So Qin Bukong and I walked separately, roughly measuring the range, I went from south to north, he went from north to south, and we probably needed close to two hours. If you find it, don't be busy going down by yourself, and come back here in two hours to meet again.

The road that crosses the Iron Gate Pass runs east-west, which means that only the north-south side can only have those small alleys, and whether or not the pine nuts entered the sewer from a certain location in the alley, at least in these places it is relatively difficult to be found. I don't know if Qin Bukong is lazy or not, but I really look for it one by one, and every time I find one, I have to carefully distinguish the dirt on the edge of the kiln manhole cover, whether it has been deposited for a long time or has just been lifted up, and even stepped on it with my foot to see if it is loose.

On most kiln manhole covers, two long oval holes will be evenly distributed. When maintenance workers need to unclog pipes, they will use two T-shaped crowbars to reach in, and then twist a little to turn the manhole cover up. But in some places, the manhole cover is not specially used for people to enter and exit, so it is locked from the inside, which is easy to distinguish, because there are words and patterns on the manhole cover, if the part of the edge and the part of the pattern outside the manhole cover can match, it means that the cover has basically not been turned up, and naturally it is not possible for the pine nuts to choose to enter the place.

After two hours, there was no dirt on the edge, and the manhole cover could be easily stepped on, I had already found four or five, and when we met Qin Bukong, we told each other about the situation, and found that we found a total of six or seven such manhole covers, which could be turned up and drilled down, so we decided to find a manhole cover closest to the position of the iron gate to go down.

It was almost noon, and there were originally a lot of pedestrians on the street, and it is estimated that they are all going home for dinner at this moment. Qin Bukong, an iron rooster who is not plucked, actually asked me to treat him to the canteen of the supply and marketing cooperative, I ridiculed him for being a senior, and he went out and let the juniors invite them to dinner, don't you feel ashamed? Qin Bukong seemed to be unimpressed by this shameful behavior, he put a large piece of food into his mouth, and said casually, what is this, I am your senior, you invite me to eat is called respecting the elderly, you are my apprentice, you invite me to eat, that is called respecting the teacher.

So I silently broke the bank, just because I didn't want to continue arguing with him, lest I have to admit the deformed master-apprentice relationship that I didn't want to face the most. If the discussion continues, it will make everyone disagree with each other, and their hearts will not be happy.

After lunch, we chose the closest place to the iron gate according to the manhole covers we found. This manhole cover is located only about 20 meters between the straight line distance and the iron gate, in a small alley with a back street. Many houses in Wuhan are built on both sides of a narrow alley, and Qin Bukong's home is like this. So we know that as long as we move fast enough, we can still go undetected, otherwise we may be regarded as thieves stealing manhole covers. In our time, the crime of stealing was very big, the key is that everyone is more radical, even if you are not stealing the manhole cover, but once others suspect you, they will report and arrest the person first, and then study right and wrong. So this is a sad era, and it is precisely because of such an era that we who are trying to survive in the cracks, but if we survive, we are more tenacious than others.

There was no crowbar, and we went specifically to buy one. Probably a few days ago, pine nuts were also other tools that I bought here. Qin Bukong and I hid the crowbar and brought it to the manhole cover, the alley was straight, and it was some distance from the road, and the two of us saw that there was no one around, so I immediately used the power of the flood to turn the manhole cover up, revealing a gap. Then he shifted it more than a foot on the ground, knowing that there was enough space for me and Qin Bukong to enter and exit. I asked Qin Bukong to go down first, and I will cover the manhole cover later, but Qin Bukong said that he was not in a hurry, and let the filth inside disperse. So we stood on the side and waited for about two or three minutes, fortunately there were no pedestrians passing during the period, and then Qin Bukong grabbed the escalator by the well and slid down, I followed in, and after the head was under the wellhead, I poked the hole in the manhole cover with a crowbar and dragged the cover back to its original position.

In the sewers, there is a very strange smell. It's not the kind of foul smell that makes you sick, but it doesn't smell good. The place we stepped on was actually a buffer staircase, and there was only some sewage flowing in down the manhole cover under our feet, which came from the stagnant water in the alley we had entered earlier. What really made me unbearable was that we went down to the beginning of the second ladder, and down there, there were really all kinds of filth in the city.

The perennial accumulation of domestic garbage, as well as the dung water, all kinds of unpleasant smells are mixed together, and the smoke is extremely uncomfortable. The sewer was not what I had imagined at first, I always thought it was a round pipe at the bottom, but it was actually in the shape of a square at the top and a semicircle at the bottom. All kinds of sewage accumulate in semi-circular grooves, although we don't have to step our feet into the fecal water, because there is a narrow small staircase built for people to walk on the side. Presumably for the workers who maintain the pipeline.

