The beeswax of the bee is a good fuel, and when boiled and packed in a copper cup, the linen wick soaked in milky wax will ignite a bright yellow light when it is lit. A half-fist-sized piece of beeswax can not only burn for many days in a small bowl-like copper cup, but it is also gratifying that there is no smoke and fire. Such a small copper lamp is spread all over the Shishanbao mine at a distance of a long distance, and a yellow and bright light belt winds and twists and stretches, and there is no end in sight, dispelling the gloom in the mine over the years.

The cavern, which was more than a person high, was now surprisingly quiet, and from time to time the faint sound of the wick burning could be faintly heard.

Ye Bufan habitually hunched his waist slightly and walked towards the depths of the mine, and the verdant scenery behind him gradually disappeared into the blazing midday sun.

Three days ago, "Liu Papi" had informed the men of the whole village that the Shishanbao mine was about to be sealed. Today is the last day of the deadline, and when the sun rises tomorrow, this mine, where the first spiritual stone came out 22 years ago, will completely cut off the main source of livelihood for more than 500 people in Shishanbao Village.

It is not practical to inform the men of the whole village with the scorched yellow wolf face of the "willow pickpocket", and the old "diggers" like Ye Bufan have long known that this mine can no longer add even a handful of rice to their own rice bowl and add a piece of meat to the dinner table.

The "diggers" in the village had stopped coming to the mine three days ago, and at this time they were either resting at home with their tired bodies and bones, or they were gathering in piles in all corners of the village to discuss the next livelihood.

Only Ye Bufan is unwilling, and he is unwilling in his bones.

Raised his left hand and slapped it on the hard cave wall, the five fingers with thick calluses picked the cool bluestone, and tightened the fine iron chisel held in his right hand, Ye Bufan felt that the fatigue accumulated in his body in the past 2 days seemed to dissipate a lot, and after taking a few steps with his legs open, he trotted into the seemingly endless mine.

Most of the time to the middle of the mine, here is the heart of the stone mountain, more than 50 zhang of semi-circular large mine, and according to the original discovery of the vein, divided into 7 small caves.

The widest main mine in the middle is only a thin layer of stone skin to punch the stone mountain into a pair, and it is not worth wasting a little effort. The four caves on the left have been chiseled one by one for two days, just reliving the wonderful mood when they discovered the "golden thread" in the past.

A vein on the right side close to the main mine cave is not far away from being able to tie the stone mountain in pair, Ye Bufan finally hesitated to turn his gaze to the black mine cave on the far right, his black and thick eyebrows wrinkled and quickly unfolded, and he no longer hesitated to pick off a copper cup beside him, and resolutely drilled into the last "dead man's hole" that was disgusted by the "diggers" of the whole village.

The whole stone mountain where there are ore veins is dark cyan bluestone, and where there is a spirit stone, a gold line formed by pale golden gravel will appear on the surface of the bluestone. As for the origin of this "Dead Man's Cave", one is that this kind of rock makes people's hearts flutter at a glance - no matter how you look at it, it looks like dead people's blood that has not yet dried up. Second, people did die, and the two sons of the old Zhang Tou family in the village were crushed to death in the mine by the sauce-red gravel.

Although Ye Bufan always felt that this mine cave was unusual, in the years when he had been able to dig out spirit stones, he never had the idea of risking death to explore the "Dead Man's Cave".

But at this juncture, there is such an opportunity. How can you care about whether the "dead man's hole" in front of you can bury the third human life.

With the yellow light that could illuminate about a zhang in front of him, Ye Bufan watched the thick wooden planks supporting the roof of the cave slowly move forward above his head, and when his eyes inadvertently swept over the red rocks around him, he always felt that his whole person was like being soaked in a large pool of fishy human blood, and his scalp was cold for a while.

One foot and one foot slowly moved more than 20 zhang, the wooden board above the head became more and more sparse, and the range of waist bending was also getting bigger and bigger, and finally when Ye Bufan could only move forward in a half-squat, the copper cup in his hand shone on the red rock wall in front of him, which was stacked with a layer of thick pages, and the "Dead Man's Cave" had reached the bottom of the cave.

Behind him was the darkness and depth with no end in sight, and the persecuted environment around him and the continuous patches of sauce-red pressed the flames of the copper cup to leap suddenly. The rock formations overhead seem to have a subtle but sharp cracking sound.

Ye Bufan sat down cross-legged and steadied his breathing, and he was really put to death, but there was no panic in his heart. After taking a breath, he held the bronze cup in front of him and looked carefully at the rock wall in front of him, but did not find a single pale golden gravel, and looked at the bottom of the cave and still found nothing.

Rubbing his eyelids that had not been closed for two nights, Ye Bufan raised the copper cup and approached the rock wall again, his rough palm began to rub the entire rock wall inch by inch with the yellow light, and after a short time, it was still the same disappointing result.

Ye Bufan has never touched the fine iron drill beside him, he has been a "digger" for more than 20 years, and he can dig the most spirit stones in the village, sometimes relying on an indescribable feeling, and the rock wall in front of him did not make him tremble in his heart. "It looks like I'm going to try my luck back in the mine on the side." Muttering with some disappointment in his heart, Ye Bufan put the copper cup at the bottom of the cave, and when he pressed his palm against the ground to support his much heavier body, his body that arched forward slightly suddenly tensed and motionless.

