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Глава 18

While counting the pistol ammunition, Ding Gen took Colonel Xie ahead to survey the terrain. I figured he must have brought a gun with him too.

Since I harbor murderous intent, the best course of action is to conceal my strength as much as possible.

Once everything was ready, we started eating. Colonel Xie only had compressed biscuits and chocolate with him. Ding Gen was tempted and traded two pieces with him using water. Everything seemed to be going well, but I knew that this friendly situation would become increasingly difficult to withstand the test of danger that was about to follow.

The cave we were in was no different from the ones we had been to before. The underground river under our feet was not deep, and there were still riverbanks on both sides that were not flooded. Some strangely shaped stalactites hung down from the dark ceiling. The cave was very complicated, with many branching paths. Some of them had cool breezes blowing out, while others had hot breezes blowing out. It was possible that at the other end of this cave, there was a gaping hole in the sinkhole, with wind blowing in!

I simply don't have the energy to think about where the air we breathe comes from. I've become numb to these incredible questions. So the question that's been on my mind all along is which direction we should go.

Colonel Xie strongly suggested that we go upstream along the direction of the current, which leads to the Dengzhan Tiankeng. If we went upstream, we would definitely have to go to the bottom of the reservoir. It was hard to say whether there was any other passage besides the one we had come in by diving. In short, it was very inappropriate. So we fully demonstrated the spirit of democratic centralism and unanimously decided to go upstream along the direction of the stronger current.

I walked silently for almost half an hour, and I still didn't have a chance to tell Ding Gen my thoughts. I was so frustrated.

Chapter 49 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Chapter 49 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Author: Ghost Grinning

Date: 2008-04-23 13:30:00

The underground river was chest-deep in some places and thigh-deep in others, but the journey upstream wasn't too complicated. Several forks in the path didn't escape our sharp eyes. Fortunately, our clothes were for diving, so we weren't too bothered by getting soaked. The respectable Colonel Xie, however, displayed extraordinary skill. Wearing fur-lined military boots, he nimbly climbed across the rocks on the bank. Even when there was no path and he had to wade through the water, his clothes weren't completely wet, making me wonder if this foreigner had studied Chinese Kung Fu.

After walking for a while, I stopped and whispered, "Listen, there's a noise!"

The air was icy cold, and the water in the underground river suddenly became barely visible, so shallow that it was almost dry. It seemed that the environment ahead had changed.

Deep inside the cave, a familiar buzzing sound came from within—the distinctive trembling sound of a heavy object slowly hitting the ground. It was very dull and powerful, interspersed with the rattling of chains, which sounded eerie.

A wave of suspicion washed over me. The materialistic atheism I had just re-established seemed to falter for a moment, because the voice sounded like a prehistoric beast waiting for us ahead, preparing for a welcoming ceremony before dinner.

Is there a ferocious beast in the cave?

Ding Gen and Sergei both drew their pistols and stared nervously ahead. The marching formation immediately changed. Colonel Xie and Ding Gen walked at the front on either side, while I was in the middle with Zhang Liheng behind me.

The dull sound was a bit strange, because we were going against the current, and the terrain should have been going uphill, but the sound seemed to be coming from deep beneath our feet. Could it be that there was no road ahead, and it had turned into a big pit?

After a moment of silent confrontation, we groped our way forward and came to a relatively high corner. A gloomy city gate blocked our way, and the sound was coming from inside or behind the city gate. Moreover, the sturdy city gate was like a powerful sluice gate, cutting off the underground river and making the water under our feet almost dry.

Finally, traces of human activity appeared, and we were all invigorated. This city gate was either built by Sun Chuanfang or by the Soviets. It seems that we have gradually come to the truth, and the mystery is about to be solved!

Sergei said in a low voice, "Everyone, we'd better be careful. This building is so eerie; we don't want to fail at the last minute!"

We were all carefully examining the building, which resembled both a city gate tower and a memorial archway, and temporarily ignored Colonel Xie's nonsense.

Even under the illumination of flashlights and headlamps, the entire city gate tower could not be seen. At first glance, the first impression was that it was majestic, eerie, and enormous, exuding an evil aura.

