Atavism

Chapter 24

I took out a special climbing rope from my bag, tied one end around the stalactite in a knot, and threw the other end down.

"What, you don't want me to carry you anymore?" Liu Er asked, squatting to the side.

That sentence sounded really awful to me, so I snorted and ignored him. It's not that dangerous anymore; it's more comfortable to rely on myself.

After climbing down the rope for more than ten meters, I handed the flashlight to Liu Er and took out a handheld energy-saving lamp to turn on.

The space here is quite large, filled with towering, strangely shaped rocks and stalactite fragments broken off from the cave ceiling. These rocks, eroded over millions of years, have taken on countless shapes and forms, resembling a natural sculpture plaza, definitely possessing the potential for tourism development.

I was strolling around with a lantern, marveling at everything, when Liu Er gave me a shove.

"What are you looking at? Over there." Liu Er pointed with his hand.

There's a new opening in that direction.

I followed him there, bypassing a strange rock that looked exactly like a camel, but found another entrance in another direction.

“Let’s split up,” I said. “If we encounter too many dead ends or forks in the road, we can turn back and meet up again.”

"Okay." After Liu Er finished speaking, he walked towards the hole he had discovered. I called him back and took out another energy-saving light bulb from my bag and handed it to him.

"This is for your backup."

Without lights here, you can't see anything at all and can only feel your way along the stones. It's safer for the two of us to split up and each have a backup light source.

The side path I chose was extremely long, with many turns and twists, and in one place I even had to squeeze sideways to get through. Overall, it was downhill, but there was also a short uphill section that required using both hands and feet.

I walked for five minutes and still had no idea where it would end. I slowed down, wondering what kind of path Liu Er had chosen.

Just as I was thinking this, I felt a chill on the back of my neck, and then something poked my back.

I was startled. The cave was very quiet, except for the sound of dripping water and my own footsteps. What was that thing that silently appeared behind me?

He kicked backward, hitting the thing behind him with a thud, then lurched forward a few steps, creating some distance before turning around.

But then they saw Liu Er stroking his calves.

"You're going to scare me to death!" I yelled.

"Oh dear, how did you react so quickly? I didn't even manage to dodge it," Liu Er said with a pained expression.

"Stop pretending. Bullets only cause you superficial wounds, so what's this kick?" I immediately exposed him.

"Who said that? Anyone else would have broken a bone." Liu Er rubbed his back a few more times before straightening up.

"You scared me on purpose, didn't you? You turned off the flashlight and walked without making a sound." Liu Er was walking barefoot now, with thick fur padding, so he wouldn't make a sound if he was careful.

Liu Er chuckled and didn't refute.

"What are you laughing at? Get ahead and clear the way."

"What road are you talking about? Come with me."

"Hey, isn't that a dead end?" I asked him, puzzled.

"No, that's the right way, that's why I came here to find you."

How can you be so sure?

"The Three Rabbits Picture." Six Ears chuckled. "I saw the Three Rabbits Picture. I've been looking carefully all this way, but I haven't seen it here."

Back at the Great Stone Square, we retraced the path chosen by Liu Er. This path had several steep downhill sections and was narrower than the one I had just taken; in many places, we had to squeeze through sideways or bend over. After passing through two slightly wider sections, we finally reached the "Three Rabbits Picture" that Liu Er had mentioned. It seemed that Liu Er was moving much faster than me.

It was a picture of three rabbits carved on the left-hand cave wall in the direction we were heading. It was about the same size as the one on the stone in the Twin Saints Temple, and the carving was exactly the same. It was just the right size to fit a finger. After walking a little further, we saw another one on the right-hand stone wall.

After turning a corner, we came to another plaza of strange rocks, though it was a bit smaller than the first one. We had been walking for more than twenty minutes now. Although the terrain slowed our progress, the Water Curtain Cave was definitely a hidden gem.

