thought that appeared in Mu Lang's mind was that he was getting closer and closer to this goal, and it might be right in front of him!

"Professor Cai, let's not talk about the scientific research here for the time being, don't forget our goal this time. Mu Lang said to Cai Shengwu with a calm face.

"Yes, yes, let's hurry up and find the target object!" Cai Xing'an retracted the idea of continuing to check here, and said to Mu Lang.

Mu Lang motioned for Chen Zhong to lead the way with a bronze lamp in front of him, and followed by himself.

The crowd walked on the fallen leaves for about five minutes, when they suddenly heard the sound of gurgling water in front of them.

After walking another 300 meters, I finally saw a small stream more than one meter wide meandering, probably too many leaves had fallen, the stream was no longer clean, it looked a little muddy, and some rotten branches and leaves were still carried by the non-turbulent stream, slowly flowing forward.

The stream, which was more than a meter wide, obviously did not pose an obstacle to the progress of the people, and could be crossed with a single step.

Across the stream, the dead trees next to it appear taller.

"Wait, you turn off the flashlight, there seems to be a light ahead. As soon as he stood still, Mu Lang made a discovery. After all the flashlights were turned off, Mu Lang and the others really saw a flickering light not far from them, which was constantly flickering and extinguishing.

A sudden burst of excitement burst into my heart, and the goal may have appeared!

"Let's go, let's go slowly, let's slowly grope through!" Mu Lang turned back to the crowd and said.

Slowing down and tensing up, everyone moved towards the place where the light was shining with excitement and apprehension.

Finally, they came to a place where they could see the light coming from.

What is this? On the dead branch at the top of a dead tree more than 200 meters away from them, there sat a little tree man!

This monster resembles a small tree man, which is two palms tall, with clear facial features and limbs that can even be seen with its fingers. However, all the components of the body are trees, and the whole body is the wrinkled shape of the bark, blue-gray.

The little tree man sat on a branch at the top of the tree, and his small body obviously couldn't crush the dead branches.

It was swaying its feet, its hands on its thighs, its chin propped up, its brow, and if the two thicker horizontal lines above its eyes were eyebrows, it was frowning, its mouth was open and closed, and it didn't know what it was muttering.

And the point of light is a necklace worn on the chest of the little tree man!

To everyone's surprise, it was a little tree man! In their imagination, there might be some ancient objects about one of the legendary Five Emperors.

What to do? Can you catch it?

Everyone was tense and motionless, for fear of making a little noise to alarm it.

I was really afraid of something, there was a "crunch", and there was a sound of a branch breaking under Cai Xing'an's feet.

As if he had discovered something, the little tree man turned his head to look in the direction where they were, and saw at a glance the five people who had not had time to hide.

Time seems to freeze!

"Action!" Mu Lang shouted, and everyone except Cai Shengwu ran towards the little tree man. Now that they have been discovered, they have no other way but to force it!

Hearing the instructions of the operation, Chen Zhong and Liu De, two veterans, immediately rushed towards it, trying to subdue the little tree man as quickly as possible.

"Giggle...", seeing the four people running towards it, the little tree man let out a strange scream in his mouth, turned around and ran... Ran away......

Even though the little tree man had a necklace in front of him that was relatively large to his body, he was not slow at all, screaming and running.

The distance of a few hundred meters passed quickly, and Chen Zhong and Liu De were still a hundred meters away from the little tree man, and at this speed, they would soon be able to catch the little tree man! The little tree man's running speed was not suitable for speed.

Oh no, there was a swarthy hole fifty meters in front of the little tree man.

Damn, this pit is so huge that there is a small hill bag, and the cave appears on the hill bag, forming a hole within a hole.

At this rate, it is impossible to catch the little treant before it escapes into the cave.

Chen Zhong and Liu De obviously also discovered this situation, and their speed also accelerated again, using all their might.

Mu Lang and Cai Haiyu, who was a little later, followed closely. The distance of fifty meters passed in the blink of an eye, and Chen Zhong and Liu De still couldn't catch the little tree man before he entered the hole, but it was not far away, so the two of them ran into the hole without hesitation.

Mu Lang was the third to enter, and as soon as he entered, a loud sound sounded in his ears, and then he lost consciousness.