"The slogan written, I don't recognize. It might be related to safety production or something, but I didn't pay much attention at that time. What surprised me was that the warehouse was already at the end. It doesn't seem to have reached the extent I imagined."
"More importantly, if the warehouse ends here, where did Old Cat and his team go? There is no place left to continue the search. A warehouse this size is not enough to search for ten hours and not come back."
The concrete wall was quite long and there were no supplies piled up against it. We walked along the wall until we reached the end, but we still found nothing and there were no traces. It was as if these people had disappeared into thin air.
"The horse was feeling a little uneasy in the sea, but Wang Sichuan didn't believe it. He went back again and said it was impossible. People are alive, they can't just disappear like magic."
"I know there must be something fishy going on here. At this point, my eyes caught sight of the goods covered by canvas, and I wondered whether there might be any other exits underneath those coverings?"
"So we went back the way we came, paying attention to see if there were any signs of tampering with the goods along the side. Sure enough, we found that all of the fixed nets beside the wall had been opened, and the rivets holding them in place were loose. Obviously, someone had been searching just like we were. We started to examine each piece one by one, when suddenly Ma Hai called out. There was an iron door on the concrete floor beneath a tarpaulin, similar to the one we had seen in the cave but much smaller. It wasn't welded shut, and there was a faded strange symbol on top of it."
Wang Sichuan attempted to open the door but was blocked by Ma Zaihai. He told us, "Wang Gong, Wu Gong, let me handle this. The sign indicates high voltage danger. There may be cables below and the lines may run there." He told us to step back and wrapped his hands in the nearby tarpaulin. With great effort, he flipped the iron door over.
The iron gate is half a meter thick, and he couldn't handle it halfway up. The two of us immediately went up to help, and we managed to push the iron gate back into place without it falling off. We gave up on the other half. When we shone a flashlight inside, we found that what Hai had said was true. There were cables as thick as bowl mouths below, and the temperature was extremely low. The cables were all wrapped in ice, and you could see that the ice on one side of the wire ladder had already been smashed by someone.
"Are they really gone?" the horse asked on the sea path.
"I asked him, 'Where does this place lead to?'"
He said, "Cable trenches are used to lay cables in all places where electricity is needed for easy maintenance. They are generally used in fixed construction work, while temporary work is hung on the ducts, and a single hand grenade can cut off all power. However, this place is different. Obviously, this duct has a hidden demand. When the Japanese built the dam, they obviously anticipated using it for more than twenty years."
"I nodded. The Japanese did not expect the Soviets to be so strong, nor did they expect the atomic bomb. If these two things did not exist, they could have resisted for at least another ten years."
"So it's correct for Old Cat and the others to go down from here. Wang Sichuan called a few times inside, but only heard the echo. Suddenly, I understood: "Could they have lost their way in these cableways?"
"The horse said it's hard to say whether it's good or not to go inside the sea, but generally it's not too complicated and the markings are clear. Wang Sichuan climbed down and said that he would know after taking a look."
"We continued down one by one, knocking off ice from the walls with a geological hammer to mark our path and groping towards a direction to avoid getting lost. It was extremely difficult to move forward as there were electrical cables all over the ground and it was very slippery. What's worse was the incredibly low temperature and gusts of wind."
"Obviously, this place is connected to the ice cellar over there, and there is a ventilation fan sending cold air here."
"We wrapped our coats tightly but still shivered uncontrollably. The wind seemed to sneak into every crevice of my collar. Wang Sichuan asked, "What is that ice cellar used for? It seems to be a cooling device with this air suction-like passage." Ma Zaihai replied that it might be possible, but as a mere soldier, he didn't understand these technical matters. He only knew how to dismantle and build things."
"Wang Sichuan muttered to himself: 'What kind of thing can use such a cool cooling device?' Just then, we suddenly heard a muffled bang behind us, as if the iron door coming down had been closed. Wang Sichuan and I looked at each other and thought it was bad, so we ran back frantically, crawling and rolling, and returned to the place where we came down, only to find that the iron door was indeed closed. Wang Sichuan climbed up and pushed hard, but the iron door wouldn't budge. He looked at me with a look of horror and anger, and immediately cursed."
"I was almost stunned, and immediately understood what was going on - someone had closed the door from outside, and locked it."
