Flores de durazno

Capítulo 12

I leaned closer and said to Old Gu with a grin, "Tell me, what else are you hiding from us? Don't tell me you don't know anything!"

Old Gu looked at me blankly: "I really didn't hide anything! Comrade Huang, how could you say that to me!"

I scoffed, "Come on! Didn't you say you spoke to the people in the cockpit? How come there's no one here, but there's a giant spider in there?"

Old Gu's eyes widened: "A spider! What does it look like? No way!"

I gestured with my chin: "They're behind that door. They've already been beaten to death. Don't tell me you don't know who brought them up."

Lao Gu quickly ran over to check. Judging from his anxious appearance, he didn't seem to have anything to hide. So Zhang Liheng and I hurriedly ate something. We were so hungry that we didn't even feel like chatting with Ding Gen and the other man.

After eating for a while, I still hadn't seen Lao Gu return, and I started to worry that something might have happened. Canned food is already tasteless, and it was even harder to swallow, so I stood up and called Ding Gen to come with me to check on him.

Once inside the cabin, the space was indeed not large. I looked up at the skylight, where there used to be a moving shadow puppet, but now there was nothing there, not even a trace.

I looked back at Ding Gen, and unexpectedly, the moment my gaze returned from the skylight, I saw a pair of feet dangling above his head.

Chapter 32 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Chapter 32 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Author: Ghost Grinning

Date: 2008-04-01 22:43:00

My face turned deathly pale, and I stammered, unable to speak. I pointed upwards, urging Ding Gen to look up.

Ding Gen stiffly raised his head and saw a pair of bare feet dangling above him, their skin pale and pale, swaying back and forth. Judging by the height, they were just above his head.

I looked up from the bottom of my head and saw that the cockpit had a gap at the doorway, which was originally used to hang things. Now, a person was hanging in this gap. The person's head was tilted to the side, and a rope was tightly fastened around the neck. The face had turned bluish-purple, and the eyes were bulging.

It was a hanged man! And I happened to recognize him—it was Old Gu, who had just come in to look at the dead spider! I panicked a little. Although I suspected that Old Gu was hiding something, I didn't treat him as a class enemy. I quickly told Ding Gen that saving the man was the priority.

We frantically pulled Lao Gu down, only to realize that hanging oneself in this crevice would require a high level of skill. We wondered how Lao Gu managed to pull off such a difficult move. He was probably being hoisted up by someone else. Even Ding Gen started to have doubts, wondering if he had rushed in too much the first time he came in, since nothing had happened when he turned around and left.

Zhang Liheng dragged Lao Gu onto the deck and immediately began performing CPR. He started breathing, but remained unconscious.

I collapsed onto the floor, asked Ding Gen for a cigarette, lit it and took a deep drag. Suddenly remembering the vanished helicopter, I coughed and asked, "Old Ding, have you seen your plane? What happened? Was there something on it? And how did you get here? Is Old Deng awake? Tell me quickly."

Date: 2008-04-01 23:21:00

Ding Gen was a little stunned: "What airplane? What's wrong with an airplane?"

When I saw him staring blankly, I knew he was in the cabin and hadn't witnessed the spectacular sight of the plane disappearing. Feeling a bit irritated, I jumped up and ran to the bow to see if there was still any fragment of the tail fin on the water. Ding Gen also ran over, but this kid seemed more interested in my eye bags, his gaze constantly shifting between my eyes.

I know my buddy has a sharp eye, but I didn't intend to hide this from him, so I told him the whole story. Finally, I blinked and said with a wry smile, "Look, that's it. It's like a crocodile's eyelids, which fold up from the bottom and seem to have a thin membrane. I think it might be useful in the water."

Ding Gen's mouth was agape for a long time before he finally said, "I was so eager to tell you something, but I didn't expect you to be so nosy. But this eyelid is definitely not a good sign; you're probably going to kick the bucket!"

I retorted angrily, "Stop talking nonsense. Whether I live or die is not up to you. God will surely be fair to a kind person like me."

I turned to look at the water and blinked hard. Oh no, people always say the water is level—level—, so why doesn't the water look level to me?

Oh no! I quickly called to Ding Gen, "Come and take a look, why does this part of the water look like a wok?"

There were no whirlpools or waves on the water. As dusk approached, the water was filled with shimmering golden light, but to me, these shimmering points of light truly formed a slightly concave bottom of a pot.

Date: 2008-04-01 23:39:00

Ding Gen is also a diving expert, and his familiarity with water is no less than mine. When I told him that the water surface was uneven, he was about to laugh when he was stunned by what he saw. However, his surprise was because he saw the debris of the plane's tail section, and he immediately understood why I asked him what was going on with the plane.