It was three or four stories high, with overhanging eaves and painted corners, much like an ancient city gate. Some parts were eroded, revealing the steel bars inside. It was definitely made of reinforced concrete. On the side facing us, there was an arched gate, exactly the same as the ancient style. It was dark and we didn't know how deep it was. A chill blew out from inside, making us feel like we were at the gates of the underworld, which made us feel uncomfortable all over!

Date: 2008-04-24 10:56:00

Seeing that there were high stone embankments on both sides of the wall, we split into two lines and walked in. Zhang Liheng and I went on one side, and Sergei and Dinggen went on the other side, about five or six meters apart, with shallow puddles in between. The puddles were covered with moss-like plants. By this point, the water had become stagnant.

The steps were about 1.5 meters wide and mostly flat, but there were many obstacles piled up, with piles of stones of all sizes. Every ten or so steps, a pile would appear, making it very difficult for us to walk. We were afraid of stepping on a loose stone and falling, which would be no joke. The stagnant water below the steps was covered with moss, which looked lush and green, and we felt that there was something troublesome hidden inside. Besides, we hadn't seen any plants along the way, so it was very unusual for such a large patch to suddenly appear.

After walking for a while, I began to wonder what this was. It looked like a simple passageway, with a very high, arched dome at the top. My flashlight couldn't reach what was on top of it, and the visible walls were tall and neatly constructed.

A constant gust of cold air blew in from ahead, making me shrink my neck. I watched two lines of people moving stealthily, looking like a group of thieves trying to sneak into an old castle through a tunnel. But this tunnel was way too long! Whoever built such an arched tunnel in the cave, what was their reasoning?

I stopped and called out to Lao Ding, wanting to ask them what they had discovered, because I felt the buzzing sound was coming from their direction.

The flashlight beam became diffused, and my voice was also suppressed and muffled, with a buzzing echo. But all my questions got stuck in my throat, and I opened my mouth wide, not knowing how to say them.

Ding Gen, who was enveloped by my flashlight beam, stopped when he heard my shout. But at his toes, on the steps, a human hand stretched upwards from the ground. Judging from the distance, if Ding Gen took another step, he would step on this outstretched hand, or have his ankle grabbed by this hand!

Date: 2008-04-24 11:54:00

Ding Gen immediately noticed the abnormality under his feet and almost instinctively took two steps back. Behind him, Sergei jumped away as nimbly as a rabbit, covering a distance of two meters.

From my perspective, Ding Gen was holding a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, his arm taut as he aimed at the other hand, while the other hand on the ground was stretched out towards the sky, fingers spread, motionless.

Ding Gen bent lower and lower, swaying the flashlight back and forth and side to side for a while, before finally straightening up, snapping the safety shut with a click, and putting the gun away.

Seeing that the danger had passed, I immediately asked him what had happened.

Ding Gen kept kicking around the hand with his foot, sending the pebbles into the water one by one, while replying to me, "It's nothing, there's someone buried in these pebbles!"

I realized that these stones were not naturally formed, but were used by someone to bury corpses. Could it be that someone was buried under the pile of stones we just walked over?

Zhang Liheng was quick-witted; she bypassed me and strode forward. At first glance, she saw a pile of stones not far ahead.

I quickened my pace to catch up with her and complained, "Hey Zhang, there must be a reason why I told you to leave. Why were you so impulsive? This is a job for a grown man like me!" Zhang Liheng ignored me and just kept digging at the pile of stones.

We moved around in the pile of stones for a while, and finally a complete figure emerged. Zhang Liheng exclaimed, "It's Zheng Jian's man!"

Chapter 50 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Chapter 50 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Author: Ghost Grinning

Date: 2008-04-24 16:43:00

I quickly took a look and saw that the clothes he was wearing were indeed unmarked field uniforms, and even his equipment was mostly still there. He was lying peacefully under the pile of stones with his hands on his chest, and at first glance, he looked like he was asleep.

Looking closer, they seemed somewhat familiar—and indeed, they were Zheng Jian's men! After disappearing for a day and two nights, they finally reappeared here, and it looked like their entire group had suffered a crushing defeat. I immediately became a hundred times more vigilant. Why?

