Chapter 4 Xanadu

The afternoon sun is hot and dry, but the lotus leaves in the fields on both sides of the road are not wilted, and the fragrance of the lotus pond comes to the face, which makes people's spirits uplifted and very comfortable. Not far away, several egrets flew by, and one leaned down, afraid that the insects in the field were also afraid to hide. Before Ou Ye had time to savor these, a forest appeared in front of him, from the depth of this forest is very large and deep, and the whole shape is like a huge green crown, so people named it Crown Mountain, it stands quietly between the road and a broken wall, like a pearl. The car soon approached the forest, and the closer it got to the forest, the fewer traces of people remained, and the fields on the side of the road slowly turned into unattended bushes, and this vast forest was Ouye's destination. From this distance, it is easy to see a towering cliff at the other end of the forest, and due to the heavy rain yesterday and the fact that the air does not move so fast, you can still see the fog in the forest at this time. Ou Ye drove the car directly into the forest, Ou Ye saw a sign at the intersection of the guard to get lost, according to the above reminder, this primeval forest area is very large, like a maze, please be sure to follow the built road forward, otherwise it is easy to get lost when you enter it. However, Ou Ye didn't pay much attention to it, because Ou Ye and the three of them had come here a few years ago to explore the danger, and had already drawn a map to the destination, if it weren't for the incident of Ruijie four years ago, they would have come here often to camp.

The car came to a stop after driving some distance, and here it was actually a fork in the road, one was still a road leading to another town, and the other was a dirt road that was difficult for everyone to notice, and Ou Ye was going to take this one, in fact, it was basically not a road, those towering trees were staggered and stretched into the depths of the forest, but the vacant space in the middle of each tree looked like a road built by the forest itself, as if it was going to lead somewhere. Ou Ye stopped the car, picked up a bag from the passenger seat and got out of the car, he took out a piece of paper that was a little yellowed from it, this curly paper looked like it was already a little damaged, it should be the result of not being used for a long time. Ou Ye spread out the curly paper on the front cover of the car, and it turned out to be the map drawn with a pencil. There are some area markings and text annotations on the map, but only a small area of the forest is marked, and Okuno carefully looks at a line marked with red paint, and the direction of the arrow extends to a place where the house pattern is drawn. Ou Ye checked again, and then rolled up the drawings and put them back in his bag. Ono got back into the car and started the engine, and the car roared and drove down the faint dirt road deep into the forest.

The trees growing in this dense forest range from decades to thousands of years, some growing straight into the clouds, some twisted into a lump, as if they were afraid of being sawed back for fire. The ground is full of dead branches and leaves that have accumulated over the years, accumulating several thick layers, and if you don't look closely, you will think that it is just dirt. As the car drove along, the dead leaves were swept into the air by the air currents caused by the wheels of the car, and they struck each other, many of which eventually turned into foam, and from time to time the car drove through the existence of those little green creatures, they seemed to be whispering, watching the trespassing stranger drive away.

Soon, the smooth dead leaf road has come to an end, and then inside is the rugged mountain road, the car can no longer drive inside, Ou Ye had to stop the car, he turned the map out and looked at it, immediately looked in all directions, his face was happy, as if there was something to discover, I saw him walking towards a big tree with four or five holes, this tree seemed to have traces of artificial carving, he squatted down and looked at the bottom of the hole, the edge of the hole was engraved "Wild, Snow and Jie" Three words, but now the moss has grown a thick layer, and it almost covers them. These words were carved here by the three of them before, mainly as road signs. After Ou Ye confirmed that he was going in the right direction, he walked along the other side with his bag on his back, at this time, he felt something in the woods on the right staring at him, and when he looked there, he saw nothing but the trees, Ou Ye shrugged his shoulders, trying to find something with the peripheral vision of his eyes along the way.

After walking for about two minutes, there was a cliff in front of me, looking up and not seeing the top, there was a large piece of vines growing close to the cliff, the highest had grown to the cliff more than ten meters, they seemed to grow naturally from the soil in front of the cliff, if you didn't look carefully, you could hardly find that there was a small wooden house hidden here, it was entangled by green vines, leaning on the cliff, the main body of the house was covered by vines tightly, the door was difficult to distinguish anywhere, but you can still vaguely see the shadow of some wood, creepers crawled out from a corner, as if they were specially welcoming the old people who came from afar。 Some of these vines have already bloomed one or two small flowers, and they immediately decorate this "green house" with great beauty and enchantment.

