Chapter Twelve: Chang'e

  I patted my chest and secretly made up my mind to strengthen my physical exercise after returning. It's always a shameful thing for a man to be arranged in front of the elderly and women when escaping. We all sat on the ground, panting heavily, while looking around at this space. Almost everyone's first glance was at the statue in the middle, because it was too high, from bottom to top. The carving was vivid, a horse riding statue, which looked like Hou Yi. Looking up at the ceiling, those glowing plants were arranged in four large squares, forming a "田" shape. On the walls around, except for the holes, many memorial pictures were also carved.

  After a short rest, the old man took people to take pictures and collect data around. Wen Long also casually looked at these carvings, while I went directly to the entrance of the next space, looking for possible mechanism buttons on the carvings beside the entrance.

  Outside the cave entrance, there was a carving of Hou Yi holding a bow and arrow, as if preparing to shoot someone. Since we had the black hole cannon, why use a bow and arrow? This thought flashed through my mind, but I immediately rejected it myself. Using the black hole cannon to attack people would be bad, who knows, it might even swallow up the entire Earth. I carefully searched along the lines of the carving and found a triangular button on the tail of Hou Yi's arrow. I pressed it hard, but it wouldn't budge. I loudly called over Wen Long, asking him to try pressing it, but he also failed. The two of us couldn't help but scratch our heads in frustration.

  The old man and they had already finished taking pictures, and walked over together. They all tried the buttons, but no one could press them down. The situation was stuck again, so we had to find a place to rest first. This floor didn't have a water pool either, so Wenlong restricted the water supply once more.

  I asked the old man: "Is there anything special about those carvings?"

  The old man said: "Nothing special was seen, it's the story of Hou Yi shooting and killing Taikang, basically the same as what is told in history."

  I looked up at the ceiling and said: "That button is definitely a switch, why can't it be pressed? Is it broken?"

  The old man shook his head and said, "It's impossible that it's broken. The ancient people who designed these mechanisms must have considered all these problems at the time. None of those mechanisms had any issues, let alone this button to unlock the mechanism."

  Wen Long interrupted: "Could it be that the mechanism of this floor isn't that formidable, so they just designed a fake button and actually don't need to use it? I'll go try."

  The old man said seriously: "Don't be reckless, what if something happens?"

  "Wen Long said: 'Old man, I'll try it with a backpack first, don't worry, nothing will happen.'"

  The old man nodded and said, "That's a good idea."

  Wen Long stood up, picked up his backpack and rope, and walked towards the entrance of the cave. We also got up to help him. This time it was another popping mechanism, but what popped out was no longer a stone pillar, but sharp long spears.

  Wen Long made a bitter face and said: "Last time that one could still be carried with the body, this one... can't be cured. As soon as it's poked, it brings tears."

  "I said: 'Give up, let's study the mechanism instead.'"

  We returned once again in front of the sculpture, this was our only hope now. We carefully observed the sculpture, trying not to miss any details.

  Su Yi observed for a long time and said: "I think this mechanism shouldn't be pressed."

  "What's the discovery?" we asked her in unison. She pointed at the button and said, "Look, the shape of this button is very similar to the arrowhead on his bow. I think it should be placed on top of that arrow."

  Wu Feng said: "We tried pulling this button out, but it wouldn't budge, and we couldn't get it off."

  Su Yi didn't say a word, she grasped the button, and we found out that she wasn't pressing or pulling it, but pushing. The button under her push, along the carving of the arrow shaft, slowly moved towards the direction of the arrowhead. The plants on the top of the canopy indeed changed, and the four of them turned into different colors. When the button was completely pushed to the direction of the arrowhead, the four pieces of plants had already turned into green, red, yellow, and white. A clicking sound came, and we knew that the mechanism had stopped. The extraordinary mechanical skills of the ancient people thoroughly conquered all of us.

  This time the mechanism took a full twenty minutes to return to its original position, and we rested for another period of time to make sure everyone's physical strength had recovered before pushing the button and entering the cave. It was another exhausting forced march. However, this time with experience, I could also control my physical strength very naturally, and there was no situation like last time where time was not enough, until we ran out of the cave entrance, those mechanisms still hadn't fully retracted.

