Chapter 39: The Mural in the Rift Valley

  The crevice grew larger and formed a chasm, bottomless and dark. I had the feeling that it led to hell, as if countless ferocious beasts were waiting below with their mouths wide open for me.

  It's like playing musical chairs, the unknown fear is thrilling because you don't know how deep the crack is, so you're extremely fearful in your heart. It's better to tell me now that it's several hundred meters deep and falling will be certain death.

  It turned out that I thought too much, the fall was just an instant, and the rift wasn't very deep. Although it's not deep, if the angle isn't right, I'm afraid it's not far from high paraplegia.

  My feet touched the ground first, and I fell forward after a slight buffering. Fortunately, I didn't fall heavily, but at the moment of landing, I felt a cramp in my soles.

  "Cough, first help me find the flashlight." Cheng Shu fell beside me and after coughing twice, he got up and asked me to find the flashlight without saying another word. I looked at him with a kind of inexplicable anger, this greedy old man. Since my flashlight was still in my hand all along, I pretended not to hear him and turned away.

  "Ma Si Zhe, Huo Jie, are you both here?" I whispered, searching with a flashlight.

  I heard a low voice from the left saying "I'm fine", it was He Ying. He Ying rushed towards me and smiled, I didn't know how to respond with an expression, so I just nodded awkwardly. Seeing that He Ying was okay, I started looking for Ma Si Zhe again. "Ma Si Zhe!" I shouted twice but no one responded.

  Cheng Shu saw that I wasn't paying attention to him, so he yelled at Jiang Liu to help him find the flashlight. I turned on the flashlight, but it didn't light up right away - I'm not sure if it was because of a loose connection or if the battery was dead. It took me two shakes to get it working again.

  "Ma Si Zhe, Ma Si Zhe!" I held the flashlight and looked around, but didn't see anyone. At this time, someone grabbed my pant leg from underfoot, scaring me so much that my hair stood on end. Shaking with fear, I looked down to find it was Ma Si Zhe.

  I quickly squatted down. "What's wrong?" Ma Si Zhe said weakly, "Most likely I've hurt my head, it hurts a lot now."

  "I found out that every time you get hurt, it's always your head"

  "No, I don't feel like talking now, I think I'm going to throw up."

  I was shocked 'Aren't you concussed?'

  Ma Si Zhe's weak voice licked his lips, like Lin Daiyu who was seriously ill: 'No, I still remember who you are'

  "Not all concussions result in amnesia, who did you say I was?"

  Ma Si Zhe pointed at me and thought hard for a moment 'You are... you are that'

  I'm also getting a bit anxious, I'm done for, he'll really knock me dead. His uncle will kill me.

  "You are my eldest son," Ma Si Zhe said with a sly smile.

  I came to and slapped him hard on the head 'Get out of here, why didn't you die'

  Ma Si Zhe laughed so hard he was rolling on the ground. I didn't bother with him and kicked him once before walking away.

  Cheng Shu finally found the flashlight as he had wished and shone it around. Jiang Liu followed closely behind him, "Where are we now?"

  Cheng Shu walked over to the wall and beckoned me and Ma Si-zhe to come take a look, saying "There's a mural here."

  I and Ma Si Zhe hastily gathered over to see the mural that Cheng Shu had discovered. 'Can this be considered a mural? It's too rough.'

  It's no wonder that Ma Si Zhe said the things on the wall can't be considered paintings, they are just patterns drawn with stones, left one stroke and right one stroke, it is impossible to identify what content is on them.

  "There's not only a painting here, but also words." Cheng Shu held the flashlight and examined it carefully. "Wait a minute, this seems to be a scene of war."

  I also went over and said "How can I not see it?" It has to be said, the things on top are really too rough, very much like something a person recorded in a hurry.

  "Look at these few words here," said Uncle Cheng, pointing. I took a look and saw that it was written "Battle of Lü at Jiaohu Bay", which seemed to be the name of this painting.

  The name reveals two pieces of information: one is that what is recorded above is indeed a war, and the other is that this war took place in a place called Jiaohu Bay.

  The two sides of the war are vastly different in strength, with one side having three times as many troops as the other. From this mural alone, I couldn't even tell which two countries' armies were depicted, unable to discern any distinctive features of their uniforms or weapons. So this mural is basically worthless.

  "It's like I didn't see it at all, nothing can be seen," said Ma Si Zhe.

  But if this thing is useless, why would someone go to the trouble of painting it on there. I took another close look at the content of the mural to see if I could find any other records.

  After looking at it for half a day, I found that except for the six characters "麓战于蛟湖湾" on top, there is no other record. This is strange, the mural can't be seen clearly, and with just these six characters, what does it want to convey?

  What's painted on the mural is not important, what's important is the mural itself. Is there a reason why this mural must exist? Or is it just... I approached the mural again with questions and examined it carefully once more. Indeed, beneath the mural was another layer.

