"I was stunned for a long time and it took me a while to react. Others were the same. Wang Sichuan asked again: 'You said you came in before?'"
The old cat took out a cigarette and lit it, nodding.
"We are all in chaos, several people's faces turned pale and we looked at each other in silence."
"My mind is still in Chaos, but as soon as I thought about it, I suddenly wanted to laugh. I realized that this thing is actually quite reasonable and there have been signs of it for a long time."
Firstly, the old cat knew about the hole long before we came down; he knew that the Colonel's men had discovered it. At first, I thought it was just his familiarity with the organization's methods, but now I see that he must have already gone inside and known about the situation.
Secondly, he was able to appear in a timely manner when the underground river rose, and he knew that the passage continued at the top of the underground river. At first, I thought it was because of his experience, but then I realized that it was because he had gone in before.
"I don't know if it's just our innocence or what, but we simply didn't think of this."
After a moment of silence, Pei Qing was the first to react and asked coldly: "Fine, Mao Wuyue, I knew you had some troubles but I didn't expect it to be this deep. What is going on? If you don't explain it clearly, don't blame us for not showing class friendship."
"The old cat remained calm and composed. Shaking its head, it said to us, 'As I mentioned earlier, I can only share up to this point. Those in charge have their own considerations. Moreover, me not saying anything is for your own good.'"
"Dang it, what kind of leader are you pretending to be, grandma!" Wang Sichuan was a hot-headed person, and immediately got angry. He jumped up and was about to go and hit Lao Mao. As he got close, Lao Tang quickly ran over and twisted Wang Sichuan's body into a twist. Lao Tang was skilled in martial arts and his movements were swift. Even though Wang Sichuan was a big guy, he was quickly subdued. However, Wang Sichuan was not easy to deal with. He immediately turned over and used a wrestling move to throw Lao Tang to the ground, and the two of them started struggling with each other.
"I never intended to escalate things. When Pei Qing rushed over, I was startled, thinking that there might be a brawl. But he was actually there to intervene and separated the two. Old Tang then pointed at Wang Sichuan and cursed, 'Are you even a soldier? What qualifies you to act like a knowledgeable intellectual? The Old Cat has discipline, but who do you think you are? Are we supposed to listen to you or the battalion?'"
"This statement may not seem strong, but in fact, Old Tang has already implied two points: first, it's not that we can't say, but that we shouldn't say anything, and second, the order came from the headquarters. This is hinting that we should not ask any further questions."
"The engineering corps headquarters have all moved out. I knew that Lao Mao wouldn't say anything even if he was beaten to death. Wang Sichuan is the kind of person who dares to fight even with the political commissar when his blood is up. I was afraid that he would say something absurd and falsely accuse someone of being a counter-revolutionary, which would be bad. I hurriedly stopped him and asked him not to say any more. Both sides remained silent for a moment. Ma and Hai were on the side, sensing the atmosphere was not right. They changed the subject and said, 'Leaders, let's not worry about this. Something is not right. If Mao Gong was the only survivor, then there should only be one person in this hole. Could it be the person who wanted to kill Wu Gong just now?'"
No one else knew about this, and even Old Cat was surprised when I told him someone wanted to kill me. He asked, "What murder?" So I told them about the incident where I almost got buried alive in an ice pit just now.
After hearing it, Lao Mao frowned and Lao Tang asked if they should send someone to search for it. Lao Mao immediately waved his hand and said, "No need to send anyone, something's not right here!"
"I asked why it was not right, and Lao Mao replied that according to the information he received earlier, this secret exploration team before us consisted of nine people, including three women. Based on the discovered bodies, we have already found seven people, and Lao Mao himself was also one of the exploration team. Therefore, there is still one person not found, and this person, after gender screening, should be a woman."
According to my description just now, the person who attacked me wearing Japanese military uniform was clearly a strong man.
"Wang Sichuan asked me if I could see clearly whether the attacker was male or female when I was being assaulted."
"I recalled and confidently stated that it must have been a man. Growing up, in our village, everyone would get into fights, and I could always tell whether they were with men or women."
"That is indeed not right. If the person who hit me was a man, and the exploration team did not find a woman, it means that the person who hit me is not a member of the exploration team. So, who is this man? How could there be an extra man?"
"Are there really Japanese people in this base?"
Everyone discussed it, but no other possibilities came to mind. Later, Pei Qing shook his head and ominously said to us: "Could it be Chen Luohu? He's the only one missing."
"Wang Sichuan shook his head and said it's impossible. How could Chen Luohu have the guts to hit someone."
Pei Qing said, "Never judge a person by their appearance. Someone who seems unremarkable may actually be more deceitful. I think he's being overly cautious, almost to the point of cowardice."
"I feel completely confused now. Lao Tang waved his hand and once again suppressed their voices, saying that both the deputy team leader and I were injured, they were also tired from the journey here and needed rest. These things should not be thought about for the time being. Let's rest first. He will arrange for his men to search the area a little bit, and then, when our energy has recovered, we can discuss what to do next."
"I am indeed quite tired. When Lao Tang spoke, we all became quiet. He was right. We wouldn't have gained anything from thinking about it again at that time. So we split up and the atmosphere suddenly loosened."
"They had already boiled water and cooked compressed vegetable paste. Several engineers served me a bowl. Seeing that I was cold, Lao Tang added the chili sauce he brought, causing me to break out in sweat while eating."