Seeing that Ding Gen didn't respond, I repeated myself: I had previously experienced the feeling that the lake was uneven, but it was too unscientific, so I had been wanting to find someone to verify it.

To my surprise, Ding Gen looked left and right but still couldn't see that the lake surface wasn't flat. He just kept asking me what happened to the helicopter. Why didn't he hear a sound?

I'm so helpless. These damn eyelids, are they hallucinating? Isn't that the dead woman in the portrait, with those glaring, gray eyes? And it just got infected to me like that? What did I do to deserve this? If any bacteria were to take revenge on the person who offended her, it should be Comrade Zhang who got infected, not me! It's really strange, the water level looks like the bottom of a pot to me!

Even assuming what I'm seeing is true, what if it is?

In this past day and night, I have experienced too many strange and inexplicable events. From warlords during the Republic of China era to Japanese devils and Soviets, including our superiors, they all seem to be involved and seem to know more about the matter. Not to mention there is also a force operating in the shadows, leaving behind so many clues and mysteries. So when I see some abnormal and fake things, I feel even more that these things are very likely to be real.

Date: 2008-04-02

After thinking it over and over for a long time, I finally made a surprising discovery. This guess is very bold, but it makes some sense, at least that's what I think.

I recounted the scene of the helicopter's unexpected disappearance to Ding Gen, and then we began to analyze it.

The plane is gone, definitely gone. After ruling out the possibility of it flying away, only two possibilities remain: an explosion? A crash? Or was it just moving too fast and it ended before we could see it clearly?

Old Gu was unconscious over there. Shen Juan and Zhang Liheng had already come over and were listening intently to our conversation. When I told them about the reason for the plane's disappearance, Shen Juan casually said, "Could it be some kind of spatial rift? That caused some kind of disaster?"

Zhang Liheng chimed in, "I think maybe aliens did it? Otherwise, how could they have disappeared so quickly?"

Ding Gen laughed in exasperation: "You two are really thinking nonsense! What are you talking about? I'm telling you, you've been reading too much science fiction and you're all confused. It's all fake! Don't interrupt, listen to what Huang Ning has to say."

I was nervous too, but I would never think about those mysterious things like aliens; those are just highly unreliable guesses.

I composed myself and continued my analysis: "As for the explosion and crash, we witnessed it firsthand, so it's impossible. I have an idea. Let's assume that the lake surface is not actually level, but rather there is a real depression. And at that moment, the sunlight was very strong, shining directly on this depression. Let's also assume that there is something else mixed in with the water. Could there be an extremely hot and unstable focal point on the surface of the lake?"

This conjecture was never confirmed until many years later. We did find some unverifiable clues at the bottom of the abyss, so this conjecture has always remained just that—a conjecture.

Imagine the scene: an extremely hot focal point, like a convex lens, hovered unstablely low above the lake, swaying back and forth. And this helicopter, which was about to leave, tragically crashed into it. The instantaneous high temperature instantly vaporized the fuselage, which also indicates that there must be a shocking secret underwater!

Date: 2008-04-02 01:24:00

Unexpectedly, it was Ding Gen who first uncovered a corner of this shocking secret, and he had a lot to tell me.

Before coming to the reservoir to look for us, Ding Gen had already seen the old instructor Deng Jianguo, who was still unconscious like a vegetable. Ding Gen was unable to get any information, so he finally used a little trick to pry open the mouth of Instructor Deng's old friend, Huang, who could no longer go into the water, with baijiu.

Some of the information was told to Team Leader Huang by Instructor Deng after his first return from the reservoir, while Team Leader Huang learned about it from his superiors. Although the information was not comprehensive, it was still extremely valuable.

Ding Gen didn't tell me directly about the clues he had obtained. Instead, he told me a piece of history, leaving me anxious but unable to do anything but listen.

During World War II, the Soviet army set foot on the Northeast region of China the most. We know that the Soviet army sent an elite corps of 1.5 million men to the three northeastern provinces to fight against the Japanese Kwantung Army. In a short period of time, they killed 80,000 Japanese soldiers and captured 600,000. Unfortunately, one of the Kwantung Army's 17th Front Army escaped.

Although the Kwantung Army had a large number of soldiers at the time, many of its veterans had already been transferred to the Pacific theater by the time the Soviet Union entered the war. The so-called 700,000-strong Kwantung Army was not particularly strong in combat, especially since the Soviet army at that time had a high level of mechanization, and its tactical command and weaponry were much better than those of the Kwantung Army. Therefore, the Soviet army paid a price of about 30,000 men to end the Kwantung Army's good days of occupying Northeast China and Korea.

