Yu Han returned home with Zheng Lihua, the former maid of Hu'an Palace, and heard his father Yu Chang say, "General Longsheng Mu Mangzi has been resurrected." ”

Because Yu Han's sister Yu Yulan is the little aunt of Hu Ben Du Qunfang, that is, the wife of the current pedestrian Guo Genfeng in Hu'an Palace, in the past, in Hu'an Palace, Yu Han, Du Qunfang, Mu Mangzi, and Lan Hui were quite hot, and when they heard that Mu Mangzi came back from the dead, Yu Han was very excited, and he was going to the Sanhekou Boat Master Camp that night.

Yu Chang said: "It's getting dark, how can you go alone?" Menglong Gongzi, red-faced tiger Fan Yuntong and others have already gone first, and it doesn't matter if you go late." ”

Yu Han said: "How did Mu Mangzi live?"

His father said: "After many days, General Long Sheng came out of the Pangu Cave alive, but it is not clear what is going on. If you go tomorrow, won't you know? According to the Father, there is only the will of God, only the help of God, and there is no other explanation!"

That night, Yu Han couldn't sleep at night, and before dawn, he left home, one went to visit Mu Mangzi, and the other wanted to find out why Mu Mangzi had such good luck.

Yu Han walked to Wanfeng Village without stopping, and heard that Mu Zisan, the owner of Dongting Village, knew that Mu Mangzi was still alive and was rushing to Pangu Lake, which was about five miles away from Wanfeng Village at this time.

Yu Han let go of his footsteps, chased Mu Zisan and his entourage, went all the way to Longxikou, took a boat, and arrived at the mouth of Pangu Lake.

After waiting for a short time, the war boats of the boat division came out to patrol, and it was convenient to send these people to the boat division camp at the mouth of the three rivers.

After entering the Zhoushi camp, Mu Zisan and Yu Han learned that according to the suggestion of the great doctor Gu Rui, considering that the conditions at the mouth of the Sanhekou were limited, and Hu'an Mountain was too cold in winter, Mu Mangzi had been transferred to Sanmiao Village to recuperate, and Gongzi Menglong and others also went with him.

It's nearly late, the boats have been collected, Mu Zisan and Yu Han visited Wu Baichangzhen, the boat master, and asked him to send a boat to Sanmiao Village overnight, Xiangzhen deliberately said: "You and your party took my boat without authorization, it is already against the rules, and you want to borrow a boat?"

Mu Zisan hurriedly made amends.

Xiang Zhen smiled: "Dare to ask the two, do you know how to doctor?"

Mu Zisan said: "The old man really doesn't understand medicine. ”

"What's the hurry? Xiang Zhen smiled again.

So Muzi Sansheng and his party of five stayed in the Sanhekou Boat Division Camp, ate annoyance, and stayed for a night. Early the next morning, Xiangzhen sent a war boat to Sanmiao Village.

Mu Zisan and Yu Han didn't have time to visit Pan Furong, the owner of Sanmiao Village, and asked the steward Pan Zhi to take him directly to Mu Mangzi's recuperation place, and saw Gu Rui and two waiters who were ready to serve at any time in the outside room. At the same time, I heard that Gongzi Menglong saw that Mu Mangzi's life was worry-free, and he personally went back to Hu'an Palace to report;

Yu Han saw Mu Mangzi on the couch, covered with brocade quilts, and was probably asleep.

Mu Zisan asked Yu Rui: "How did that kid in the inner room get out of the pan gourd hole?"

Qi Rui said: "I haven't had time to ask in detail, in short, it's God's blessing." ”

The men were in the outer room, quietly discussing Mu Mangzi's situation and prognosis, arguing about his various assumptions that he would be able to get out of the hole.

These people didn't know at this time that Mu Mangzi's resurrection from the dead was not a blessing from God, but just luck.

At that time, Mu Mangzi fell into the crack, but there was a dark river below.

Mu Mangzi fell to the bottom of the river, found that the river was warm, and understood that it was a hot spring water - by the way, this hot spring was discovered by the locals more than 2,300 years later, and a hot spring resort with red lanterns hung high was developed.

Before he could fully react, Mu Mangzi felt the ground shake, heard the rocks rolling down in the cave, knew that the whole cave had collapsed, rolled up, hugged his head, and lay down in the water waiting for death.

When everything calmed down and he couldn't see his five fingers, Mu Mangzi touched his waist and found that the black dragon sword he had just taken had already been pulled out halfway, and he left his body on the way down, and he touched around, but he didn't find the sword.

Mu Mangzi knew that although his life was still alive, he would inevitably be buried in this cave, and he would soak in the hot spring water purely on his back.

The warm water made Mu Mangzi slowly calm down from the fright, and he thought: The whole cave collapsed, and he was able to survive, it should have fallen in this crack all the battles, and the big stone falling from the top of the cave blocked the crack, and the eldest brother Tutianqi and others must have been buried in the hole, and most of them had no chance of survival.

Mu Mangzi believed that he was most likely one of the few temporary survivors, and was suddenly surrounded by the grief of the death of his comrades and the fear of death. It was precisely because he considered himself the only survivor that he thought of getting out alive as much as possible.

Survival is human instinct, and after a long time in the dark, Mu Mangzi said secretly: "Even if you can't get out of this hole in this life, you can't just wait here to die!"

Mu Mangzi grows in the core area of karst terrain, and has seen some small streams on the mountains, including small hot springs, after flowing out of the source, first flowing on the ground, and then flowing into the ground for a distance, and then may emerge from the ground, so he thought: "It is often said that people go to high places, water flows to low places, if you grope downstream along this dark river, you must go deeper and deeper into the ground, there is no hope; Air, fortunate enough to get through, may have the last glimmer of chance. ”

It was this decision that could not be said to be clever, and he groped and crawled upstream, and after a few hours of hard work, stumbling like a blind man touching the road, he went about three miles to a place which he did not expect at all.