"Enemy spy! There really is an enemy spy, we have been betrayed!"
"I suddenly wanted to slap myself. How dare I be so careless. I didn't even consider why the iron door was covered by the tent. Obviously, someone didn't want us to discover it."
"Sometimes people make mistakes. I have always thought of myself as a smart person, but that day I don't know what happened. Maybe it was because I noticed the iron door and didn't think about some other things. It seems like I had too much on my mind."
The horse followed us into the sea, and Wang Sichuan grabbed his gun and tried shooting upwards. Immediately, Ma Zaihai and I wrestled the gun back from him. The iron door was half a meter thick, probably made of the same blast-resistant material as the door we saw in the cave earlier. Even grenades wouldn't work against it. Moreover, the door was covered in iron, so the bullets could ricochet back at us; at such a short distance, the three of us would definitely be in trouble.
"I pushed hard on the internet twice and shouted twice, and I knew that something had happened to Lao Mao and his team. They were also ambushed by someone. Since this place is explosion-proof, the sound insulation measures must be very good. We could shout ourselves hoarse here and nobody would hear us."
Wang Sichuan, not believing in superstitions, climbed the wire ladder and bumped it twice with his shoulder, almost twisting his waist. The door itself was too heavy, and this bumping method basically did not cause any damage to the door latch.
"Wang Sichuan climbed down and cursed in a series of Mongolian words. A gust of wind blew, making me shiver. The situation was worsening rapidly, and it seemed that I had to find a way out quickly, or I would freeze to death here. At this moment, I couldn't help but worry that Lao Mao and the others had been trapped for at least ten hours, and I didn't know if they had found a way out."
A gust of wind blew towards us, leaving me out of breath and my nose stuffed. The three of us knew we had no other choice, so we immediately headed towards the leeward side. Along the way, Wang Sichuan began calling out for Lao Mao and Lao Tang.
"I'll first think about what to call the place we're going. This should be called a cable channel. There are many of them in the city now, often filled with water. Communication cables all run underground, and at each hub there is a deep well with a cover that leads to the surface. We came down from one of those wells and then entered the channel."
At the beginning, there was no diversion hub, so we kept going forward and wondered if we should go against the wind to try and get out of the ice cellar. However, it was too much to handle and the temperature here was still tolerable compared to the ice cellar. If we got too close to the ice cellar, the temperature would drop and the wind force would increase, so it was certain that something bad would happen. No one would choose this route.
Avoiding the cold and seeking warmth is an instinct of the body that cannot be resisted. Looking back now, the people at that time were actually in good physical condition, and even people like me persevered in such a harsh environment.
After walking for about half an hour in the icy canal, we encountered the first pivot. Wang Sichuan climbed up and pushed the iron gate a few times, but it didn't budge as it was also locked.
Horse on the seaway: "In general, when we are afraid of war, this place can be used by the enemy, and all the holes are required to be locked."
"Wang Sichuan shouted, 'What should we do if it's all locked?'"
"I patted him and said, 'Don't worry, everything will work out in the end.'"
"When I said these words, I wasn't sure myself. We found a direction, marked a few signs, and continued forward. I prayed that whether it was the Buddha or the gods, they would bless the confused Japanese person who left a half-locked iron gate."
To make a long story short, the cable duct is not complicated, but it's extremely long. It seems that all the wiring for the entire dam runs through here. It takes us at least half an hour to locate each manhole. We've been walking for three hours and have only found four iron gates, each one tightly locked. The channel ahead is pitch black, and we don't know where it leads.
"Our eyebrows were frozen into one piece, there were ice flakes on our hair, and our hands and feet were numb. We realized that the situation was much worse than we thought. This is not a joke. If we squat here for another ten hours, we will all suffer from hypothermia. The iron rod in Wang Sichuan's hand was stuck to his hand, and when he tried to change hands, it tore off a layer of skin."
"The old cats are certainly in the same situation as us. I hope they have found their way out, otherwise it is likely that their fate is grim."
Here, there isn't much we can do. On one side there's a concrete wall, it's difficult to even make a dent, let alone make a hole. We can only keep moving forward.
After walking for a few more hours, we finally encountered a turning point. We noticed several circular holes about half a person's height on one side of a concrete wall. There were no cables leading into them.
"Ventilation opening." Ma said on the seaway. We looked inside and saw light shining at the end.