Chapter 55: The Enormous Deep Pit

  Everyone dared not to advance rashly, so they all went along the left direction to check, and walked out for dozens of meters. Under the illumination of the flashlight, some shadows appeared.

  As I walked closer, I found that it was a simple single bed made of wooden boards, and it was even a bunk bed. Here was different from the outside, where there was a lot of fog and moisture, but here it was very dry. The wooden bed had not rotted too badly either.

  Shining a flashlight revealed more beds and some scattered personal belongings on the floor.

  As I continued to look ahead, I heard Liangzi say behind me: "This thing, is it a lamp?"

  I turned around to look, and saw him standing by the bed I had just passed by. Previously, I hadn't noticed that on the upper bunk of that bed, there was an object hanging that looked like a glass ball.

  I used a flashlight to take a look, and indeed this thing looked like an old-fashioned oil lamp, with a mouth on top, some solidified green oil inside, and a relatively short wick.

  I recall that in the ancient mansion of Bagua, after we lit up the 'Sunflower' lamp, it attracted many giant man-eating insects. This time, I didn't act rashly and instead went to seek Zhou Huan's opinion.

  Zhou Huan also walked over, took down the object and examined it, saying: "I think this should be an oil lamp, but I can't tell what fuel is used, the mouth of the lamp is all blackened, looks like it's been used frequently."

  She finished speaking and took out a lighter, stretched out her hand to light the wick. After some of the solidified oil melted, a flame ignited.

  I found it strange that this spark didn't produce any smoke at all. The light emitted through the glass container was much larger than the illuminated area of our flashlight.

  Everyone waited a little longer and saw that nothing unexpected happened. Zhou Huan rehung the lantern and continued walking forward.

  I found that the entire vacant lot against the wall was lined with a row of single beds, each bedhead hanging a glass oil lamp.

  This makes more sense now. I reckon that previous unit must have lived here, and this oil lamp was used for their daily lighting needs.

  After understanding, we went one by one to light up, the more lights lit, the more I walked, the more surprised I was, really didn't expect that this empty space would be so big.

  Hei Mian followed closely behind Liang Zi, doing nothing. The three of us continued to light the oil lamps, taking at least over half an hour, circling around the empty space and lighting all the oil lamps.

  Everyone turned around and looked again, with their mouths agape in shock.

  Our flashlight is no longer needed at this time, and the entire space can be seen very clearly.

  I found this place is a circular square, with an area of about 200 meters around the circle.

  Then go and see which beds are available, thinking: if all of these are filled with people, 500 should be no problem.

  There are many signs of human habitation around the bed, with tattered and worn-out clothes and shoes scattered everywhere. There are also metal lunchboxes, some of which still have leftover food residue inside.

  At this time, I can be completely sure that the legendary mysterious army must have existed, but I just can't figure out how they suddenly disappeared with such a large number of people and well-equipped equipment. It seems like they left in a hurry, I don't know if they encountered some kind of emergency situation.

  We are now like in a super huge, inverted giant pot. Just now we just walked around the wall to light up, and only now did we discover that there seems to be a big black hole in the middle of the square.

  We walked forward to take a look and found that there was indeed a huge deep pit in the middle of the square, which couldn't be illuminated by the oil lamp. We had no choice but to turn on our flashlights and shine them down.

  When I finally saw this hole clearly, I was completely speechless...

  I found that in the middle of this circular square, there was a huge deep pit with a diameter of about 50 meters. The cave was vertically downward, and the edge had dense iron chains, one end fixed on the outside of the pit, and the other end deep into the inside of the pit. Originally, the flashlight's illumination distance was very far, but now it can't be seen at all. It is really unimaginable how deep this huge pit can be.

  If it's said that this square was built by that troop, I can still understand, but this deep pit is inexplicable. Not to mention the era back then, even now with large-scale engineering teams, it would be quite difficult to dig such a bottomless giant pit inside this mountain body.

  I asked Zhou Huan in confusion: "You said that the army back then, what did they want to do? It doesn't seem like they came to rob the tomb. Those beds can prove it, they lived here for a long time."

  Zhou Huan looked puzzled too, and after staring at the pit for a while, he said: "I also can't understand it. Judging from these iron chains, only by going down can we find the answer."

  Looking at this dark and deep pit, I feel terrified. Let's not talk about how we're going to get down yet, who knows what dangers are waiting for us below? Just thinking about it is frightening.

  Zhou Huan took off his backpack at this time and pulled out an object like a chicken egg from inside, with a * on it.

  I thought it was a bomb, but after Zhou Huan lit it up, this thing sizzled and emitted white smoke for a while, then it started burning as a whole, it should be a firework.