However, I still felt sleepy. As I was eating, my eyelids began to droop, and I almost fell asleep.
Someone once told me that soldiers can sleep on horseback during war, but I have traveled to various exploration teams on foot or mounted on a variety of animals except for dogs, yet I have never fallen asleep. Therefore, I have never believed this saying. But now, I do believe it. I am extremely sleepy and feel like nothing else matters. Even if someone wants to kill me, just let them. All I want to do now is sleep.
However, I still couldn't fall asleep because I saw the old cats had spread out many papers by the bonfire and were about to start examining something.
"I knew that must be the schematic diagram of this place, so I resisted the sleepiness, got up and went over to ask Old Cat for a copy. Old Tang told me to rest, but I declined, wanting to see what exactly this underground base was about. Old Cat then handed me a copy of the diagram."
"The structural diagram has been around for a while, and it feels soft in my hand. I lay it on the ground to have a closer look. At this time, Wang Sichuan also came over, he was interested in it too, and he looked energetic. Damn it, the physical strength of the nomads is better than us who eat rice. I concentrated hard and saw that the old cat gave me a plan view of the entire underground river system. I immediately found the location of our dam and the mark of the "0-Underground River"."
The level of detail in the Japanese map is astounding. On this flat map, the size and location of the underground river's tributaries are clearly indicated. We entered the underground cave through a designated entrance marked on the map. We also saw four other surface entrances, all located along different tributaries.
The entire dark river system is quite vast, and the knowledge in textbooks is of little use here. At this point, we need to use our subjective judgement. We gradually gathered together and surrounded the pictures, studying them together.
There are a total of seven tributaries in the underground river, of which numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6 are all developed from number 2 river. We entered through a surface cave and arrived at number 2 river. As shown in the diagram, all four small tributaries on number 2 river eventually seep into crevices and do not fully develop into mature underground rivers, nor do they end with a reservoir. Apart from the Japanese communication center at the end of number 6 river, there are no Japanese facilities at the ends of the other three tributaries.
This is an independent system, like a big tree with four branches. Number 2-Chuan is the trunk, and numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6 are the four branches.
"Two other underground rivers form another independent system. The No.1 and No.7 rivers converge in the upper reaches and become the No.0 river where the dam is located."
Interestingly, these underground rivers are not completely independent from each other, and among the various tributaries, numerous developing cave systems can be observed, which the Japanese have clearly marked. Through these complex maze-like cave systems, the Japanese can easily move back and forth between these tributaries.
In addition, there are several temporary power generator units labeled similarly to a small hydroelectric power station, with a few symbols on them that we cannot recognize, and we do not know what those facilities are.
As I looked on, a question occurred to me. I asked the old cat what their current plan was. Instead of retreating, they were advancing towards this place with the help of these structural diagrams. What was their purpose? Could it be that they were trying to save the last woman?
"The old cat shook its head and pointed to a spot on the structure chart, saying: "It's this one.""
I followed his finger and saw that it was pointing to the edge of the dam's marker. At first, I thought he was pointing at the "Mountain" bomber plane, but then I realized he was actually pointing to the huge underground cavity on the other side of the dam.
"I couldn't quite understand it. The shock of seeing the boundless darkness with my own eyes made my scalp numb, yet on this structural diagram, it is only blank space. Why is Old Cat interested in this blank space?"
"I raised my problem, but Lao Mao smoked and remained silent. Lao Tang on the side then spoke up, pointing to a long broken dashed line on the structural diagram and gestured lightly. He then whispered, 'It's not strange that you don't understand since you're not an engineer. But first, look at this line and I'll explain it to you.'"
"I nodded, and he continued: 'Japanese signs are different from ours, but we can guess what kind of wire it is by the frequency of the lines appearing on the drawing. Look, solid lines represent power cables, which are the most common on the drawing, almost everywhere like vines. These lines all come from the power station, so they are easy to recognize. And you see these dotted lines, the end of these lines have the symbol of a phone, and there are also many of them, indicating that these are telephone lines. As for this long broken dashed line, I looked at it very sharply because there is only one section of this line on the entire map. I cannot understand it, so I wondered what kind of line it is.'"
Then he moved his hand along this dotted line and finally pointed to a place, saying, "Later on, I looked at both ends of this dotted line and understood the whole story. Do you see where this is?"
I followed his finger and saw that the end of the dotted line was actually the Dispatch Office at the end of Block 6. I looked surprised and Wang Sichuan beside me exclaimed, "The Dispatch Office? What does this line mean?"
"Yes, this line represents the transmitting and receiving antenna of the broadcasting machine in the broadcasting room. We have always thought that this antenna is connected to the ground and used to contact other fortresses, but after carefully examining the drawings, I found that this is not the case. The other end of this antenna is not on the ground, but here!" He pointed to the outer edge of the dam, where the other end of the antenna terminated and became a large "X" symbol, indicating a large antenna.
"I suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, my whole scalp went numb!"
"Damn it! In an instant, I understood what Old Tang meant:"
"The antenna of the transmitter is positioned on the dam, facing the empty space."
They received the encrypted code of Japanese specifications from the transmitter in 1942.
"The signal could not have come from the earth's surface."
So, where did the signal they received come from? I looked at the antenna identification marked with "*", and knew there was only one answer.
"The signal comes from somewhere in the endless abyss."
"Twenty years ago, the Japanese had already descended and sent back information."