Why would so many people die unexpectedly in such a peaceful city gate, and why were each of them carefully buried one by one? What kind of fatal accident happened here?

The four of us stared at each other for a while, then immediately began to look around to see what was wrong, but we couldn't find anything. Could the problem be in that patch of green water in the middle?

Try throwing a stone in; it sinks with a gurgling sound, releasing a string of bubbles.

No way, how could it be so deep? I didn't give up and threw a few more pieces, only to find that some places were solid ground, some places were extremely deep pools of water, and one piece even hit some metal with a loud clang.

We were at our wits' end, we were all dumbfounded. We knew there was danger to our lives, but we didn't know where the danger was or what kind of danger it was. This kind of blindness was driving us crazy.

Zhang Liheng unbuttoned the clothes on the front of the body and carefully examined the body covered by stones, hoping to find out the cause of death. After looking around, she found no wounds, only irregular patches of lividity that were very conspicuous.

I exclaimed, "This isn't right! How can there be lividity on the chest? Only corpses lying face down have lividity on their chests. What's going on?" There weren't many dark purple lividity spots; most were a strange cherry color. I tried to gently press the lividity spots with my fingers, but they didn't fade at all. It must be in the later stages of lividity.

The livor mortis of a person who dies quickly is often dark purplish-red, indicating that the person at my feet died very quickly. However, most of the livor mortis visible through the skin is a bright cherry red, which is somewhat reminiscent of carbon monoxide poisoning. What's even stranger is the location of the livor mortis. Judging from the supine position, livor mortis should never appear on the chest, unless the person had been lying face down for a long time after death, felt uncomfortable, and turned over, crossing their arms over their chest, ending up in the supine position.

The hairs on my body started to stand up one by one, giving me a tingling sensation.

Date: 2008-04-25 11:41:00

Thump—thump—

It wasn't the sound of my heartbeat, but rather the sound of heavy objects falling to the ground, one after another, coming from the direction we were heading in through the gate of the city tower, getting closer and closer to us!

Footsteps? Or something leaping closer to us?

I grabbed Zhang Liheng and we immediately turned tail and ran.

I stopped after running only a few steps. This was so ridiculous! When I was a kid, I used to laugh at the rabbit for being so cowardly when I heard that fairy tale called "The Glutton is Coming". But now that it was happening, I didn't even see anything clearly before I hurriedly ran away!

Drawing my pistol, Zhang Liheng and I pressed ourselves tightly against the wall, aiming at the path we were coming from. Ding Gen and Sergei, on the other side, were equally alert, ready to fire at any moment.

The sound was getting closer and closer. My palms were sweating. I wondered what was coming. Could it be the culprit who killed these people?

Suddenly, a thought flashed through my mind: these stones used to bury the bodies, though numerous and varied in size, had one thing in common that now made me very suspicious. That is, the surfaces of the stones I touched were mostly smooth. We hadn't encountered so many pebbles along the underground river. So where did these stones come from?

Before I could ponder the strangeness of the stone, the sound was already upon me.

A rectangular shadow crashed down from the arched dome, landing heavily between us and Ding Gen. It was a laboratory cabinet, the kind Zhang Liheng had fallen into before, and the one that had ruined me with a woman's portrait!

I was afraid that if this thing broke, a group of deadly germs would burst out, so I unconsciously moved forward to block Zhang Liheng. I thought that since I had already been infected, I didn't care if I was infected again. Maybe fighting poison with poison would have a miraculous effect.

However, the cabinet lay there lifelessly, not moving at all, while the sound of chains being dragged came from above. Then, behind us, another cabinet fell down!

There's someone overhead!

The top of this arched passage is so high that we can't see what's going on. Now we guess that someone is up there, untying the chains binding the cabinets one by one, causing them to fall down. Could it be Zheng Jian's men up there?

I remember the top of this arched passageway looked like a city gate tower. Was there another level above that you could go up to? Is this how the Russians hoisted all those experimental cabinets up back then? Otherwise, how could these cabinets have fallen down for no reason?

