Before dawn, the rain became particularly violent. The wind howled in the streets, almost uprooting the street trees.
The storm and heavy rain without any forecast reached the intensity of a typhoon in just half an hour. A large amount of rainwater accumulated on the streets, even reaching more than 20 centimeters in low-lying areas.
In such wind and rain, Zhou Yu ran hard.
Faced with the rain conditions like breaking the banks of the Tianhe River and the crushing wind, the rain gear had completely lost its meaning. He no longer knew where to discard the umbrella, and just ran towards his destination soaked to the skin. It was a bitingly cold spring night, but he felt unbearably hot all over his body, as if a fire was burning in his chest. The blood has turned into iron juice, flowing raging everywhere in the body. No matter how cold the rain outside is, it can't cool down the heat.
While thinking in confusion, he accidentally thought of Sang Lian. The scale of the heavy rain is enough to cause a temporary suspension of subway services. Will the people living in hibernation deep underground also be affected by this heavy rain? The subway tunnel, which became extremely fragile after being exposed to red light, is adjacent to a sewage river with a drainage channel. Once the river water surges, will the tunnel really be safe?
These thoughts flew through his mind quickly, and then disappeared without leaving a trace.
Mulberry. Red leaves. The underground crowd. Zhang Mumu’s curse. At this moment, these are no longer important.
He ran endlessly towards his destination. There is no need to wait until daytime. If it rains this level, buses will be suspended anyway.
The door of the factory gradually appeared in front of him. After running closer, he roughly knocked open the entire door frame and broke into the factory. Due to the hole in the ceiling, the floor of the factory was completely soaked at this moment, and the collected rainwater gurgled toward the deep hole in the center.
Stepping through the shallow stream of rain, he turned on the flashlight and walked to the wall, scraping off the green marks on it with his hands.
How do these dazzlingly bright green mosses grow inside the warehouse that never sees the light of day? He had never considered this question before. But it's not wrong. The soft and muddy texture, the emerald green color, and the diary fragments sent by the crow are indeed stained with the same moss. Zhou Yu had only seen the same plant in this factory warehouse.
It was clear that the entire space was no different from the last time he came, except for the rain. He quickly focused on the deep hole in the center.
Zhou Yu took off his backpack and took out the rope hook inside. The tools were not readily available at home. He tore three sheets and sheets and twisted them into hooks using a clothes drying rack. He walked to the edge of the deep hole and inserted the hook at the end. After the entire rope was used up, not only did it not hook anything, it didn't even touch the bottom of the deep hole.
After lifting the rope hook and removing it, he tied the flashlight on it this time.
The flashlight's beam swayed deep in the cave and turned into a small light spot. From the distance back and forth between hitting the wall, it is estimated that the depth of the cave is quite narrow, enough for a person to climb up and down with the help of the cave wall.
He decided to climb down to see what was going on.
There was no place on the ground around the cave that could be used as a support point, so he used a hammer to drive several iron nails deeply into the soil at the edge of the cave entrance. The soil was mixed with rocks and roots, and should have been relatively solid. However, under the erosion of rain, the surface layer had turned into soft and slippery silt, and its reliability could not be guaranteed.
Zhou Yu tried pushing and pulling on the nails a few times. When there was no obvious shaking, he stopped considering safety and wrapped the rope around several long nails.
He tied the flashlight in front of his neck, held the rope, and slowly pushed down. When we reached the end of the rope, the hole was still bottomless. Looking up, the dark entrance is almost the same color as the inside of the cave, making it impossible to tell how far away it is from the ground. Only the cold water flowing from the cave wall proved that there was an exit above.
This situation of being unable to see the sky and unable to reach the ground is simply like being buried alive in the abyss.
He bit the flashlight, then supported the cave wall with his back and feet, and slowly released his palms.
The cave wall soaked by running water was horribly slippery. In the first ten seconds, he couldn't control his body from sliding down. Fortunately, there are a lot of gravels mixed in the soil layer. Although the rough surface hurts the skin, it provides a more reliable support surface.
