Yin Shou Shu

Chapter 164 Everything goes well
Standing at the entrance of the Rhino Cave, the four of them took a brief rest.

The afternoon sun shone from the edge of the tiankeng onto the four people at the entrance, and they took off their thick cotton clothes.

When you come out into the outside world, you can no longer wear such thick clothes.

It was cold and damp inside the cave, but it was midsummer outside.

White clouds float across the blue sky.

The four of them took off their cotton coats and stuffed them into their backpacks, making the already bulging backpacks even more bulging.

After taking off their cotton clothes, everyone was sweating.

Long Zongshu looked at his cousin and asked, "Cousin, which direction is the corpse-stinking flower you mentioned?"

The four of them stood at the edge of the Rhino Cave, looking down at the cemetery below.

At a height of more than ten meters, it is roughly parallel to the treetops of most trees in the tiankeng.

Standing here and looking out, there is a sea of ​​green trees in front of you.

Long Zongshu's third brother said, "I don't know exactly where it is, and I didn't ask at the time, but the tiankeng isn't very big, so we should be able to find it if we look for it."

Standing at the entrance of Rhino Cave and overlooking the cenote, the area is indeed not large, but not small either.

It is about the size of two or three gymnasiums.

Coming into the sunshine and seeing the bright sky, Long Zongshu's third brother seemed to have regained his confidence.

He said, "Don't worry, I've been running around in the woods since I was a kid. I'm familiar with this kind of woods. I promise to lead you to find the corpse flower."

After the four of them had rested, they put on their backpacks and climbed down the steep path at the entrance of the Rhino Cave, and soon arrived at the bottom of the tiankeng.

A faint dampness and sultry heat rose from the woods.

Although the vertical drop is only a dozen meters, the bottom of the sinkhole is much hotter than the Rhino Cave above.

Long Zongshu's third brother walked in front, wielding a sharp axe, constantly slashing at the vines and branches in front of him. He said, "Since the last expedition team left, no one has entered this tiankeng for a long time."

"But we can still see the path they cut earlier. If we follow the path they took, we should be able to find the corpse flower."

Dense bushes, vegetation, and many overgrown vines blocked the way in the woods, and they had to be chopped down to create a path forward.

The expedition team a few years ago also used axes to chop out a path.

However, after a few years, the path that was originally cut had long been covered by newly grown weeds, and Ran Qing and his companions could not see anything unusual.

Only Long Zongshu's cousin could accurately identify the abnormalities among the weeds, bushes and vines, and led the three of them to find the path the previous expedition team had taken.

From time to time, you can find some dry and broken vines and branches in the grass beside the road. They were left behind by the expedition team a few years ago.

The four of them were moving forward in the dense woods, and their pace was very slow because they had to chop vines and branches that blocked their way every few steps.

Ran Qing looked around and said in surprise: "Isn't this a snake cave..."

How come I haven't seen a single snake in sight after walking for so long?

Long Zongshu's cousin laughed happily and said, "It's a snake cave, there are a lot of old snakes in it."

"But people are afraid of old snakes, and old snakes are also afraid of people."

"The old snakes in the forest heard the noise of people coming and hid away from them."

"Just be careful with the leeches and don't let them jump on you."

The air in the forest with dense treetops is stuffy and humid.

After walking for a while, Ran Qing felt that he was sweating again.

The sticky sweat soaked the clothes, making them stick to the body and feel extremely uncomfortable.

He was still wearing high-top waders to protect himself from snakes and leeches.

But the airtight high-top waders grew hotter the longer they walked, and Ran Qing felt as if his feet were sweltering in a furnace. From time to time, colorful birds flew over the treetops, and even a few monkeys wandered through the forest from a distance, curiously observing the four of them.

Ran Qing, who was walking at the back, did not dare to let his guard down and kept an eye on what was behind him.

He was worried that the things in the Rhino Cave would chase him out.

But the four of them walked in the dense forest for more than an hour and almost reached the other side of the sinkhole, but they had not encountered anything evil or weird.

We did encounter a few snakes on the way, but just as my cousin Long Zongshu said, when they heard the sound of people approaching, the snakes scurried straight into the woods.

When passing a small stream in the middle of the tiankeng, there were indeed some black leeches jumping on the leaves of vegetation beside the stream.

Those slender leeches jumped onto people, but there were not many of them and they posed no threat to Ran Qing and the other three.

Finally, they crossed the entire tiankeng unimpeded and arrived at the stone wall opposite the tiankeng.

There is a steep and dangerous cliff above my head, and a hot and difficult dense forest behind me.

The four of them had a smoother journey than expected.

Long Zongshu looked at his cousin in surprise and said, "Third brother, I didn't see any corpse-stinking flowers on the road..."

Long Zongshu's cousin was also confused.

He stood at the foot of the stone wall, looking back at the road he had come from, and said, "But the road in the forest does lead this way. I've carefully observed the entire route, and there's no sign of the expedition team splitting up."

“That’s the path they took, all the way here.”

Long Zongshu's cousin looked at the stone wall in front of him with a confused look on his face.

"How about we go back a little bit..."

Long Zongshu's cousin began to lose confidence.

Mo Li looked at Ran Qing and asked in a low voice: "Where is your destiny card? Is there any reaction?"

Ran Qing opened his palm, and a small blank wooden sign lay quietly in his hand.

This gloomy wooden sign seemed to have fallen asleep since entering the tiankeng, giving Ran Qing an inexplicable sense of chaos and hallucination.

The guidance of the horoscope card has actually lost its direction.

It’s like this entire tiankeng is a direction.

Ran Qing said slowly, "Do you remember that Liu Laoyao that Third Brother mentioned? He saw many figures moving around at the bottom of the tiankeng at night."

"But now, in the tiankeng during the day, everything is normal. As a Yin-walking person, I can't even detect any Yin energy."

As he spoke, Ran Qing took out two shriveled longans from his canvas bag.

Crush the longan shell and throw out the black core.

The two shriveled longans spun slowly on the ground for a few times before stopping sickly.

Longyan asked for directions and lost his way.

Ran Qing looked at Long Zongshu's cousin: "Third brother, when you brought those expedition teams in last time, did they come in during the day and leave during the day?"

Long Zongshu's cousin nodded and said, "I was waiting for them in the Rhino Cave. It was almost dark when they hurriedly carried people out."

"The original plan was for the inspection to last seven days, and they wanted me to lead the way every day."

"But something went wrong on their first day there, and the project fell through."

Mo Li looked at the sinkhole in front of him and said, "But the expedition was a few years ago, and the sinkhole has changed now."

"So many strange things have happened on the way here. We can't use our previous inertial thinking to look at this tiankeng..."

(End of this chapter)