How to enter the Insect Valley? There are two routes marked on the human skin map. One is to climb over the wind outlet on Zhelong Mountain, and the other is to follow the Snake River and bypass Zhelong Mountain.
Although the straight-line distance between the dangerous primeval forests is not that far on the map, anyone who has entered the primeval forest should know that the walk is actually ten or twenty times longer than the pre-planned trip, and there are some places where there are
swamp.
Both routes are difficult to walk. In contrast, only climbing over Zhelong Mountain, which is more than 3,000 meters above sea level, is more feasible. However, it is not a joke to risk climbing over the snow-capped mountains without a guide. You may end up unsuccessful.
, all folded on the mountain.
At this time, I heard that there was a shortcut from Peacock, so I hurriedly asked for details. Peacock only knew a rough idea, so we had to go to the proprietress to inquire. The proprietress told us that the locals in Zhelong Mountain are called Aiteng, which means the bottom of the tailless dragon.
There are many caves as dense as spider webs. Legend has it that they were dug by ancestors in ancient times. In the past, rebel bandits occupied them to fight against the officers and soldiers. The officers and soldiers were helpless against the complex terrain in the mountains, so they had to block all the cave entrances with stones and seal the inside.
Many people were trapped alive inside; in the future, whenever I held a sea party and put my ears against the rocks of Zhelong Mountain, I would hear bursts of desperate cries from the mountain.
Of course, this is just a legend spread among the local people. As for which dynasty and generation the cave was built, who built it, what its purpose is, who are the gangsters inside, whether it is the local ethnic minority who rebelled against oppression and exploitation, or what exactly,
To this day no one can tell clearly.
But it was not until recent years that someone quarried stones and discovered a cave with dissolved limestone and underground water. This water has been passing through the mountain and flowing into the Snake River at the other end of Zhelong Mountain. The water is deep enough to drive bamboo rafts, and there are
With this waterway, you don’t have to worry about getting lost in the criss-crossing caves. Due to the gentle terrain, the water flow is not fast. When you go there, you can float down the river, which is very labor-saving. When you come back, you need to put in some effort to hold up the pole.
Coming back is much more convenient than going over the mountain.
Finally, the landlady told us to go there. Although it was a shortcut, there were many strange corpses on both sides of the cave. No one knew when they died in it. The timid people would be scared out of their wits. Yes, there are
Several times, people have been allowed to pass through the cave, but firstly, there is a lot of miasma in the Worm Valley over there, and secondly, there is no human habitation there, so there is no point in going there. No one has gone there for a while recently. If you
If you want to take shortcuts, you need to be more careful.
I said to the landlady: Don’t worry, we went to the valley over there to catch butterflies and make specimens to serve the people. We are all communist materialists, how could we be afraid of death. Since there is a shortcut, it would be a fool not to leave it alone.
What's more, someone has successfully passed through it before, which means that there are no ghosts inside, and it may just be relics of ancient ancestors' tombs.
I remembered that I had just seen a sign on the door showing the martyrs of the army, so I asked the landlady again. It turned out that Peacock’s brother was a martyr who died on the front line. Then I thought that the war in southern Xinjiang is still not extinguished. This time I came to Yunnan,
If you have the chance, you should visit the cemeteries of your comrades, but you can’t always think about money and forget your roots.
In addition, I also discussed with the boss’s wife whether anyone nearby had a shotgun, and we wanted to rent a few for self-defense. The boss’s wife asked Peacock to dig out a Jianwei air rifle from the back room. It was an air gun that shot steel balls. When Peacock’s brother was alive,
When I was young, I often carried this air gun into the mountains to shoot birds. The landlady was very kind-hearted. Since we had helped her, she was willing to lend the gun to us for free with no deposit required. We could just return it to her when we came back.
I was a little disappointed. I thought I should at least get a double-barreled shotgun. This kind of bird-shooting gun is almost like a toy. But when I took it and took a look, I felt that it was a really good gun, very well maintained, and it was not an ordinary small-caliber gun.
, it can hit medium-sized steel balls, has a long range, and the gun body is heavy and stable enough. Not to mention hunting birds, it is no problem for hunting wolves. The only disadvantage is that it needs to be reloaded after each hit.
Something is better than nothing now, and I couldn't get any better firearms nearby for the time being. So I threw the gun to the fat man to let him get familiar with it, and the power of the sword would be his for the time being.
I thanked the landlady, and the three of us spent the night at the Caiyun Inn that night. Fatty and I slept soundly that night, without thinking about anything. We completely forgot about the hard work along the way, and it was really a relaxing sleep.
It wasn't until the next day that Sangan woke us up by grabbing our ears, and we got up reluctantly.
The tea seller had already gone to do business early in the morning. After we washed up, we found that the landlady had prepared a lot of dry food and insect-proof herbs for us, and asked the peacock to lead us to the cave entrance at the foot of Zhelong Mountain.
.There is a large bamboo forest there. You can cut down a few large bamboos and build bamboo rafts.
We thanked the landlady repeatedly and took the guy into the woods behind Caiyun Inn. The main tree species in the woods nearby are mostly hairy-leaf slopes, followed by fragrant fruit trees and giant rhododendrons, and also a small amount of silver-leaf osmanthus. There is only one depression that is lower than the flat land.
