Well of Mystery

Last night, Feifen's sister Jiajia sent a topographic map of Fuxi Mountain via her mobile phone. By matching it with the old map without annotations, you can roughly see the location of some marks on the old map.

But there are still some fly in the ointment places.

"This mountain is really special. Jiajia said that she can't spy on the internal structure of the mountain, and for an earthworm spirit, it's like GPS hitting a military restricted zone."

Speaking of which, Jiang Chenglu pointed at their feet: "Fuxi Mountain should be regarded as a private domain. Something unusual must have lived here before."

"It's a spirit, not a thing." Bai Xiuqi corrected him in turn.

The two walked up the mountain while talking.On both sides of the bluestone path, the woods cover the sky and the sun, and the fallen leaves on the ground are thick, exuding a faint earth fragrance.When I reached about twenty or thirty steps, there was actually a tombstone inlaid in the bluestone steps, and the inscription on the inscription was a tomb from the late Qing Dynasty.In other words, the construction of this uphill road will not be earlier than this time.

"Look, there are still people here."

Bai Xiuqi, who is very sensitive to color, found a light blue mineral water bottle in the grass by the roadside.He picked it up to check the date of manufacture, it said February two years ago.

"It is possible that the nearby villagers went up the mountain to dig shallots and Malantou in spring."

Jiang Chenglu made a guess, and pointed to a clump of weeds on the side of the road: "Here, this is it. It looks smaller than other onions, but after pulling it up, there is a green onion on the white of the onion. Small balls like pearls, scrambled eggs are the best, but it’s a pity that it’s too old to pull it out.”

As he spoke, he smacked his lips.

"You seem to be quite familiar with this place." Bai Xiuqi teased him.

"I haven't been here, it's just a guess."

The traces of modern human activities have been accompanied by them climbing up the stairs.About the time of climbing the hundredth step.Jiang Chenglu stopped suddenly, and turned to look at Bai Xiuqi who was out of breath.

"From that old map, there is a marked point near here."

talking.He looked at the phone again, pointing out a direction more clearly: "to the right."

The right side is not the winding direction of the bluestone steps.This means that they must enter the wilderness to start a formal expedition.Although Bai Xiuqi deliberately wore long-sleeved trousers, which were tucked into the trouser legs and cuffs, he still had lingering fears about the snakes lurking in the grass.

"don’t worry."

Jiangcheng Road volunteered to walk in front, picked up a dead branch and tapped it twice on the side of the tree. There was a slight rustling sound from the nearby grass in the distance, and calmness soon returned.

"Okay, the snakes and insects have retreated automatically. You can come here boldly now."

It turns out.Jiang Chenglu's trick of knocking the mountain and shaking the tiger is really quite good. On the way, Bai Xiuqi saw two snake sloughs far away in the grass, but the real live snake didn't even see a tail.

They walked more than 20 meters in the knee-deep weeds and bushes, only to feel that the road ahead was getting more and more desolate.Jiang Chenglu had to temporarily correct the waterway once.It was soon discovered that there was only a rammed-earth sidewalk in the first ten or so steps of this grassland, with only scattered red clover growing here and there. It seemed that people were still walking on it after all these years.

The rammed-earth path was already muddy due to continuous days of rain.The two walked forward step by step, and soon made an important discovery.

"It's here!" Bai Xiu

Qiyao pointed to a sharp corner protruding from the woods in the distance: "I saw a gazebo."

A gazebo is indeed a gazebo.But it wasn't a pavilion in the general sense - when they got closer, they found that there was only half of the pavilion, and there was a dark hole behind it, as if it had grown out of the stone against the gable.

In front of the pavilion is a large flat open space with no trees and few weeds, and the ground is covered with rough blue-black gravel.Obviously it was artificially leveled.

In the middle of the open space stood a blackened incense candle holder, the incense ash inside was also soaked in water, and several plastic water bottles were left on the ground.It seems that the people who worshiped and burned incense were the same group of people who went up the mountain to dig shallots.

"They seem to be worshiping the cave in the pavilion." Bai Xiuqi compared the relative positions of the incense burner and the gazebo, and then concluded: "The mark on the map must be this cave."

"Go, have a look." Jiang Chenglu patted him on the back.

Bai Xiuqi's guess was correct, there were also joss sticks and two futons for worship in that half of the gazebo.Looking at the ground at the entrance of the cave, there are actually a Guanyin Bodhisattva and a Zhao Gongming God of Wealth riding a leopard.

"Recklessly."

Jiang Chenglu smiled, walked around these things and walked into the cave.

The cave was very dark, and Bai Xiuqi, who followed him in, couldn't see anything. Fortunately, he had a flashlight with him, and he turned it on with a snap.

The cave is not big, but it is damp and cold, and there are scattered rocks here and there.The dim light hit the wet cave wall, shining like stars.

"Long-hong-dong..."

He saw three large seal characters engraved on the right side of the cave wall, painted with red lacquer, which should be the name of the cave.

"Be careful, there is a cliff ahead."

Hearing Jiang Chenglu's reminder, Bai Xiuqi realized that the cave was still a duplex structure - after five or six steps into the cave, the rocks under his feet stopped abruptly.Looking carefully, there is an iron ladder about two meters long fixed on the edge of the rock, leading to the lower floor.

"There's water down there."

Jiang Chenglu walked down the ladder to the bottom of the cave while talking, and reached out to pick up Bai Xiuqi.

After regaining his footing at the bottom of the cave, Bai Xiuqi felt the sound of water under his feet, and looked down to see that he was indeed standing in the stagnant water.He was still thinking about walking forward, but Jiang Chenglu suddenly stopped him.

