Chereads / The Final Exploration / Chapter 26 - Chapter 25

Chapter 26 - Chapter 25

"It was a note identical to the one we had seen on the pebble beach earlier, torn from the same type of work notebook we had. The paper was not as high-quality as it is today; it was thick, yellowed and rough. When we unfolded it, we saw it contained just a few words: Enter the Water Cave."

"The four characters were written extremely hastily and sloppily, to the point where I could barely distinguish them. It was clear that they had been written in a great hurry. My heart skipped a beat when I saw these characters. What was I thinking? Was I about to fall into a sinkhole? I reflexively turned to look at the iron fence that was blocking the sinkhole."

"The submerged cave is not far away, where all the cables gather like octopus tentacles at the entrance, coiled and twisted into bundles, with water flowing through them into the cave."

"Go down this hole?"

"I felt a little puzzled, then I touched my pocket and found that besides the cigarette, there was no second note. I wondered who put it in there."

When I first saw the note warning about Pei Qing, I didn't pay much attention to it and thought it was just Chen Lu's disgusting trick. But now that I have received the same note again, I cannot ignore it any longer.

At this moment, Wang Sichuan and the others were beside me. They saw the whole process of me touching the piece of paper. When they noticed the changes in my expression, they all came over to take a look. I knew I couldn't handle this problem alone, so I handed the piece of paper to Wang Sichuan and the others, to figure out what was going on together.

As soon as Wang Sichuan saw it, he took a deep breath and said that this was a hint for us. Who the hell gave it to us and why did they use this method? Could there be enemy spies among our team?

Several people thought it made sense when they heard it. Otherwise, there would be no need to pass on this information through a note. Wang Sichuan became excited and said, "Comrades, our opportunity to perform meritorious deeds has arrived. It seems that there must be something suspicious in the underwater cave. We cannot let the enemy know. Therefore, this mission was assigned to us in this way. This is the trust that those comrades have in us. Let's go, we must act quickly and go into the cave."

"I quickly stopped and said wait, something strange is going on, we need to discuss this thoroughly. Besides, I don't even know who put this note in my pocket. Let's go to the entrance of the cave first and see if we should go down or not. Don't make a quick decision."

"What I said makes sense too," Wang Sichuan nodded and agreed, indicating that he also understood. They then picked up their flashlights and walked towards the cave entrance.

Honestly, I didn't take a close look at this hole. When I came up, I took a glance and had an intuition that the surroundings of the drowning hole were slippery and dangerous, so I didn't dare to approach and look carefully. The inside was full of cables, which reduced the diameter of the hole from the size of a truck head to only half. It was pitch black inside, and the cold wind blew.

Due to the solid exam-oriented education, when I saw this cave, I could already imagine what it looks like inside. Using the term "sinkhole" may not be very suitable because this cave is not on the surface, but the principle is the same. It must have been eroded by water along vertical cracks. I don't know how deep it is, but if the depth exceeds a certain degree, after the surface water penetrates a certain distance underground, the sinkhole will develop along the inclination direction of the rock layer or joint.

"In the horizontal layers, the water cave descends step by step like a staircase. In the layers with numerous joints, it forms a twisted and looping shape. The water cave here is a cave within a cave, and the most likely result is to enter the capillary fissure and become groundwater. Of course, there may also be another geological structural fissure or a deeper underground river branch beneath it."

The engineer who just inspected here has not removed some safety locks and reinforcement devices, so we can smoothly go down to a certain depth. Wang Sichuan, who was excited just now, hesitated a bit when he saw the situation of the cave. As someone engaged in geological exploration, he still has the concept of safety. He knows that such a cave is quite dangerous because the current water level is very high and the converging water flow creates violent water splashes, making the visibility very poor.

"I asked Wang Sichuan what to do. Wang Sichuan said that he couldn't see anything by just looking at it, and he needed to go down and take a look at the situation. The deputy squad leader immediately offered to go, but Wang Sichuan stopped him and said that he was different from Pei Qing, and that he was specialized in geological exploration and crawling through caves, which made him more suitable for the job than them. So they stopped arguing."