A large green bamboo grows in the pit, and the waterway into Zhelong Mountain is not far from here.
After I saw the location clearly, I shot the peacock home so that her sister-in-law wouldn't have to wait anxiously at home. The fat man asked me, "Old Hu, why don't we let this little girl guide us? She is good at singing and dancing, so we can go all the way."
Not lonely either.
I told the fat man to forget it, we were not going on a sightseeing trip. I had a hunch that this time would not go well. I always felt that there was some huge danger hidden in the Tomb of King Xian in the Insect Valley, and there would inevitably be some...
Big move. Not to mention the little girl, even if it were another guide, we wouldn't need it at all. The human skin map is enough for reference. It would be troublesome if there are too many people.
The fat man nodded and said, "That makes sense. Don't let King Xian's old rice dumpling scare the little girl. Besides, there are outsiders present, so it's inconvenient to pick up an open weapon. It's just the three of us, so let's start tossing around. It's early."
After this big thing is over, let's go back to Yunnan to have fun again.
He said to me and the fat man: The clouds in the sky are getting thicker and thicker, and I'm afraid the weather is going to change. Let's get in line quickly and try to get up the mountain before it rains.
Without further delay, the fat man and I went to pick up the fat bamboos with machetes, and cut off the branches of the bamboos with our knives. The three of us divided the work and worked together, making progress very quickly.
When we went to work in the mountains and countryside in Inner Mongolia's Daxinganling Mountains, Fatty and I both worked in forest farms. There were no roads or cars to transport logs, so we put logs one by one into the river and sent them downstream; there are some waterways in Fujian
There are also people working in places with inconvenient transportation, so these tasks are not unfamiliar to us.
If the bamboo rafts need to be used for many years, it will be quite troublesome to make. The bamboo needs to be blanched in hot oil before it can be used as raw material. There are also some other additional processes. But we only need to use it temporarily once or twice, so it is completely unnecessary.
Get rid of those unnecessary troubles.
I went to the cave to explore the depth and flow of the waterway, and estimated that only six bamboos as thick as human legs would be enough to carry the three of us and all the equipment.
After all this busy work, I finally made a small bamboo raft and dragged it into the cave with a rope. When I stepped in with my front feet, thunder rumbled and a shower started outside.
This is a limestone cave. Once you enter the cave and walk down the slope for more than ten steps, you can see a river at your feet. But rather than a river, it is more suitable to call it a deep stream. It is nearly one meter lower than the ground, and the water is about three meters deep.
There is a lot of water, the flow is very slow, it may be a tributary of the Lancang River, the first half is hidden underground, and it is not revealed until the terrain is low in the cave.
The cave here is very wide. I used my wolf eyes to look into the depths of the dark cave. There is a huge difference in height. You can drive a tank in the wide part, but it is only more than one meter high in the low part. There are many dissolved rocks that have been formed for more than a thousand years.
There are all kinds of strange things. This is just the entrance of the cave not far from the cave. The environment inside will be more complicated. It seems that if you want to pass through the cave, you need to lie down in some areas to pass. In addition to the sound of gurgling water
, the entire cave is extremely quiet, and the thunder from the showers outside can't be heard here at all, it's like a completely isolated underground world.
We pushed the bamboo raft into the water, and I immediately jumped on it. I inserted a bamboo pole from the front of the bamboo raft into the water to fix the bamboo raft to prevent it from being washed away by the current. Then I jumped up. I saw her coming up and took a few steps forward.
, she retreated to the end of the bamboo raft at the same time, maintaining her balance. Then the fat man threw our three large hiking bags filled with equipment and two insect catching nets up one by one, and then he jumped up to the middle of the bamboo raft.
They all sank, and I quickly pulled two of the three mountaineering bags to the end of the bamboo raft where she was. I pulled the other bag to my feet. This way, I temporarily balanced the weight and prevented the boat from capsizing.
We made the final preparations on the bamboo raft. Since there are many stalactites and stalagmites hanging upside down in the cave, in order to avoid breaking our heads, we all put on mountaineering helmets. The helmets have tactical spotlights that can fire six to eight
Hour.
Finally, I set up a strong searchlight on the front end of the bamboo raft. This kind of strong searchlight consumes a lot of energy and cannot be used for a long time. I turned it on every one or two minutes to confirm the situation of the cave in front.
The fat man held a bamboo pole and sat in the middle to keep his balance. Seeing that I had been installing the searchlight in front for a long time and still hadn't finished it, he couldn't help but ask: What's the matter, Lao Hu, can't we leave today? I can't wait to get it out.
That's a great gift to Mr. Wang.
I still had two fixing bolts left to install, so I turned around and said to him: Why are you urging me? The Tomb of King Xian is in the Worm Valley. If I were to go there a few minutes later, it would still be able to run away with its long legs.
The person at the backend said to us: I told you two to stop arguing. I have a suggestion. Americans are used to giving each military operation an operation code name. We are going to sacrifice the king this time, why not also give it an operation code name?