Following instructions from Beria, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, all 600,000 Japanese prisoners of war were forced to work as laborers in Mongolia and Siberia, constructing the famous Baikal-Amur Mainline, logging timber, mining coal, and repairing urban infrastructure. Many died, but the whereabouts of even more remained unknown, and only about 10% were repatriated.

Chapter 33 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Chapter 33 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Author: Ghost Grinning

Date: 2008-04-04 11:58:00

In the Soviet-Japanese Far East Campaign of 1945, the Japanese army was annihilated at an unexpectedly rapid pace. The final battle was the fierce fighting at the Hulin Fortress on the shore of Lake Khanka. Lake Khanka was originally an inland lake of China, but after it was ceded to Russia at the end of the Qing Dynasty, it became a border lake between China and Russia, with most of it belonging to Russia. The Japanese Kwantung Army's Hulin Fortress garrison and the Soviet Red Army fought an extremely brutal battle here.

The Hulin Fortress was massive in scale and complex in structure, with complete supplies. Without any external supplies, a force of over 10,000 men could survive in this cave for six months. The Soviet army fought a grueling fourteen-day battle here, annihilating the entire Hulin Fortress garrison, eleven days after the end of World War II and the date of Japan's surrender.

Ding Gen said so much that I'm dizzy. I learned all of this when I joined the army, why bring up old news again? I don't want to be lectured now.

When Ding Gen finally got to the point, it immediately captured my attention.

During the battle, Major General Vinogradov, deputy commander of the 264th Division of the 35th Army of the Soviet Army, was killed. His death was a significant event, so the Soviet intelligence department conducted a post-war investigation. Unexpectedly, they discovered that a Japanese river office in the Tiger Head Fortress, which was originally stationed in the fleet's dock, had disappeared after the war. After a long pursuit, the Soviet army captured this group in Korea and seized some documents showing that the Japanese army had carried out a large-scale exploration operation in Inner Mongolia. Therefore, the Soviet army stopped investigating the cause of the major general's death and directly sealed the documents and handed them over to their superiors.

However, the information in the documents was not very detailed, and it wasn't until the 1950s that the Soviets began to search for and explore the site on a large scale in Inner Mongolia. There were rumors that they found it but suffered a great loss, and there were also rumors that the Soviets did not find it at all. Ding Gen did not get any definite information about these situations.

In the 1950s, the Soviet Union sent many experts to work here. Some of them were friendly and genuinely offered help, but many of the Russians were not experts at all. Their purpose in coming here was ulterior motives, and there were many such people. They did a lot of dirty work behind our backs. For example, before the Xin'anjiang Reservoir was submerged, it was a place that Soviet experts attached great importance to. They secretly sealed off the mountainous area for five years. In 1955, the project was approved to build a dam. After submerging more than a thousand hills, it was finally completed. In 1960, the Soviet Union suddenly announced the withdrawal of all its experts and personnel. This matter has become a mystery.

The most important clue still lies with Instructor Deng. Since the first return from the reservoir, Instructor Deng and Team Leader Huang have met privately for a long time to discuss the matter. Old Deng said that the area beneath the reservoir is extraordinary, with an underground river connecting the original mountain peaks and faintly leading to the sinkhole cave in the southwest. This matter requires the assistance of more salvage experts to uncover the secret and complete the mission.

One point, which Ding Gen made very bluntly, was about the crashed plane. It was carrying the results of an exploration in Inner Mongolia and was preparing to cross the reservoir to Changshan County in the southwest to conduct an investigation near the sinkhole when it unexpectedly disappeared. Instructor Deng estimated that the black box, which was moving slowly, was likely floating in the underground river below this area.

Some of the things Ding Gen described, I had already heard Lao Gu and Zhang Liheng tell me, and some I didn't know, so after he finished speaking, we all fell into deep thought.

Date: 2008-04-04 12:39:00

As events unfolded, we were gradually drawn into a vast secret. From World War II to the construction of the dam, from the plane crash to the instructor's astonishing discovery, everything was related to the situation before the reservoir was submerged. In just two days, we experienced many inexplicable events, and many questions remained fixed in our minds. In particular, I seemed to have contracted some kind of virus, and my future looked bleak.