Just as they were hesitating whether to hurry up and go out to see who was silently moving overhead, a dark, blurry cabinet fell down in front of Ding Gen, blocking their path. With such a solid and heavy fall, the bottom of the cabinet immediately tilted and looked like it could fall apart at any moment.

I shouted, "Old Ding, you absolutely mustn't touch that cabinet! Back off, back off!"

Ding Gen stepped back, while Sergei moved closer, seemingly very interested in the experimental cabinet. He bent down, dug around at the bottom of the cabinet, pulled out a large, card-like photograph, rolled it up without looking at it, and threw it into the water. Then, he kicked the nearly collapsing cabinet down with a powerful kick.

The force of that kick was considerable. The cabinet, almost as tall as a person, was thrown headfirst into the water between us. It completely disintegrated upon entering the water, and I finally saw what was inside!

The cupboard was filled with a syrupy, sticky substance, and inside were two people stuck together, so close that it was impossible to tell them apart. What they had in common was that they had no skin, and the exposed dark red muscles were not rotting. Their limbs and skeletons were condensed to an extremely small size, a morbidly small size. Moreover, their bodies were covered with irregular spheres of various sizes, like insect eggs, which trembled and swayed but did not scatter or fall off.

Zhang Liheng whispered behind me, "So this is what the cabinet I fell into looks like. It looks like it's hatching something."

I suddenly remembered that I had been muttering that the stones on the ground were a bit strange. Now, comparing the two, I immediately realized that these stones were very similar to those in the cabinet. Apart from a slight difference in color, they seemed to be of the same kind.

A chill ran down my spine. Could it be that these dead team members weren't buried by their own people, but were instead wrapped in some kind of insect eggs, slowly wriggling and churning?

Chapter 51 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Chapter 51 of "The Empty House in the Abyss (The Salvage Worker's Adventure)"

Author: Ghost Grinning

Date: 2008-04-25 23:14:00

The thumping sounds faded into the distance, finally disappearing from the path we had come in. The fallen cabinets lay there quietly, but from my perspective, I preferred to believe that these cabinets were gathering some terrifying power, ready to rush out and grab us.

With a heavy heart, I carefully examined the stones in the water and under my feet, hoping to find that they were just ordinary stones. However, this hopeful idea was quickly shattered. There were many fine cracks on the stones, and there seemed to be a dark shadow in the middle. When I shone a flashlight on it, it could move!

A buzzing sound, like a swarm of bees taking flight, gradually came from behind us, or like many small insects crawling on the ground. I was truly frightened this time, and without further hesitation, I quickly led Zhang Liheng forward.

Dingen and Sergei also started running forward quickly. There were no more piles of pebbles on the road. All they could hear were the heavy breathing of several people, and all they could see were the constantly swaying beams of flashlights. They ran all the way until they finally reached the end, breathless!

At the end, there was a cement road connecting us and Ding Gen and his companion, so the four of us naturally gathered together and looked ahead.

Abyss! An unfathomable abyss!

We reached the end of the city gate, only to be met with a scene that left us all dumbfounded.

A concrete wall about one meter high blocked our way, and outside was pitch black. We lay on the low wall and tried our best to look out. As far as we could see, there were strange rocks on both sides, and we couldn't see the top at all. Below was also deep darkness. A buzzing sound was suddenly amplified here, clearly like the sound of flowing water, wave after wave crashing against the stone wall beneath our feet.

We looked at each other in disbelief. How could things have turned out this way?

It's not surprising that there's an underground river flowing into the reservoir, nor is it surprising that the Russians built a steel gate to block the water flow. It's also understandable that we walked along the underground river channel for almost an hour and had plenty of air. It's also understandable that this man-made city gate could be built in this place with a little effort. But after going through all this trouble, we ended up with a dead end.

How did such a deep crater form? What kind of experiment did the Soviets conduct? We have no clue whatsoever. Are we just going to have to turn back?

I slapped my head, completely baffled.

But the danger behind us was imminent, and we needed to deal with this trouble immediately. I was sure that the noisy sounds came from a group of small animals, and I was sure that they were no pushovers. In this critical moment, I had no choice but to hurriedly feel my way to the left and right along the low wall blocking the way.

"There's a door!" I was the first to shout it out!