  In this layer of space, we saw the statue of that peerless beauty - Chang'e.

  It's always exciting to see a beauty just by raising your eyes, but if it's just a stone statue, you probably won't be that interested. However, this stone statue stunned all of us. Because the statue was clearly Su Yi, no, it should be said that Su Yi was clearly that stone statue, after all, the stone statue is older than her.

  "I said..." I rushed to Su Yu and said: "You are Chang'e's reincarnation, right?"

  Shadowless kick flew over, anyway can't dodge, this time I simply didn't dodge. I felt Su Yi's kick was far less powerful than before, it seemed that she was also intimidated by the stone statue in front of her.

  After regaining their composure, everyone immediately teased Su Yi. Wen Long said: "Wow, it turns out you even ran to the moon in your past life, I'm impressed!"

  Wu Feng knelt on the ground even more exaggeratedly, rushing to pay his respects to Su Yi with a big bow, shouting from his mouth: "Grass citizen Wu Feng, paying homage to Your Highness for thousands and thousands of years."

  Even the old man was filled with a childlike heart and said: "I don't know if Hou Yi has thrown down any more heavenly babies."

  Su Yi's face turned bright red, and when she saw me sneaking a smile on the side, she flew over again, this time it hurt a lot. After teasing for a while, everyone calmed down and went to busy themselves with their own things. I continued to look for the mechanism, only Su Yi remained in place, staring blankly at the stone statue. Wen Long followed me directly to find the mechanism this time.

  We arrived at the entrance of the cave and looked to the side, where there was a carving. We were stunned once again. On the carving, a strong man was bowing to a woman sitting above him. But saying "woman" might not be quite accurate, because the lower half of her body was that of a snake, while only the upper half could be seen as a woman's. Behind her stood several other women like this, but they were clearly smaller than her.

  "I know this woman," said Wen Long.

  "I'm going," I said with a smile, "You really have a wide social circle."

  Wen Long said irritably: "What are you thinking of? Don't you recognize her? This is Nüwa."

  I was stunned for a moment, and then I took a closer look at those snake-bodied women with human faces. No mistake, just like what's recorded in the book. I said sulkily, "You're right, it seems that I should have recognized these women too."

  Wen Long patted me on the shoulder and retorted, "Your social circle isn't bad either."

  We looked at each other and smiled. At the same time, we loudly called out to Old Master and Wu Feng, telling them to come see this carving. Old Master took a glance and said, "Nüwa." We nodded in agreement, and then Old Master pointed at the male figure and said, "This person is Chanyu."

  "Do you know him?" Wen Long and I asked in unison. A thought flashed through my mind, the old man's social circle was obviously wider than ours.

  The old man didn't know that so many thoughts flashed through my mind, and said: "We just went to take pictures of the carvings here. This layer mainly tells the story of Hou Yi's governance, among which there is a carving of Hou Yi appointing Han Zhuo to help him with government affairs. The Han Zhuo in it has the same image as this person."

  I and Wen Long both let out a sudden "oh" of realization. I asked, "That old man, what does this picture mean? Nuwa summoning Han Zhuo? Isn't Nuwa just a figure from mythology?"

  The old man was silent for a moment and said, "I don't know the specific situation either, but one thing that can be thought of is that at that time, Nüwa was not just a mythical figure, she really existed."

  "What?" We were stunned again, this space seemed to have magic, from the moment we entered here, we almost all spent in a daze and shock.

  The old man broke his long silence and said, "Stop staring, Wu Feng, quickly take pictures of all the carvings on this floor. You two hurry up and find the mechanism to go to the next floor."

  Wen Long came back to his senses and said: "Actually, I've already found the mechanism, it's just...". He pointed with his hand at Nüwa who was sitting in the middle.

  We followed his finger and saw two round buttons, one on each side, located on the chest of Nuwa. This position... I looked at Lao Yezi, Lao Yezi looked at Wu Feng, and Wu Feng looked at Wen Long again. Wen Long spread his hands and said: "Only Su Yi can come."