Qin Bukong and I held back the stench, and from time to time we covered our mouths with our sleeves, and I began to wonder if I had offended some kind of immortal and punished me for coming here to suffer. When he was upset, he was about to light a cigarette, but he was immediately stopped by Qin Bukong, he said don't you want to die? What do you think is the smell here? It is a gas volatilized after the decay of various dirt, which belongs to biogas, and the ignition point is very low. Songzi didn't get out, and it took our two lives.

Although I know that Qin Bukong's words are a bit exaggerated, if the biogas here reaches the level of being able to explode, let's go down and take a few breaths, I'm afraid it will be hung up. I just didn't argue with him too much, I didn't smoke if I didn't smoke, so I put the cigarette back in the cigarette case.

We figured out the direction and began to walk in the direction of the Iron Gate, shining our flashlights on the ground as we went, trying to see if there were any recent footprints, if any, maybe pine nuts. The water in the sewers often fluctuates like a sluice gate, and every dozen or so steps, one or two rats can be seen suddenly bursting out. In such a place, the environment is closed, and speaking softly will have a strong echo. We fought against the unpleasant smell and watched out for rats that suddenly ran out, while looking for traces on the ground.

I walked like this for ten minutes, because the speed was very slow, and it took a lot of time. Came to an intersection, this is the place where two or three pipes meet, we began to be a little unsure of which direction to go, at this time, Qin Bukong was on the steps opposite us, and saw a nail on the wall, and the nail was tied with red cotton thread.

So I tried not to touch the sewage and stepped over, and on the steps under the nails, I found some footprints, which were very new, like they had just been left recently. Qin Bukong reached out and touched the nails on the wall, there were no traces of rust, and the red cotton thread was also clean. Qin Bukong turned his head and said to me, this should be the road sign left by Songzi, he was probably afraid of getting lost, and deliberately left a road sign. I looked left and right and said, "Which direction should we go?"

The place where we are is is right around a corner, and the footprints on the ground are pointing in one direction, which means that if these things were left by pine nuts, then he should be in the direction where the footprints followed. But the opposite direction was the direction he had entered, and perhaps there was something left on the previously dry cushioned steps. If we take a look, we may be able to more accurately determine whether it is a pine nut or not.

Qin Bukong took my opinion in a rare way, and he said Then you go back and take a look, I will wait for you here. So I started to walk in the opposite direction, this time at a faster pace, tracking the footprints on the ground as I went. Follow the footprints and soon come to the buffer steps. I climbed up to take a look, and found a coat thrown on the ground, probably because Matsuko felt that it was inconvenient to take off it because he had worn too much, and this coat was the same one he wore on the night of his disappearance.

Now I was completely sure that Matsuko had been here, so after cursing in my heart, I tethered his coat to the strap of my satchel. I went back the way I came to find Qin Bukong, and after explaining the situation, we continued to look forward in the direction of the footprints.

In this way, I walked for half an hour, because the pipeline is not a straight line, but a twist and turn, and the straight line distance is more than ten or twenty meters, and the bends have to be almost seven or eight turns, which is said to be to make the channel long in a limited space when the flood is discharged, which can effectively prevent backflow. And at each fork in the road, you will find a nail with a red line bolted. We walked deeper and deeper, feeling how could this road be so far, just measured just now is only twenty or thirty meters in a straight line, we walked for more than half an hour, and we haven't found anyone yet. Qin Bukong said to me, you remember, we are here to find people, not to find things, so no matter how far away, find people talking first.

After finding about seven or eight nail signs, all of a sudden the footprints on the ground became cluttered, as if a person had walked back and forth here many times. Not far from these footprints, there is a small gentle slope that can be climbed up to a slightly higher dirt slope. There were no pipes on this slope, but it was exposed, probably because of the high ground, so there were no pipes laid here, and on the small mound I saw a nail with a red thread bolted to it, and on a wall perpendicular to the ground on the edge of the mound, there was a small hole about the size of a manhole cover, and there was some muck that had been dug out at the mouth of the hole, and there was a shovel that had fallen to the ground.

I thought to myself that this stinky boy had really come to dig something secretly, so Qin Bukong and I walked to the edge of the cave to look, and just as we approached our heads, a slightly warm air flow slowly hit my face, accompanied by a disgusting smell of rotten eggs. Qin Bukong and I suddenly felt bad, and quickly covered our noses, and no one dared to rush in.

I had a flashlight in my hand, so I shone it into the hole, and it didn't matter, but I saw a woman with messy hair sleeping in the cave with her head facing the hole! And when my beam hit her, she looked up suddenly with a blank face, her long hair covering most of her face, and through the gap in her hair, I saw a pale thin face, and an eye staring straight at me!