Chapter 56: Finally Seeing the Skull

  Kakaxi walked very casually, in his words, anyway, following these people would not die here, so he followed them to the underground cave for a few days.

  "He said: 'Even if their goal is us, what can they do? They've already withdrawn. At most, it's just their superiors scolding them.'"

  "It's possible that they will take the opportunity to conduct a thorough search of the mountain, under the pretext of strengthening their efforts to crack down on poaching. In that case, I estimate that within a few days, by the time we emerge from this cave, we'll likely run into their large-scale search operation."

  As soon as Su Haicheng finished speaking, Kakashi's foot tripped on a stone and he fell forward. The black-faced spirit in front of him dodged nimbly, and he directly fell onto the stone beside him. Along with his miserable cry, Ah Tian behind me shone the flashlight over, and we saw that a big lump slowly bulged out on Kakashi's forehead at a speed visible to the naked eye.

  "A Tian said irritably, 'Can't you be a bit quieter? The echo effect in this cave is so good that even if someone whispers at the other end of the cave, we can still hear it clearly. Just like when you guys first arrived, we heard the sound of water and went to take a look.'"

  Kakaxi was so frustrated that he almost cried: "What can we do? If we go out, we'll be chased by a group of soldiers all over the mountain. If we don't go out, is there still a chance to survive? Our dry rations are only enough for a few days."

  Su Haicheng didn't listen to his nonsense, turned around and continued walking forward: "I'm just a hypothesis, maybe they won't come again. Or they think we're already dead in here."

  As Su Haicheng's flashlight flashed by, I saw the mark on the wall and blurted out: "Have you been here before? There is a mark here."

  "Yes, we will make a mark at the fork in the road," said Hei Lian.

  But Su Haicheng walked directly in front of me: "Where is the token?"

  I was puzzled, wasn't this a mark they made themselves? I stretched out my hand and pointed to the wall where there was a faint reflection earlier, which seemed to be a character.

  Su Haicheng's flashlight shone over, and on that uneven wall, there was indeed a line of crooked small characters. The height of the small characters was at the place where Su Haicheng stretched so high. No! If it were their road signs, they wouldn't be painted so high. And it felt like it was painted with oil paint, which Su Haicheng and his group shouldn't have had.

  As I was thinking this in my mind, he also said: "We only make marks at the fork and use stones to draw arrows. Just now I was walking in the front, I chose a road that we had never taken before, there should be no signs on this road, and it's not a fork, so we won't leave any marks here."

  "Paint?" Ah Tian also squeezed over, "It feels like it was painted on. Tsk, things are getting more and more interesting. We're not the only team that's come in here, nor are we the only ones who've gotten lost here."

  The words written in paint were just one sentence: "Wait until the lake water dries up and the lock will appear."

  "A lock?!" Kakaxi repeated, "Sister 41! Sister 41! There really is a lock! I knew it was worth coming this time."

  "What's the point?" My tone turned bland. "The lake drying up? When will this lake ever dry up?"

  Hei Lian said, "Once a year, on the day of Li Chun, the water will dry up. I've been here for nine years and it's always been like this. The villagers told me that since the lake was formed after the explosion, it has always been like this."

  Kakaxi let out a deep sigh: "Then we've come in vain! The beginning of spring is still several months away. How about we try again next year?"

  "Let's think about whether we can go out this time."

  Su Haicheng looked at me: "If the lake dries up, where will it go?"

  "It flows back into the underground river." I said, "My grandfather told me."

  "That is to say, when the lake water dries up, this place will be all water. The person who wrote these words also came to find the lock. He came at the beginning of spring, and this place was all water, so he floated on the water to write those words."

  Well, this analysis should hold up, the word is indeed twisted badly, and it's highly likely that it was written while floating on water. Su Haicheng continued: "Just think about it, if everything here was water..."

  "It's unbearable!" Ah Tian said, and he began to swing his flashlight around, searching for something in the vicinity. After just a few seconds, the beam of light from his flashlight landed on a skull wedged between two rocks nearby.

  Skull? Okay, I've seen it in the biology lab, no big deal. But why do I have such a huge fear now? I closed my eyes and quietly breathed out, not letting myself scream.

  I only opened my eyes when I felt a hand grasping mine. Standing beside me was Su Haicheng, who said: "After all these years, it's really hard to see a normally decaying corpse turn into a skull. Here, there are some strange corpses that won't decay."

  I nodded: "I think this is just a formation. We are actually in this formation. Maybe the tomb above is also part of the formation. Since it's a formation, there must be a mechanism. Everyone told us to wait until the lake water dries up, so now we..."

  "Think of a way to get out." Ah Tian took out his camera and took pictures of this place.

  "It can only be like this. Let's wait until next year's spring, when the water dries up, we'll come in again." Su Haicheng also made a decision.

  "Wait a minute, I've got a question for you all. Suppose the water dries up, does that mean the entrance to the cave under the lake will be dry too? Or if there's not much water, and those corpses can't float up, how are we supposed to get in? Are we going to use big hooks to pull out the corpses one by one? With so many corpses, even if we work day and night, it'll take us several days and nights to finish, and by that time the water will have risen again."

  I gave him a white eye, and he said that section I was most afraid of. Thinking about those floating corpses, I'm scared. "Maybe now those corpses are all floating on the surface of the lake, and then they leave by themselves, return to their village, rebuild their homes. No one knows that their village is full of dead people."

  "Sister Siyi, can you please not say such scary things?"

  "I..."

  "Alright, let's go, continue moving forward. Who knows, you two might be our lucky charm. Now that you're here, we can finally find a way out. No matter what happens later, being able to get out now is the most important thing."

  I also wish we were lucky, but unfortunately we weren't. After walking for nearly two hours, when my physical strength was almost exhausted, we walked back to the edge of the pond where we first emerged.

  Kakashi and I both looked shocked. In our minds, we were clearly walking forward all along! How did we end up back here?

  The three of them were relatively calm, as they had walked back here several times in the past day. They lit a fire with an alcohol stove again and boiled water to cook instant noodles. The mineral water we brought down was almost used up, so we could only use that pool of water to boil water.

  Here, I really don't want to recall how I swallowed that instant noodles. In my mind, I was automatically replaying the scene of us passing through the cave full of corpses. And this water is clearly connected to the water there. We basically used corpse water to cook our noodles.

  I once asked Su Haicheng if soldiers would really eat earthworms to survive. His answer was, when I'm starving to death, I'll eat them too.

  At that time, I thought in my heart, even if I starve to death, I won't eat it.

  But now, holding this bowl of dead water bubble noodles, watching them eat one by one, I also forced myself to finish it. I need to keep my strength up, can't become a burden to them. We're already in a life-or-death situation here, I don't want to drag them down, don't want to cause them more trouble because of me.

  At night, we lit the stove to spend the night. Their conclusion was that since there was enough oxygen for us to use the alcohol stove, then the ventilation openings around here must be very large. And not just one. We will definitely find a way out!

  It was in such unease that we spent our first night in the cave. It was also the second night for Su Haicheng and his group.