In the silence, I looked at the two girls. I hoped that Zhang Liheng and Shen Juan, who had gotten involved, wouldn't suffer the same fate. The rescue plane had already crashed, and the shore would likely send more people to help. But how would they get through the night? Would this body of water still be so peaceful after dark? Zheng Jian's men had been gone for almost a day and a night. Where were they? What were they doing?

I sighed and went over to see how Old Gu was doing.

Standing in the cabin, I smiled bitterly again. Old Gu, who had been unconscious, was gone.

Date: 2008-04-04 13:34:00

Were there other people on board?

Old Gu had already been hit in the cockpit. Judging from his posture, he definitely didn't hang himself. At least I didn't sense any intention of suicide from him. Ding Gen and the other two came over too. We quietly followed the tracks of Old Gu's bare feet.

In a corner by the door, we saw Lao Gu squatting there, his head slightly raised looking up, one of his hands nervously tapping lightly on the floor. At first glance, he seemed very nervous.

We looked around with wide eyes, but found no sign of anything amiss. Ding Gen strode forward and gently patted Lao Gu's shoulder. My heart skipped a beat, and I suddenly remembered the scene of discovering Instructor Deng. I knew something was wrong and quickly told Ding Gen not to disturb Lao Gu, but it was too late.

As Ding Gen gently patted Lao Gu's shoulder, Lao Gu's body trembled, and he fell backward to the ground, limp and lifeless, without even a cry of surprise.

Ding Gen was also startled and quickly withdrew his hand and took two steps back.

I was very surprised. Judging from Lao Gu's behavior, it seemed that he had been frightened into fainting. In other words, he had been scared unconscious. Could it be that my instructor Deng had been unconscious for so long because of such a fright? They were all squatting there, looking up at something.

Zhang Liheng and Shen Juan ran over to help Lao Gu up. After struggling for a while, they stood up in disappointment and said, "Lao Gu has fainted. He's still breathing, but he probably won't wake up anytime soon."

Chapter 34 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Chapter 34 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Author: Ghost Grinning

Date: 2008-04-06 0:17:00

As darkness fell, the water remained calm, but the four of us began to feel uneasy. We moved cabinets and other odds and ends to block the broken door of the cockpit where Old Gu had hanged himself. Subconsciously, no one believed that Old Gu would choose to hang himself after going in, but none of us wanted to go back into that cabin to investigate further, because the matter was too eerie and inexplicable.

After blocking the door, I felt uneasy because Ding Gen and I were both quite skilled at navigating this boat. To return to land, we had to sail. But because of the dead spider and the bizarre suicide by hanging, blocking the door felt like we had also blocked ourselves into a dead end. Perhaps we would have to open the hatch and escape at dawn tomorrow. However, Lao Gu was still unconscious, leaving us completely clueless about the navigation route.

In the quiet darkness, Shen Juan and Zhang Liheng began to doze off, while Ding Gen and I huddled together smoking, desperately trying to suppress our unease as we puffed out clouds of smoke.

I explained it again in detail, very worried about the abnormal changes in my eyelids. Who knows if these changes might be the beginning of some kind of disease, or if I might end up with a lifelong disability, which would be such a waste. Ding Gen finally understood me. It turned out that I wanted to go into the water myself to find out. After all, the two of us have been dealing with diving for so many years. After understanding the problem, we started to plan our equipment.

The salvage command post on shore, seeing that we had not returned, could not contact Zheng Jian by radio either. The military region was worried that something had happened, so they immediately sent a helicopter to search. Ding Gen also took the opportunity to board the helicopter. He did not have enough diving equipment with him. He was short of diving suits and oxygen tanks. If Shen Juan had not insisted on coming to see the excitement, he might have only brought one set.

Ding Gen was naturally willing to go into the water with me, so we discussed it for a while and decided to go into the water at dawn, leaving the two women to stay on the boat temporarily. If it was too dangerous to go into the water, the two women would not take the risk and would wait for rescue.

After chatting for a while and speculating about all sorts of underwater scenarios, I got sleepy and began to doze off.

Date: 2008-04-06 10:00:00

In the early hours of the morning, things took a new turn. The calm water was still calm, but it emitted a series of buzzing sounds, irregularly shaking our boat. When we opened our eyes, we found that Ding Gen had gotten up at some point and was peering into the boat from the side.

What is that sound? I listened for a while and it sounded very strange. It was the sound of water trembling caused by shaking, very muffled and oppressive. It must have come from the deepest part of the water to the surface.

Could there be some kind of water monster?

Ding Gen and I are both experienced underwaterrs, and we don't believe at all that there are any underwater monsters in this world.

I hesitated for a moment before saying, "Old Ding, listen, doesn't this sound like a motor turning?"