  Zhou Huan threw it down the deep pit, and as the light continued to shine down, I felt that the iron chain had not stopped. On the rocky wall of the pit, there were some indistinct black shadows, but I didn't know what they were.

  It fell faster and faster, finally becoming a small bright spot, and then it probably reached the bottom, turning into a piece of sparks, scattered all over the place.

  Judging from this distance, the depth of this pit is at least over 200 meters.

  "My god, what kind of place is this? Is 'Wan Chong Shou' a ghost or something? How could he put the coffin in such a deep hole, does he want to go to hell?" I said with great emotion.

  "It's no use guessing, we'll know once we go down. Besides, we don't have any other choice." Zhou Huan was quite unconvinced.

  Listening to her talk so lightly, I don't have a bit of low in my heart. Looking at the depth of this pit, jumping down is easy, but climbing down for me, the result should be no different from jumping down.

  But there's no way to go back now, having come this far, there's no other choice.

  Everyone discussed it and didn't know what the situation was below, so to be on the safe side, Zhou Huan decided to have Liangzi watch over Hei Mian while waiting upstairs, and I accompanied her downstairs to check.

  Although I am unwilling in my heart, there is no other choice.

  Zhou Huan first asked Liang Zi for a rope, tied it to the flashlights of both of us, and then we slung them over our shoulders, clamping the flashlights under our armpits, so that we could free up both hands.

  Then he hung the gun on his other shoulder, and Zhou Huan seriously taught me how to use this gun. I also learned very hard, with a gun in my hand, it's much better than my dagger.

  After making preparations, Zhou Huan instructed Liang Zi a few words, telling him to watch out for the black face and not to run around randomly. Then he led the way, facing the cave entrance, grabbing the iron chain and starting to climb down.

  I also took a deep breath and grabbed an iron chain beside me and climbed down.

  What delights me is that on this iron chain, every now and then there is a small iron bar tied horizontally, probably prepared by the previous army for convenient handrails and treads.

  Actually, if I could overcome the fear in my heart and crawl down, it wouldn't take much effort, but I've never done this kind of exercise before, and both hands were already shaking.

  Zhou Huan saw that I was climbing very slowly, so she stopped and waited for me for a while. When I arrived nearby, the two of us continued downwards side by side.

  At the beginning of a paragraph, there was nothing found. I estimated that after going down about twenty meters, because the direction of the flashlight was shining on the wall in front of me, I discovered many square depressions on the rock wall.

  Those depressions were empty before, but as my body continued to move down, I found that some ceramic-like jars appeared in these depressions, and I didn't know what they were used for.

  I asked Zhou Huan: "What is this thing, used for pickling sour cabbage?"

  Zhou Huan ignored me, first using a flashlight to carefully examine the jars, discovering that they were sealed with something similar to wax paper. Then she tapped them with the barrel of her gun, and from the sound, I judged that they shouldn't be empty, as there was no clear ringing sound.

  "How about opening one to take a look? If it's really sauerkraut, we can also change our diet." I joked.

  Zhou Huan actually made me laugh and said, "You're really sick, usually you talk pretty seriously, but when things get tense, you start talking nonsense."

  It's really true that Zhou Huan said it right, I'm indeed very nervous now. As soon as I see this vase, I have a kind of inexplicable fear, and I always feel that there is a human head inside, because judging from the size of the vase, my head should fit in quite well.

  But afraid of returning afraid, I won't admit it, and continued to quibble: "Who's nervous, I'm just hungry, you don't believe me, I'll open one for you right now."

  "Alright, alright, you're great, let's not touch this thing, our goal isn't this." Zhou Huan said after finishing, didn't care about me anymore and continued to climb down.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, just pretending earlier, if she really agreed, I would have been at a loss for what to do.

  I crawled down for another ten or so meters, and I found that these pottery jars were getting more and more numerous. The entire rock wall was densely packed with them everywhere, this is just what I could see, if the whole pit was surrounded by this kind of thing, it really can't be described in numbers.

  As I was thinking about this, the iron chain in my hands suddenly moved a bit. I lowered my head to look and it was pitch black below. So I asked Zhou Huan: "I'm saying, can you not touch my iron chain? If you shake me off, you'll have no partner."

  Zhou Huan is now just a body position away from me, I see her raising her head and inexplicably saying: "I didn't touch your iron chain, are you too tense?"

  I was about to make excuses, but suddenly I felt the iron chain under me shake again. This time it felt very clear, as if someone was pulling my iron chain back and forth from underneath. But my eyes never left Zhou Huan, and her body really didn't touch my iron chain.

  At this time I immediately became thoroughly tense and asked: "Don't you feel it? The iron chain is really moving."