As I passed a stalactite, I discovered a picture of three rabbits. Touching it, my doubts grew stronger. The three rabbit images I saw were distributed without any apparent pattern, and there were no other signs of human intervention. I couldn't fathom who would carve these images in such a hidden place, or for what purpose.

Even the totems of barbarians and the scribbles of wizards should follow certain rules.

"What are you thinking about?" Liu Er asked when he saw me staring blankly.

"I'm wondering why someone would draw a picture of three rabbits here, but I can't figure it out. These marks look like they were drawn casually by someone. But how could someone just casually draw something that would get into the stone?"

"That's not impossible."

"What?" I stared at him in surprise.

Liu Er gently touched the stalactites beside him, and only then did I realize how he had carried me into the cave; he truly could do it.

Sure enough, after the stone dust flew up, a new picture of three rabbits appeared.

"Does it look like it?" Six-eared molt.

After comparing them closely, I have to admit that the scratches on the two pictures are very similar.

"But could it be that there's another person with your abilities?"

"That's hard to say. There are countless extraordinary people hidden in this world, and it's best not to flaunt my abilities. Didn't you say that to me?"

I shook my head, still puzzled. But I couldn't figure it out no matter how much I thought about it, so I decided to keep going.

This smaller version of the strange rock plaza only has one other very conspicuous stone cave passage. After walking for less than two minutes, the cave becomes increasingly lower, and now even bending over, you can't move forward any further. To go any further, you have to climb.

I shone my flashlight forward and was taken aback.

The road ahead became increasingly lower, and even if one climbed, one would have to stop after only a short distance, where there was only a dark crevice, three or four fingers high, leading nowhere.

This doesn't seem to be what Yang Delin's wife said, that the earthquake blocked the passage. Could it be that the earthquake caused the entire mountain to collapse, flattening the passage so small that only frogs could climb it?

Liu Er shook his head and said, "Let's go back. We probably missed something along the way."

Back at Little Stone Square, they found the blocked passageway. They had both subconsciously overlooked it earlier because the other path was so obvious.

Stalactites and large rocks that collapsed from the cave ceiling blocked more than two-thirds of the cave entrance, leaving less than a meter of space at the top.

"I'll do it. You step back a bit, in case any loose rocks fall down," Liu Er said, and stepped forward.

"Be careful." I obediently waited to the side. I might not even be able to move the larger stones on the ground, so I could only rely on Six Ears. Apart from his ability to withstand blows and his ability to change shape and color, I had never seen how much his strength could increase.

Liu Er stood in front of the rubble for a while, then walked to the side and pushed a slightly protruding rock with all his might. The rock itself wasn't very big, probably weighing fifty or sixty pounds, but with so many rocks pressing down on it, it took at least a thousand pounds of force from his arms to move it.

Liu Er tried pushing it first, and the stone moved slightly. He looked up at the pile of rocks on top of it, squatted down, and placed his hands on the stone, one on top of the other.

"Hah!" he shouted, and the stone was pushed away. At the same time, he leaped backward, jumping four or five meters away.

Almost the instant the stone was pushed off the ground, the pile of rubble that had been there collapsed. Liu Er and I quickly retreated several steps. The booming sound and echoes were deafening, and the ground trembled slightly before it finally stopped.

If it were Liu Er before he lost his abilities, he could only move it little by little by brute force. But now, he can find the point that can disrupt the balance and succeed with just one push.

Although there are still stones piled up at the entrance of the cave, the space above is now large enough for us to easily climb over.

"What's that sound?" Liu Er suddenly asked.

I listened intently, but I couldn't hear anything.

"It's the sound of water. There's water ahead." Liu Er listened for a while and said, "Let's climb over first."

After climbing over the rocks and walking for a while, I also heard the sound of flowing water.

"It doesn't sound like a waterfall, it sounds more like a river," I said. "An underground river."