At this moment, I also became hot-headed and said to Wang Sichuan, "Don't be so damn individualistic. The note was stuffed in my pocket, so I'm the right one to handle this."

Pushing back and forth like this, I hate this kind of thing the most actually, but revolution films were all shot like this at the time and we learned it too. However, the final decision was still mine because Wang Sichuan was too big and several soldiers pulling the rope above might not be able to hold him.

However, after making the decision, I looked at the deep hole and regretted a little. Being a pioneer is not really my strong suit, but at this point, I had to toughen up and go for it.

"We had brought equipment for exploring caves before, but we threw everything away when we were escaping from the flood. We only kept our guns at that time. Luckily, there were still some packages from our previous group here. We sorted out the equipment and I put on a headlamp. This is my least favorite equipment as it makes my forehead hot and affects my thinking."

Then I untied the rope, fastened a pulley buckle, climbed over the iron fence, and slid down the cables towards the waterfall. Due to the splashing water, I couldn't see the walls of the hole underneath the cables clearly.

"The space inside was very narrow when it was just opened. After I went down for a while, I heard the sound of clacking. When I shone my headlights down, I saw a shelf deep beneath my feet with a machine on it. At that time, I could only imagine it as a black shadow. Then the person above me slowly lowered me down, and I turned my head to avoid the splashing water. However, I quickly became a cold wet chicken."

"After arriving here, I don't know how many times I have become soaking wet. I am used to it. As the rain fell, I descended about eight meters and my headlights illuminated a rusty iron sign hanging on a cable, which read 'Station-0384-8 Line' with some unreadable Japanese characters behind it. I don't know what it means."

At this moment, my ears were filled with the sound of water. I heard voices from above, but couldn't make out what they were saying. I let them continue lowering me down. After the rope stopped a few times, they lowered me down a few more meters. Then I could clearly see the machine. It was evident that the engineers had been here before because there were many traces of lime peeling.

"This is definitely a generator from Taiwan, mounted on an iron frame that spans the hole like a barrier, blocking the entrance to the sinkhole. Through the gaps between the iron bars, one can see the darkness below, with no indication of how deep it is. Hanging on the iron frame is a rusty sign that reads: No Entry."

"I descended little by little until I finally landed on the iron framework. The framework emitted an unsettling groan and slid downwards a bit, but fortunately stopped immediately. I stepped on a sign that read 'No Entry' and it instantly crumbled into pieces, the previously rusted advertisement board falling through the gaps."

"I was sweating a bit, and then I stomped down with force. The whole shelf let out a groan, but the sound made it clear that the shelf was strong enough. Finally, I felt relieved and put my entire body weight down."

The generator was covered with a layer of chalky substance, which had already solidified. This was a hydroelectric generator, and the blades were also covered with the chalky substance, but they still managed to turn slowly with the flow of water. I didn't know much about this machine, so I carefully walked around it. Behind the machine, I saw that one of the iron bars was broken, leaving a gap big enough for a person to pass through.

"I crouched down and shone the flashlight downwards. As expected, about a dozen meters below, the descent of the cave was no longer straight but had a stepped slope that continued downwards."

"I thought it was great as it made things a lot easier. Even if I fell, it wouldn't be too serious. So, I pulled the rope, allowing the person above to come down a bit. Then, I crouched at the gap and carefully looked down."

"As I crouched near the iron shelf, I smelled a strong odor, like the smell of some chemical. I covered my nose and looked closer, only to see a layer of wire mesh wrapping underneath the shelf. There was now an opening torn in the wire mesh, suggesting that something had passed through from here. However, the gap was too small for Wang Sichuan to fit through."

"I shouted above several times and asked them to throw down the pliers. Quickly, a pair of steel wire pliers slid down the rope. I reached down and cut the wire mesh one by one."

"This angle makes it really difficult to do this task. After a few minutes, my back started to cramp up. It was a struggle to cut through it and have to use my hands to pull each one out. Finally, I felt like I was done and cautiously lowered myself down to check with my headlight if there was still any chance of injury."

The iron wire mesh under the iron frame can only be described as dense. In the darkness, I turned my head and saw a large clump of hair deep inside the wire mesh.