Chapter 5: Revisiting the "Three-Eyed Hole"

At noon, we found a nearby farmer to rest, and the hungry team members took out the dry food they had brought with them to satisfy their hunger.

According to the villagers, the cave we explored in the morning is called the "Cold Wind Cave", which extends in all directions, and the whole mountain is empty. In addition to the Cold Wind Cave, there are two other caves that communicate with it, collectively known as the "Three Eyes Cave", which used to be a nest of "Bang Lao Er" (bandits).

After lunch, Eps began to assign tasks, in order to save time and improve efficiency, but also for safety reasons, in the afternoon, the soldiers were divided into three routes: a group led by Secretary Zhao, accompanied by "Mei Chaofeng", two cameramen, female graduate students and a local farmer who was temporarily hired as a guide, the six of them searched in the nearby area, Documenting and photographing new caves or funnels, the second group was led by Ypps and accompanied by the second Pharaoh and his wife, who entered through the original cave entrance, but only explored along the third floor in search of other exits, and the third group was led by Shaq, accompanied by Pharaoh and his wife, Professor Wan, and me, and the five of us entered through another hole in the Three-Eye Cave in search of a shortcut to the underground river.

I chose to be in the same group as Shaq because I thought he looked like a thief and always wanted to use his "professional smell" to help us find a puzzle or a box or two of treasures. I was still immersed in the previous hallucinations, listening to the fellow tell me that this cave was once a den of bandits, and I immediately thought of the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

With the warm-up in the morning, I felt a little more calm and confident when I entered the cave again, and the adventure suit that the female graduate student retired from is now on me, although it is a little tight, but after all, it looks decent, so I feel that I have been upgraded by a supernumerary team member.

Full-fed and unusually sober, I carefully observed the situation in the cave, and when I encountered a suspicious place, I turned on the miner's lamp to observe it closely, thinking that it would be good to pick up some kind of bronze sword or ape-man skull fossil or something, and it was worth the trip. For this reason, others often had to stop and wait for me, and wondered how serious I was.

Shaq was a little dissatisfied with my actions, and kept urging me to hurry up and not drag everyone back.

We walked very slowly, and we came to an oval hall, which was not clearly visible, but it was estimated to be thirty or forty meters in diameter and could accommodate thousands of people.

Some of the stones seem to have been polished and furnished, and have become stone benches where people can sit, and a place in the middle is recessed, like a fire pond, with traces of charcoal fire, and there are three passages around it, and the flat place of the hall wall seems to have a pattern carved by a sharp object, but it is not clear because of the severe erosion of the water.

As Pharaoh depicted the cave in detail on the board, and Shaq and Emmaso were measuring and recording with a tape measure, the hope that was about to be extinguished in my heart suddenly burned again.

It seems that this cave hall must have been inhabited, and it looks like an important meeting place, but I don't know if it's the "stick old man" or the ruins where a primitive tribe lived, look carefully, maybe there is something I want to get, but after checking the whole hall inch by inch, all I get is disappointment, not even a stone tool is found.

The main focus was on the depiction of the cave walls. Shaq took out a flat wooden knife from his tool bag and gently scraped it off the stone wall, and the pattern gradually became clear.

All the lights were focused on the figures, and the Pharaoh began to shoot them with a camera, and the figures on the stone walls were intermittent and continuous.

In addition to the simple human figures, there are also figures of tigers and cattle and sheep, which are somewhat similar to the Cangyuan petroglyphs I have seen in Yunnan before, but they are not painted with charcoal strips or hematite, but with a metal sharp weapon, and the graphics are more elaborate and compact, divided into several paragraphs, as if telling a complete story, in which the image of a tall tribal leader and a group of tigers together is striking and puzzling.

Everyone became excited, and the French were enthusiastically discussing something. At this time, I was most anxious, the unexpected short circuit of the flash made it impossible for me to shoot, not only did I not find a useful physical object, but I couldn't even get a data photo, and no one believed me when I went out to tell a story.

At this time, Shaq made a new discovery: near the fire pit, there were several yellow-brown mud blocks, which were different from the surrounding earth color. There were a few pieces of tiles in the mud pile, but they shattered when you took them. It was probably an ancient pottery that had been weathered by water, so he didn't dare to touch the clod with his hands, but just filmed it with a camera.

Isn't this very much like the scene I've been dreaming about lately? Caves, pottery, tigers, and tall tribal chiefs, do my dreams really have some kind of foresight function? But where are the primitive people?

In order to see the situation in the cave more clearly, everyone turned on all the lamps. On one side of the hall there is a slightly higher terrace, although irregular, but close observation seems to have traces of artificial cutting, there are two large round stones in the center of the terrace, obviously carved by beating, although the erosion is severe, but still see that there is a pattern like a tiger, as if for the head to sit. Since there are many rocks that have fallen in the hall, there may be new discoveries if they are cleaned up. But electricity didn't allow us to stay in the cave for too long, so we had to arrange for evacuation before we planned, and we had to come tomorrow anyway.

That night, I visited Professor Wan at the residency and asked him about the significance of this expedition. He told me that there are world-class magical cave complexes here. The cave we are looking at today is simply a vast labyrinth of caves. Three levels have been detected, and there may be an underground river. How these underground rivers are formed, where they flow, and whether they are connected to the sinkholes are of great help in solving the causes of the formation of the sinkholes.

Further, it will be of great help in understanding the changes in ancient geology and hydrology, so that we can better manage the environment and protect water sources today. Today's biggest takeaway is the unexpected discovery that the cave was once inhabited by humans a long time ago, and why these people lived in such a remote and dark cave is still a mystery to us for the time being.

But, in my opinion, how could a cave in a remote area attract the French? and they were not all geologists, what was the significance of such an expedition to them?