The wooden python didn't know where it went, exhausted, touched a big stone at the water's edge, climbed on it, lay down on it to rest, to be precise, waiting for death.

He didn't know that at this time, it was already night. If he was outside the cave, he would freeze to death on such a night, but the cave was warm in winter and cool in summer, and the temperature was more pleasant when added to the hot spring water.

Mu Mangzi spent the night in a half-dream.

When the exhausted Mu Mangzi woke up from his dream and slowly opened his eyes, a miracle appeared.

In the darkness of the day, the most surprising and easy to spot is, of course, the light. Mu Mangzi found a faint light above his head, thought it was an illusion, rubbed his eyes, took a closer look, and sure enough, he was not mistaken.

This ray of light is undoubtedly the hope of survival, and Mu Mangzi was suddenly pleasantly surprised.

As the sky outside brightened, the glimmer of light became more obvious, and although it was far from enough to illuminate the cave, a part of the cave was generally faintly visible.

Mu Mangzi found that after arduous exploration, he came to a relatively intact tall cave. Around this cave, the originally smooth stone walls have become cracked and dislocated due to the collapse, and if there is a little external force, it may collapse completely.

Mu Mangzi suddenly had a little hope of survival, although he quite understood that he was too happy too early, and while observing, he thought to himself: "First, this hole is not too deep from the ground, or from the outside of the rock wall, and that ray of light is either a crack caused by the collapse;

Mu Mangzi carefully observed and found that the crack was more than ten zhang high from the ground, and the other was too small, and it was impossible for him to get out of it.

Mu Mangzi knew that in the current situation, if he wanted to live a few more days, in addition to the water and air that were not lacking here, he must also have food.

The light that came in through that crack did not increase as Mu Mangzi's hope increased, but in Mu Mangzi's senses, it was stronger than at the beginning.

Mu Mangzi continued to look and found some wood. His first thought was to make a fire.

With great effort, Mu Mangzi took a fire and lit a small fire - he knew that in the cave, the fire was too big and it would be difficult to breathe (of course, he didn't know the scientific principle of oxygen loss caused by combustion, it was just a summary of experience).

When the fire lit up, Mu Mangzi was stunned! He found that this seemed to be a place to live.

When he saw that there was actually a couch in this cave, and the shape of the couch was similar to the shape of the couch commonly used by the tigers of Hu'an Palace, he guessed: This is very likely to be the sleeping palace of the python king salt dragon.

Mu Mangzi didn't guess wrong, this is the Heavenly King Cave Mansion of the Salt Dragon. Yanlong was very nostalgic for the life he once lived in Hu'an Palace, so he made his own royal couch according to the shape of the couch of the Huben guards in Hu'an Palace. This is the most comfortable accommodation cave in the whole Pangdong Cave.

Mu Mangzi also found that the dark river that he had climbed over, except for the first part that he had climbed over, should be under the ground of the alchemy cave, and the rest of the part could not be regarded as a real dark river, but only a ditch in the cave. At the same time, in addition to this hot spring water, there is also a small cold spring water flowing through this cave and flowing into the hot spring water.

What surprised Mu Mangzi even more was that here, he found a small amount of food and utensils left by the Python Heavenly King Salt Dragon.

The surprise was short-lived, Mu Mangzi had to admit that even if the god of luck led him here, it was still a dead end, he had groped downstream along the hot spring water, and within thirty steps of his first departure, he could no longer pass a person, when groping upstream, it was also a dead end not far, and in other directions, he did not find any passages that could be pedestrianized.

Many efforts have failed.

Mu Mangzi did not practice kung fu in this cave like a character in martial arts or fantasy, so that one day his skills would increase greatly, break through the cage, and get a new life, because he knew that he was dreaming, but eating the edible food left by the python king salt dragon, lying on the python king's couch in a half-starved state, either thinking crankily, thinking about his family, thinking about beauties, or simply sleeping and passing the time in his dreams; or, Chitiao soaking in the hot spring water, enjoying the last days of his life.

He knew that the day when the ready-made food was finished and the living creatures he caught could not sustain his life was when he went to the Yellow Springs.

More than 20 days passed, and Mu Mangzi also ate all the ready-made food he could eat, and could only rely entirely on shrimp, crabs, small fish, or other water insects caught from the cold spring water to satisfy his hunger, but it was not as fruitful as he hoped.

Among the fish that Mu Mangzi has caught in this cave, there is a very special fish, that is, the blind fish, also known as the eyeless fish. Due to the long period of living in underground burrows without light, the eyes of this fish slowly degenerate, and the other sensory organs are quite agile. This fish continues to breed in this cave to this day.

At that time, there was no technical ability to rescue such a major geological disaster, and more than 30 days passed, and the lonely and helpless Mu Mangzi felt as if 30 years, or even 300 years, had gradually weakened.

In recent days, Mu Mangzi had noticed that some stones occasionally fell on the roof of this cave and on one of the stone walls, and he knew that this was not a good sign.

That night, Mu Mangzi heard a stone wall in the cave, and the stones rolled down in the interval, he knew that the cave was about to collapse, and his end had come!

Mu Mangzi got up, went to the hot spring water to wash his whole body, put on his shirt, lay flat on the couch of the python king salt dragon, closed his eyes and waited for the call of death, and said secretly: "Perhaps, I will accompany you." ”

At this time, he didn't know that the beauty of Hu'an Palace had returned to her hometown during her own cave.