"It's so beautiful, I thought this place was incomplete!" Ou Ye couldn't help but admire, looking very excited. It took Ou Ye and the others three months to build this hut four years ago, and for this hut, Ruijie also went to learn carpentry for a while. And these vines are specially used by them to decorate this house, I didn't expect the vitality of the vines to be so tenacious, the longer they grow, the more lush they become, which shows how powerful the power of nature is. Ou Ye can still clearly remember the days when the three of them built a house here, how relaxed it was at that time. Although it had not been maintained for so long, and the wind and rain and the squeezing of vines, the house was more worthy of the name they had given it, Ou Ye walked to the front of the house, peeled off the vines on a stone, and carved out four big characters with a sharp weapon - "Xanadu" appeared in front of him. They used to want to plant some peach trees here to match the name, but now it seems that there are no peach blossoms here but there are better than peach blossoms.

Ou Ye squeezed his eyebrows, went straight to the approximate position where the door was, and vigorously pulled the vines open, sure enough, there was no mistake, a wooden door that had been baptized by nature appeared in front of him, the wood was already a little pitted, and the iron lock in front of the door was even more rusty, Ou Ye took out the key he found in the morning from his pocket, he picked up the rusty lock, and the iron filings soon fell on his hands, when he saw that the keyhole had been deformed, his head immediately became big, he tried the key back and forth many times, and he couldn't insert it at all, he was a little impatient, and then looked at the lock, muttered a few words, and turned around and walked towards the small bush next to him。 After a while, he came back with a thick branch, and only a few sharp knocks were heard, and it didn't take much effort for Ou Ye to knock the doorknob to the ground, and the sawdust fell to the ground. The otherwise quiet forest seemed to be disturbed, and the birds flew out of the trees in unison. It was a long time before it quieted down. At the same time, the door also opened, and a huge cloud of dust rushed towards Ouye. Ou Ye wiped his face with his hand, coughed a few times in a row, and then suddenly something fell on his head, Ou Ye touched it with his hand, this thing was still a little warm, he put his hand in front of his eyes to see, the hot thing turned out to be bird poop, it seems that the birds are a little angry because they were disturbed, and a piece of bird poop fell on Ou Ye's head It was really a let go. Ou Ye was a little crying and laughing, and he realized that now he had to find a place with water to clean up the "unexpected jackpot".

Ou Ye entered the house, the room was a little dark, and it was hard to see what was stored in it, but there was a rope ladder on the cliff wall hanging down from a stone cave at a height of 2 meters, and the hole seemed to be just enough to accommodate a person to enter, Ou Ye pulled hard a few times, and the rope ladder was still very strong, so he climbed up along the rope ladder.

This stone cave is really inside the Qiankun, in addition to the space is very large, soon what catches the eye is a stalactite more than ten meters high, it has been "growing" upward, you can touch the top of the cave every few meters, the top of the cave is like a natural "skylight", at this point in time, just a beam of sunlight shines directly from there, shining in a pond of water, the cave is bright, around the stalactites grow lush bamboo, connected into a piece. They cooperate with those stalactites of different heights and the slightest flow of water on the stone wall, instantly sketching an abstract art painting, which is very spectacular! And in front of Ou Ye there are three naturally formed stone caves, each cave has a different shape, but the inside is black, people who don't know must think that there are some monsters living inside, in fact, these stone caves lead to different places. Ou Ye didn't have time to think about it, and walked straight into the largest hole in the middle, but when Ou Ye passed by those stalactites with staggered heights, the corner of his eye seemed to see something on a stone, but he walked too fast and had already entered the stone cave, he didn't look back and just thought: "That should be some kind of strange stone!"

In fact, the passage in front of me is only 10 meters away, and soon the foot will change from stepping on the stone to the soft ground, the original stone cave is a blue lake, the area of the lake is very large, at a glance you can hardly see the head, Ou Ye walked on the grass, three steps to do two steps towards the lake, this lake is very clean, the shore of the lake is covered with grass and wild flowers, standing on the shore can also see the bottom of the lake a few meters deep, this purity should be because no one disturbs the relationship! The water is also full of natural aquatic plants, which fluctuate back and forth with the current, and the scenery here is truly eye-catching. It's no wonder that Ou Ye was so surprised when they found this place, and finally decided to choose this place to build a house, and gave this place such a proper name.

Ou Ye picked up a puddle of water by the lake and splashed it on his head one after another, and the little "jackpot" was finally cleaned. He stood up, took a deep breath, and looked at the sparkling surface of the lake with an expression of enjoyment. At this time, several egrets land in the middle of the lake, playing the most harmonious beauty of nature. After indulging for a while, Ou Ye looked at the sun above his head, and had the urge to run into the water, but when he thought that he would have to pick up Ni Xue on the road in the afternoon, he still had to quickly tidy up the house first, and then he couldn't wait for Ni Xue to tidy up! Thinking of this, Ou Ye shook off his wet hands and walked towards the entrance of the cave.