Action code, of course, it is not meaningless, it can make us more planned and purposeful.
The fat man said to her: This is our Chinese territory, and your old and American methods will not work. But since the head of the American advisory group proposed it, I think it is better to call it Operation Touch Mingwei. This seems straightforward.
There is no hypocrisy at all, just go for the obvious purpose.
I had installed the last fixing bolt of the strong searchlight, and turned to the fat man and said: You are too direct, it seems vulgar. But this proposal is very good. The Allied Forces' Operation Overlord broke the Third Reich's
Atlantic Barrier, thereby shortening the course of World War II. We can also think of a better code name for the operation, try to get a good start, and strive to win the victory immediately. This time we disguised the operation under the guise of going to Worm Valley to catch butterflies.
I think it's called Operation Butterfly. I announce that now Operation Butterfly will begin.
Regardless of whether I agree with the fat man or not, I turned on the strong searchlight first, saw the terrain in front of me clearly, reached out and pulled out the bamboo pole inserted in the water. Driven by the slow water flow, the bamboo raft moved forward slowly, and then drove slowly.
Entering the depths of Zhelong Mountain.
When we encountered a narrow place, the fat man set up a horizontal pole, and together we used bamboo poles to support the rocks on the bottom of the water to balance the bamboo raft. A small bamboo raft drifted zigzag in the cave, but it was a pity that it was surrounded by darkness.
Without turning on the searchlight, you can't see the distance, and there is no beautiful scenery. Otherwise, you can really shout a few folk songs.
Different from the hot and humid weather outside the mountain, when you walk along the river in the cave, you feel the cool breeze as you go deeper. From time to time, you will see groups of phosphorus fires flickering in the distance, indicating that there are animal carcasses.
, it seems that this is not a lifeless world.
Sitting on the bamboo raft, I could still feel some water snakes and some small fish swimming. I put my hand into the water and tried it. The water here was even a bit bit cold. In Yunnan, where the four seasons are the same, the water temperature is so cold.
It's really rare. Maybe there is snow water flowing directly from the top of Zhelong Mountain, so the temperature here is very low.
It’s not because of the snow and ice water, but because the temperature difference between the cave and the outside is relatively large, the human body will have an illusion. Once you get used to it, you won’t feel so cold. In addition, there are no signs of artificial construction in the caves here, and they seem to be completely natural.
formed.
The speed of the water flow changed during the conversation, and suddenly it was significantly faster than before. At this point, we all started to get nervous. If we were not careful, the small bamboo raft might fall over at any time. We picked up the short pole and managed to keep it together with us.
Balance. The river is more tortuous than before, with big turns appearing from time to time.
I couldn't spare my hand to turn the searchlight on and off, so I had to leave it on. Unexpectedly, I could see clearly even in the distance. The scenery deep in the cave was unimaginable, and the beam of the strong searchlight was so bright.
As soon as we scanned it, those jagged and weird stalactites only flashed before disappearing into the darkness, which made us feel like we had entered a strange and bizarre dream maze.
Although some of the strange stones were only glanced at, they left a very deep impression on people. Some looked like Guanyin Bodhisattva, some looked like sleeping children, some looked like leisurely cranes, and some looked like bull-headed horses with ferocious faces.
There are countless ferocious beasts and miraculous craftsmanship of nature in this cave. If these unique sights were not illuminated by powerful searchlights from a distance, they would never be seen by the world. Countless magical scenes passed by in front of our eyes like a revolving lantern.
, it is dizzying, this wonderland is so beautiful that it is shocking.
At this time, the river suddenly widened, and several thinner tributaries merged into it. The speed of the water flow slowed down, and the searchlight in front did not dangle as much as before.
Under the illumination of the light, the cave walls on both sides of the front are lined with rows of naturally smooth molten rock terraces. The layers are like the waves of the sea, really like a solidified silver ocean. A huge vermilion
The natural stone bead hangs upside down in the middle of the river. Behind the stone bead, the river water flows into the mouth of a huge beast head. The huge stone beast looks like a tiger or a lion. It seems to be opening its bloody mouth and roaring wildly, revealing a mouth full of sharp canes.
He wanted to bite the stone bead with his teeth, but time was frozen at this moment, and its posture was fixed. I am afraid it has been here for tens of thousands of years.
The river just passed through its mouth, and what we faced was like a door to hell. Our heart beat a little faster, our breathing became heavier, and we held the bamboo pole in our hands tighter.
Why haven't I heard the proprietress of Caiyun Inn mention this place with such obvious features? Could it be that the river changed its course and went astray? And through the light beam of the strong searchlight, you can see countless ancient figurines hanging behind the beast door.
On a long-distance bus, I saw the kind that was crushed by a car and the stone shell was filled with maggots. Every time I think about it, I can't help but feel a little sick in my stomach. I didn't expect to encounter it here again.
The three people on the bamboo raft looked at each other in silence. I don’t know what Fatty and I were thinking when they saw such a scene. Anyway, I suddenly had a very uneasy premonition. I felt that as long as we walked through here, in this dark and deep cave, we
My hands will touch a thick layer of fog from ancient times. Book Alliance