Enduring the pain in his arms and back, he moved downwards little by little.
After an unknown amount of time, his feet touched the cold water.
The bottom of the cave is filled with rainwater falling from above, like a deep well with a fishy smell. Zhou Yu tried to sink his body under the water. Fortunately, because the rainstorm lasted only a short time, the water in the cave only reached his waist.
At some point, the burning feeling in his chest gradually dissipated. My soaked body was frozen to the point of freezing, and my back and hands were in severe pain. He began to shake uncontrollably. It's not fear or pain, it's the body's instinctive reaction when it loses its temperature rapidly.
But there can be no further delay.
If this heavy rain continues, it is unknown how deep the water will accumulate, and it would not be surprising if the entire cave is flooded. He didn't have the patience to wait until all the water drained out, and had to solve everything before the rain stopped.
He bent down and groped in the mud at the bottom of the water.
What exactly are you hoping to find? He doesn't know it himself. The crow has delivered the incomplete part of Zhou Yu's diary. Even if it was dug out of this hole, it doesn't mean there is anything else in the hole.
The flashlight is just an ordinary civilian product bought from the supermarket. It is made of cheap plastic. It has no strong penetrating beam and cannot prevent water from entering the barrel. In order to avoid losing the only source of light, he did not dare to put his flashlight into the water, so he could only use his hands to explore the bottom of the water. The mud at the bottom of the cave is very soft, and you can tell if there are foreign objects in it by squeezing it a little.
If there really is some kind of secret hidden in the fragmentary pages of the diary, the mystery should be the contents of the paper, not the cave.
...So at this moment, with some deep fear and despair, he was desperately searching for something in the muddy water. What could be the secret that would be left behind in this desperate place?
His fingers touched a hard bar. The surface is slightly rough, with raised knots at both ends, and the middle part is slightly thinner.
The turbid muddy water blocked his vision, and his fingers were so frozen that he almost lost consciousness. He couldn't even identify what it was. After standing blankly for a long time, he pulled his arm out of the muddy water.
It was a simple flute with a very primitive shape, without any inlays, silk bindings or horn decorations. Because it had been buried in the soil for a long time, the flute body turned into a brown-black mud color. If it weren't for the protruding bamboo joints, Zhou Yu wouldn't have recognized it as a bamboo product.
He held the flute in his hand, leaning against the wall of the cave as if out of strength, and slowly slid down. The water was up to his neck, and he didn't bother to struggle.
Is this the answer? He couldn't be sure yet. But what can be understood is that this is not what he originally believed he could find, hoped to find, but was also afraid of finding.
He sat in a daze for a while. It was only such a short period of time in trance, and the rain had almost reached his lips. With a mixture of relief and fear, he tied the flute around his neck and began to climb up little by little.
The process of returning was more difficult than coming down. The constantly sliding mud and rain made it difficult for him to tell whether he was rising or falling. It felt like more than an hour had passed before he finally returned to the height of the end of the rope. After holding the rope with his muddy hands, he finally breathed a sigh of relief and continued climbing. But just after climbing less than two meters, there was an unsettling loose feeling from the other end of the rope.
Snap.
Before he could react, an iron nail fell from above his head, almost touching his face.
Zhou Yu immediately used his left arm to protect his head. He had realized the danger of the situation and wanted to cling to the cave walls on both sides with his hands and feet. However, at this moment, he was already in the upper part of the cave, which was a hopelessly spacious position. It is impossible to climb directly onto such a mud wall, so one can only climb back to the ground in one go before the situation worsens. The nail that just fell should be closest to the hole, so the remaining support points are still not damaged by the rain.
Just keep going up. As long as you act decisively enough, you have a high chance of reaching the hole before all the nails fall off...
At the moment when Zhou Yu was thinking like this, the originally solid rope in his hand suddenly came loose from the top of the cave without any warning.
With the sudden feeling of weightlessness, he fell to the bottom of the cave.