"Watch out."

Jiang Chenglu took the flashlight in his hand and shook it forward.

The bright yellow light spot illuminated a large expanse of clear water, and a few transparent small fish could be vaguely seen swimming in the water.The water quality is obviously very good, but the darkness below the water surface told Bai Xiuqi: there is a deep pool hidden here, and the consequences of falling into it would be disastrous.

However, what Jiang Chenglu wanted to show him was not just this deep pool.

The light of the flashlight continued to slide through the water and hit the wall of the cave in a short while.There is a huge protrusion on the wall rock.When he saw clearly what it was, Bai Xiuqi yelled "Ah", almost holding back his breath.

Deep in the dark cave.A huge and weird snake head appeared!It stared at Bai Xiuqi silently on the rock five or six meters away, but it seemed that it would swoop towards them at any moment.

"Don't be nervous, don't be nervous."

Jiang Chenglu quickly patted Bai Xiuqi on the back and hugged him into his arms: "That's just a sculpture. Someone else made it there."

At this time, Bai Xiuqi finally regained his composure. He looked at the strange snake's head again with his beating heart, and found that it was actually a dragon's head.It's just that because the technology is not good enough, another horn has been lost, so it looks more like a boa constrictor.

In the dragon sculpture, only the head floats on the rock wall, but the body is integrated with the rock.If you look closely, there is still water flowing out of the dragon's mouth and falling into the deep pool ahead.

"Look. Here's the lettering."

While comforting Bai Xiuqi, Jiang Chenglu made a new discovery.

It was a piece of small italic characters carved on the rock wall. After preliminary identification, it was determined that the content was about the origin of the dragon head in Longhong Cave and the half of the pavilion outside the cave.

It turns out that Longhong Cave has existed since ancient times.But the scale of the old cave is much larger than the new cave seen today.

As Jiang Chenglu once mentioned, there used to be a river in front of Fuxi Mountain, and there was a river god in the river, who was a close relative of the Dragon King of the East China Sea.Laolonghong Cave is the place to worship the water god.There is a clear spring in the cave, cold and hot, sweet and sweet.Many nearby villagers will come here to carry water, and at the same time, a statue of Jiangshen is placed in the cave, and incense is prayed to it.Pray for the god of water to bless the weather and the prosperity of farming and fishing.

In the blink of an eye, it was the war years of the last century, and the artillery fire of the Anti-Japanese War was also raging over this originally peaceful and peaceful city in the south of the Yangtze River.During a Japanese air raid, the Taoist temples at Longhong Cave and Fuxi Mountain were bombed and destroyed.The front hole of Longhong Cave collapsed, reducing the size of the cave by half.

"... No wonder there are so many broken rocks in this cave, and some places are still supported by things." Bai Xiuqi scanned the cave with a flashlight, and indeed there are many places where traces of man-made damage can be seen .

Jiang Chenglu continued to read the writing on the rock wall.

After the war, the surviving villagers found that although Longhong Cave was destroyed, the water source was not exhausted.So in the era when running water was not yet popular, they still chose to come here to fetch water, and cleaned up and repaired the new Longhong Cave bit by bit.The broken faucet was relocated deep in the cave and became an outlet for the infiltration of mountain springs.

This is the story of this cave.

After reading this passage, for a long time, Jiang Chenglu and Bai Xiuqi each chewed the bitterness in their mouths without making a sound.

After a long time, it was Bai Xiuqi who came up with something serious: "Since Longhong Cave is marked on that old map, there must be something mysterious about it. How do we find it?"

"I don't think I can find it."

Jiang Chenglu shook his head: "You saw it too. It says that the Japanese air raid caused the Longhong Cave to collapse. And the map was hidden in the elevator of Xuanjing Apartment along with the strange corpse before the Japanese army entered the city. I seriously I suspect that what we are looking for has been buried by the rocks in front of us."

"Aren't you very strong? Can you move the stone away?"

"Give me some common sense, young master, what if the cave collapses when you move away? I don't care, but you have to go directly to the underworld to report."

"..."

The result of the final discussion was that there was no result. There was really nothing to study in the small Xinlonghong Cave.But Jiang Chenglu kept his eyes open. He said he wanted to see where the water in the cave was connected to, so he asked Bai Xiuqi to wait for a while, and took out a handful of white powder from the Hutian warehouse and sprinkled it into the hole. in the water.

I saw that the clear and transparent pool water was instantly turbid like milk, emitting a faint white fluorescence.And the strangest thing is that this color also develops upwards against the water flow, spreading into the mouth of the faucet.

After confirming that this dye will not have any impact on organisms and the environment, and will disappear within a few hours after exposure to light, Bai Xiuqi followed Jiangcheng Road to the iron ladder and returned along the original road, and then followed the muddy path back to the place just now. on the bluestone path.

"There seems to be something wrong..."

The further you go up, the less and less domestic garbage left by human beings, and soon it will be invisible at all.On the contrary, "garbage" in another sense has increased significantly——

The damp bluestone road is covered with a thick layer of confetti.

Some of them are dark red, large and small.The other part is white and light yellow, and of course a lot of it has been defaced and turned into a pool of mud.

"Firecrackers?" Bai Xiuqi kicked a red paper shell, which turned out to be wrapped in a layer of straw paper, soaked in water and rotted like excrement.

"Paper money?" Jiang Chenglu flattened the white paper with a branch, and found that the outer circle and the inner square were in the shape of a copper coin.

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