The ground under the palm of his hand is not as cool and damp as the cave wall, like touching a dead snake, and the palm of his hand can clearly feel the warmth coming out.

Rubbing his palms vigorously with his hands intersected, feeling the residual warmth in his palms, Ye Bufan suppressed the urge to do it immediately. Slowly flattened his body and lay at the bottom of the cave, and after trying all the ground in front of his head inch by inch, his palm pressed on the right side of his head, and the palm-sized part was the hottest, as if he was holding a bowl of half-hot old leaf tea in his hand.

There is a book left by the grandfather at home, the book records the origin of many kinds of jade and spirit stones, Ye Bufan clearly remembered the first sentence of the opening of the book at this time, "The wonderful things in the world must come from strange places."

Back and forth, I touched the ground at the bottom of the cave, and only a small piece of surprising warmth was found on the wall of the cave.

It's really God's favor, although I don't know how deep to dig out, and I don't know what I can dig out, but fortunately, this hope does not appear on the top of the cave, as long as you can do it, how much effort is wasted Ye Bufan is excited in his heart.

Put the copper cup in a strange position at the bottom of the cave, Ye Bufan turned around and returned to the big mine cave in the dark, picked off the copper cups with the fullest beeswax, and transported it back to the bottom of the "Dead Man's Cave" several times, under the bright light, knelt in front of the small piece of strange cave bottom, clenched the fine iron drill with both hands, and pressed the strength of the upper body to slowly poke the tip of the drill into the rock formation.

The rock formation is neither soft nor hard, and the fine iron drill is inserted like a crispy big green brick that has been put for a long time, which looks like an easy job, but the trouble is that Ye Bufan didn't dare to make a slightly louder sound, so he could only carefully spread the first half-powdered gravel by his side.

The strength steadily opened the red rock layer little by little, and a shallow pit the size of a fist slowly began to expand, and with the time unconsciously lost, when the excavated gravel accounted for half of the mine hole and extended a distance of nearly ten zhang backwards, the bottom of the hole was dug out by Ye Bufan A large deep pit that was one person high and could stand four or five people.

The air in the cave could smell the cold and cold, and years of experience made Ye Bufan know that it was now dark outside, and the fatigue of half a day without stopping made the sauce-red powder stained with his head and face washed into a bloody plasma by the flowing sweat.

Ye Bufan didn't know that he was now squatting at the bottom of the pit like a demon who had just crawled out of the pool of blood, that is, there was a big bronze mirror standing in front of him, and he didn't want to raise his hand to wipe the "plasma" on his head and face, and in the time of a cup of tea, Ye Bufan stiffened his body and didn't dare to move, for fear that the beating of his heart like a drum would startle this strange object in front of his feet.

At a glance, what was in front of him was just a blood-colored ball with a square handle, and I couldn't tell whether it was gold, stone, or jade. Looking at it carefully, the blood-red ball looked like a living thing, and the dazzling color was like a blood-colored haze blown by the breeze, and it had been flowing very slowly, very slowly.

After staring at the round eyes for a while, Ye Bufan's mind had already flipped through the entire "Stone Collection", and he couldn't find a place that could be close to the blood-colored ball. The only thing I know now is why the palm of my hand could feel the half-hot heat at the bottom of the cave in the first place, this ball is not only dazzling to look at, but also hot enough to burn people.

Ye Bufan flipped his right hand and looked at it, the thick cocoons on his fingers that had been grinding for many years had been burned white, and this was just an inadvertent touch of the blood-red ball. Want to take this thing home in its entirety? With such a long cave and such a thin shirt on his body, Ye Bufan gasped, and immediately broke off this thought, which was equivalent to seeking death.

This thing in front of him is not the spirit stone he needs the most, so it is inevitable that he will have a lot of dreams at night if he puts it here. Even if it's a good thing, it's a waste if it doesn't fit into your pocket. After Ye Bufan raised his eyes and looked at the roof of the cave, he clenched his teeth, grabbed the fine iron drill beside him, and after gathering enough strength for his two arms, he stabbed towards the blood-red ball.

"Click"

There was a crisp sound, and some stone powder fell from the top of the cave, and Ye Bufan, who was startled, held his breath.

The small half-buried blood-red ball in the rock layer was covered with zigzag and slender cracks after this crisp sound, and where the fine iron drill stabbed it, some viscous blood-red liquid was slowly squeezed out of the finger-sized hole, and then a strange fragrance came to the surface, and the aroma rushed Ye Bufan's brain was a little dizzy, and the three souls and seven spirits in his body slammed violently.

With another crisp "click", the blood-red ball shattered into several pieces, and a large mass of viscous liquid was like a blood-red snake that suddenly broke free from its shackles, and as soon as it stuck to the bottom of the cave, the sauce-red rock disappeared without a trace like water-soaked yellow sand.

There was still a faint strange fragrance left at the bottom of the pit, and the blood-red ball had become a green fragment, Ye Bufan was stunned to see the three knuckle-sized fiery red crystals and a pitch-black round bead scattered between the fragments.