  Su Yi looked at the two buttons on the wall and said, "You can find this place too?" Although he was speaking to everyone, I felt that his murderous aura was directed straight at me.

  "It was Wen Long who found it."

  Su Yi didn't turn her head back to look at me and said: "The question is which one of the two should be pressed?"

  Wen Long said: "Let's try one by one."

  I said: "Don't, it's better if we make preparations to enter the cave entrance first, and then press together. Just in case... I mean just in case there is a mechanism here that isn't good, we can still quickly enter the cave entrance, right?"

  Wen Long gave me a thumbs up and said: "That makes sense, you're absolutely right."

  We quickly packed up our backpacks and stood at the entrance of the cave. Su Yi pressed down two buttons, and the clicking sound from inside the cave stopped, nothing happened. We let out a sigh of relief and quickly entered the cave one by one, starting to run rapidly again. After rushing through the dark passageway, we arrived at another space, according to my reasoning, this should be the main cave of this array, because judging from the overall situation, this should be the largest space, and based on my inference, this space should be the control room of the mechanism, as long as we reach the control room, we can control other mechanisms, then the rest of the journey will be much simpler.

  We rushed through the passageway, and at first glance I saw the control room of the mechanism. Then I wanted to cry because I found myself so childish. This was indeed the control room, but it wasn't a room as I had imagined.

  This space is obviously much larger, not only in terms of space but also height. This place is about 7 or 8 meters high, and the lighting is not that glowing plant, but several round beads on the ceiling. The light is also brighter than the previous plant lighting. The carvings around are also changed to protruding reliefs. But what attracts me most is the central control device in the middle, it's too exquisite, generally speaking, the word "exquisite" is often used to describe small objects, but this one is really big, and I still want to say it's exquisite, or use a more appropriate idiom, called "ingenious".

  The control room is a sphere, about six meters in diameter, of course not a regular spherical shape, with an uneven surface and a thin membrane-like substance on the outside, I don't know what it's made of. And this sphere isn't monochromatic, it's actually composed of multiple colors: white, yellow, green, blue. On top of the sphere is a stone pipe that goes straight up to the ceiling. At the bottom is another stone pipe inserted into a large pool below. This pool doesn't seem calm like before, but rather appears to be constantly flowing. It drives the central spherical ball to rotate continuously.

  I stared blankly at this thing, because it was too vivid, so I recognized what that thing was at a glance. No one spoke, and apparently everyone else was also attracted to this thing.

  It wasn't until much later that we heard Old Man's first words: "Heavens, this is Earth."

  I nodded woodenly, not speaking. The old man continued: "That's not right, people's understanding at that time should be a round sky and square earth, the sky is a dome, the earth is like a chessboard. How could they have made such a realistic globe? And it can even rotate by itself?"

  This question of his, I reckon can only be truly explained if the ancients were to come back to life. I let out a deep breath and said, "Old master, can we not ask these questions that we fundamentally cannot answer?"

  The old man said "oh" and apparently also felt that his question was indeed impossible to find an answer, so he said: "Right, didn't you say that this should be a control room? If we close the mechanism here, we can stop the entire mechanism and search everywhere. Where is the control room?"

  I sighed and said helplessly, "Old man, let's just say I'm naive and shallow. This is indeed the control room, but the main button of that mechanism...". I pointed to the globe and said, "Should be inside this thing."

  Wen Long sat on the ground with a thud and said: "Then what can we do to stop this thing?"

  I shook my head and said, "Since stopping it won't do any good, look, this thing below is obviously a live water. In other words, this mechanism is driven by these live waters. If you really want to stop this mechanism, first, you have to divert these live waters so that they no longer flow into this pool. Then open the globe and stop the internal mechanism. Or more simply, break the stone pillars above and below."

  Wen Long said, "That's really no solution at all. We don't have that many tools to work with now, and these rocks are so hard they can't even be blasted open with explosives. Can we drink up all this water?"

  "I said: 'Maybe you can try.'"

  Wen Long said: "Forget it, you've already said this is living water, what degree do I have to drink to? It's not as good as cooking rice first." He stood up and started fetching water to cook.