After walking for another five or six minutes, the view suddenly opened up before us. A nearly three-foot-wide underground river stretched out in front of us, its surface only a foot below the mouth of the stream. The white light from the energy-saving lamps illuminated the river, making it appear exceptionally clear and pristine.

"Look there," Liu Er pointed with his hand.

On the opposite bank of the ravine, to the right, was another image of three rabbits. And since entering from the blocked cave entrance, we've found five more images of three rabbits along the way, a significant increase in frequency. I don't know what this means, but one thing is certain: we're getting closer to somewhere.

"I wonder how deep this water is." I shone my flashlight close to the surface of the river, but I couldn't see the bottom.

"It won't be very shallow," Liu Er said, sticking his head out and shining his flashlight to the right.

"It seems there's another one ahead, about forty or fifty meters away," Jiu Er said.

"If only we had a boat."

"A boat?" Liu Er thought for a moment and then smiled.

I stared blankly as he took off his clothes and pants one by one.

"Are you going to swim there?"

“No, I want to build a boat,” said Liu Er.

"Make a boat?" I suddenly understood. "You can turn yourself into a boat?"

With its feet together and backs facing the river, Liu Er fell backward like a diver standing on a ten-meter springboard.

It splashed up a lot of water as soon as it hit the river.

He lay on his back in the water with his hands and feet together, and the hair on the sides of his head, hands, and the outer edges of his legs stood up, rising up to form a watertight gunwale.

“Look, there’s nothing you can’t do if you put your mind to it,” Liu Er said to me, lying in the water. Then the color of the “human boat” quickly turned into a light wood color, and it even had wood grain, just like a real small wooden boat. But at the bow of the boat, there was a human face of Liu Er embedded in it, which was very strange.

“Come on up,” Zhang Lian said.

I stepped onto what should have been his chest, and the "human boat" sank down. However, the gunwale was more than two feet high, enough to support one more person.

To the right is the Chuanye River flowing downstream, but Liu Er thought the current was too slow, so he probably used his little guys as oars to paddle through the water.

I stood steadily on the boat, and sure enough, after traveling less than fifty meters, there was a picture of three rabbits. After another thirty meters or so, there was another one. If I used the picture of three rabbits as a guide, then I would see something soon.

After walking more than a hundred meters and passing four pictures, a dark cave entrance ahead was getting closer and closer.

I switched to a different flashlight and shone it over, and couldn't help but exclaim in surprise.

Liu Er was lying on his back, unable to see anything, and quickly asked what was going on.

“There is a rocky stream ahead, and there are words carved above the cave.”

"What word?" Liu Er asked.

"The Heavenly Emperor returns to his place."

Those four traditional Chinese characters form the phrase "齐天归所" (Qi Tian Gui Suo). Between "齐天" and "归所" is a picture of three rabbits.

The "human boat" quickly approached the "Qitian Guishang" (a place where the gods return to their home). I stepped into the cave, and Liu Er (Six Ears) also returned to human form. He pushed off the edge of the cave with both hands and leaped out of the water.

His body hair trembled violently, forming a cloud of moisture that then clung tightly to his skin, transforming into clothes as if he hadn't taken them off in the previous hole.

This cave was quite different from the ones we'd passed before. There were no protruding rocks; everything was relatively flat, as if it had been simply polished by the cave's owner from countless years ago. Three rabbit images appeared one after another on both sides of the cave walls. After walking a short distance, we entered a circular stone cave.

A short, dark figure leaned against the side of the cave. Liu Er quickly moved the beam of his flashlight over and saw a skeleton.

A thought suddenly flashed through my mind: this cave is called "Qi Tian Gui Suo" (meaning "The Place Where Qi Tian Returns"), and the person in front of me died in this cave. Could it be that "Qi Tian Gui Suo" means the tomb of Qi Tian?

My heart was pounding, and an absurd thought kept popping into my head: Qitian? Is it the Great Sage Equal to Heaven?