After being picked up one by one onto the raft, Wang Sichuan lowered his head to kiss the old boat hull, as if his ancestors were kissing the vast grassland. I collapsed directly on the boat, my head resting on the side of the hull, feeling only darkness before my eyes. Everything that had just happened, the hoarse voice, the rushing water, the coldness, the fear, the singing, everything had turned into a vortex, spinning away from me.
"Life and death are so close, it really feels like a dream."
"Just as I was about to pass out, someone beside me helped me up and gave me a coat. That's when I started to feel the piercing cold."
We took off our clothes and wrapped ourselves in blankets. Gradually, we regained our composure and began shivering as we looked at the rescuers. Most of them were unfamiliar engineering troops and two were geological prospecting troops from our group, but we weren't familiar with them. Only the old cat sitting at the bow of the boat was a familiar face.
After Wang Sicuan dried himself off, he asked what was going on and how they got in. One of the engineering soldiers told him that the central camp had sent a telegram this morning, saying that there was a heavy rain upstream of the Kache River twenty miles away, and they should be careful of possible tidal waves. At that time, Lao Mao was already on standby in the camp. Upon hearing the news, his face changed, and he immediately found the colonel and said that there might be a flood in the underground river. At first, the colonel did not believe him, but under Lao Mao's insistence, they organized a rescue team to come down. Now it seems that it was just in time. If they were any later, it might not have been a rescue team, but a body recovery team.
"Wang Sichuan said thankfully to the heavens and the earth, may Changsheng Tian bless us, dear father cat you are my own dad, let me give you a kiss quickly."
"The old cat smiled at him, didn't say anything, looked at me and then at Pei Qing, with a meaningful expression on his face."
At this point, I noticed a problem: after the skin raft picked us up, it did not return, but continued forward with the rapids. I asked nervously, "Lao Mao, where are we going now? This is a dead end."
"Wang Sichuan was questioned by me and suddenly discovered this issue. Several people's faces turned white and exclaimed, 'Yes, there's no way out inside.' Wang Sichuan said, 'The terrain here is too low. We should walk upstream, otherwise this place may become an underground water pocket. We'll be trapped inside, and even the entire cave floor will be flooded.'"
The engineering soldiers all looked to Lao Mao, obviously seeking his opinion. Lao Mao ignored us and just took a puff of his cigarette, telling the engineering soldiers, "Move forward."
"Four leather rafts rushed forward like assault boats, and we didn't know what the old cat meant. We all climbed up, and Wang Sichuan's face turned green with anxiety. We had just come down from the brink of life and death, and we really didn't want to go back to that situation again."
"But the speed of the Leather Raft was too fast, and by the time we finished arguing, we had almost reached the end of the cave."
At this moment, Old Cat made a gesture and pointed to a place that made everyone quiet down.
Due to the increase in water level, the horizontal plane where we are now located is at least 30 meters higher than the place where we found the iron door below. This means that when we look up at the iron door with a flashlight, we can't see the top of the cave because it's always been pitch black and we've never paid attention to it.
"And at our current height, the top of the cave is roughly visible. We can see the walls of the cave converge into a sharp angle above our heads. Huge stalactites hang down from the top like giant white teeth, shimmering and indistinct, too numerous to count. These sights are fleeting and in the raging river, we don't have the energy to pay much attention to them, nor do we have much memory of them now."
What made us quiet was the sight of a gap about ten meters wide at the top where the two walls of the cave met, which seemed to be where the water flowed into like a galloping horse, splashing water everywhere.
We understood at a glance, which means that the geological movement did not completely seal off the cave in the past. This is only a contracting segment, and the passage continues downward unexpectedly at the top of the cave.
"I don't know if you can understand the structure of the cave from this description, or we can say that where we found the iron door is just a water sac of an underground river. Its size cannot be called a lake, but it plays the same role as a lake in regulating the flow of underground river water. Due to years of drought, when we came in, the water level of the underground river was obviously at a low point, so this immature lake was exposed. And we searched at the bottom of the lake, naturally we could not find a way to continue downwards."
"This is actually a blind spot. Under the concept of "water flows downhill", we always feel that the passage will be under our feet, without realizing that our heads have not been searched at all."
I really wanted to ask Old Cat how he knew about this, but the situation did not allow for it. The water was flowing too fast, and by the time we reached the gap, the raft had already started spinning. The engineers shouted to hold on and crouch down! As soon as they spoke, we were already swept into the fissure, slamming heavily against the side of the cave. One of the engineers was half thrown out, but fortunately Pei Qing acted quickly, grabbed him back with a snap, and then everything spun into darkness.
"I didn't know if the boat would end up horizontal or vertical. After extreme exhaustion and fear, experiencing this intense scene once again, I couldn't endure it anymore. After clenching my teeth for a few seconds, I finally blacked out and passed out."