  I was under the outermost layer, and I saw a circle of white marks. Continuing to look down, these marks were not chaotic, but followed some kind of trajectory.

  I'm almost certain that the outer layer of murals was painted to cover up what's underneath. What could be depicted below that someone wouldn't want us to see? Even stranger, who is this person?

  I wanted to see if there were similar murals on other walls, so I took out my flashlight and shone it around. Only then did I discover that every now and then, not far apart, there was a cave. Cheng Shu also discovered this and muttered to himself as he counted the number of caves with his hand.

  After counting for a while, Cheng Shu suddenly realized and patted his thigh: "This is the fourth layer of those caves just now."

  "What does it mean?" asked Marx Zhe

  "I didn't mention it before, but when I was on the coral reef, I saw that the caves on both sides of the mountain had a regular pattern. At the time, I felt something was off, like something was missing. Now I understand, it was missing one layer, and surprisingly, this last layer is actually underground."

  Uncle Cheng was visibly excited, and his words were filled with excitement. I followed the sequence he told me earlier and took a look, and indeed it was in the order of right-right-left-right, right-left-right-left.

  "What does this mean?" I still don't understand what Uncle Cheng is so excited about.

  "It turns out we stumbled upon the right path by mistake."

  My mouth twitched, thinking what made you think so. Later, I felt that this matter was not necessarily accurate, what if Uncle Cheng knew something we didn't know? It's still better to follow him for now.

  The surrounding caves are dark and gloomy. If we follow Marx's previous speculation, if we walk up from one of these caves, we can reach the giant coral reef all the way.

  That's just a vicious circle, going up and down, going up and down.

  At that moment, I heard a loud rumbling sound, and the rocks above began to fall down. One of them hit my head, hurting so much that I gritted my teeth. I quickly took off my backpack and used it to cover my head, then ran towards the cave beside me.

  We hid in the cave and listened to the sounds outside. The dust was swirling, I even got a mouthful while hiding in the cave.

  "This is as chaotic as a mudslide." I fanned away the dust in front of me.

  "Pfft, pfft, pfft! If this really is a mudslide, we won't need to investigate whose tomb it is; sooner or later it'll become ours!" Ma Si thought I had just said something unlucky.

  But no one had any way of predicting what was happening, and all they could do was stay quietly in the cave. At this time, a violent shaking came suddenly, and I hurriedly held onto both sides 'what's going on'

  As soon as I finished speaking, the shaking stopped, and when I looked outside again, it had also quieted down. Several people came out of the cave, but there was no change around them at all.

  I looked up and saw that the crack we had just fallen from had miraculously closed.

  "Look, the crack above is gone."

  Everyone looked up at the sound of my voice, and the crack was gone.

  "What does this mean? Are we trapped here?"

  All the caves here lead to that giant coral reef, and it's naturally impossible to climb up. Now the entrance is gone too, and it's clear we're trapped in here.

  The light of my flashlight is getting weaker and weaker, I don't know when it will go out completely. I whispered to Marx 'What should we do, my flashlight is running out of battery'

  Ma Si Zhe took a glance at my flashlight and then looked at Cheng Shu and others 'I have'

  "Where did you come from?" Could it be that Ma Si Zhe brought another backup?

  "Don't worry about where it came from, just don't have to worry about the flashlight"

  Mysteriously, I didn't ask much. "We have to go back from the cave," said Cheng Shu, with a tone that implied it was unquestionable.

  "Are we going up from here? Won't that be going back again?" I was scared by that vine, just thinking about it makes me shudder.

  "What's so special about that vine up there? You've never seen it before and now you're going to go die on it?" Ma Si Zhe also chimed in.

  "Now there's no other way out" said Uncle Cheng, and then he walked into the cave. This means you can come or not, I'm not asking you, just telling you.

  I thought to myself that I couldn't just stand there and wait, maybe there was a path we missed. Although I was reluctant in my heart, I still followed Uncle Cheng inside.

  Cheng Shu and Jiang Liu walked in the front, Huo Ying was in the middle, and Ma Si Zhe and I followed at the end. I could see that Ma Si Zhe was just like me, his patience with Cheng Shu had reached its limit, but there was no way out, we still had to rely on him to take us out, so for the time being, neither of us dared to be presumptuous.

  "After I go out, I'll beat him up" Ma Si Zhe said quietly to Cheng Shu.

  Bring me one

  We turned left and right, and indeed walked into another cave. Seeing the light in front of us, it seems that Uncle Cheng's speculation was correct, and the place we were just in was indeed the fourth layer of these caves.

  As I walked to the entrance of the cave, I hesitated a bit, fearing that those things would throw me back and forth again. Ma Si Zhe walked in front of me, one step ahead, and suddenly stood still at the exit of the cave.

  It's done, looks like there's another emergency situation. 'What's wrong?' I said, slowly slipping out.

  Looking out, a large pit suddenly appeared in front of me, where were the coral and vines.