Quarrying
Before I tell you about this dream, I must point out that this happened when I was swept away by turbulence.
During this process, I didn't know any clues about Tai Tsai later, because I couldn't tell everyone's face because I was face-blind. So in order to keep the story pure, I will try my best to exclude what I know and describe the information I felt when I was still unaware. There may be some mistakes and misunderstandings in the story.
Time goes back to the moment when I was hit by the rapids.
I was choked by the groundwater and as I struggled I was filled with regret that I had not learned how to doggy paddle during the half month I was in the hospital.
But I only had time to think of this before a mouthful of spiciness and sweetness came up from my throat, and I began to tremble like I was having epilepsy, with tears and snot pouring out. The sourness and numbness soon spread to my chest and lungs, and then a bitter taste with sulfur filled my trachea.
I don’t know if the underground water is the so-called sulfur spring, but there was indeed a burst of steam that completely blocked my vision in an instant.
I don't know what the sediment stirred up by the groundwater is, but the two colors, almost like honey and snow salt, mixed together and are extremely bright. I felt like I was in a dream, and before I could choke on the second mouthful of boiling water, I heard the insect eggs attached to my body screaming.
When I came to my senses, I was already groggy, but a soothing slight itch made it difficult for me to move.
It didn't make any sense, but I felt as if the insect eggs that were seriously parasitizing me had hurriedly left my body, leaving me in a state of extreme weakness.
But at the same time, the unprecedented feeling of cleanliness made me feel very comfortable.
Birds roll in the fine sand to wash themselves, and people in extremely cold regions are said to rub their faces with handfuls of snow to warm and cleanse.
I had a similar feeling at this moment, as if the dust and snow transformed by my ancestors since entering the town had completed their mission and left my body after some kind of harsh scrutiny, taking away the filth that I could not perceive.
The water had now returned to calm, and I found myself in a very strange state.
On the one hand, I seemed to have fallen into a strange dry riverbed. Someone found me covered in white sand and was calling an ambulance. The medical staff who came gave me a tranquilizer or something, which made me fall into a sweet dream.
On the other hand, just like the fear of the comb jellyfish in the storm, the eggs left but seemed to have left some tiny fragments and emotions for me. At the moment when my consciousness was extremely weak, I seemed to float lightly, and my perspective entered into a certain memory of the eggs.
In other words, I saw the past experiences of a certain host.
But because of the special perspective of the insect egg, the relationship between me and the host is not just about watching and being watched, but closer to a kind of possession and fusion. Or it is closer to the state where Gao Liu and I overlapped in the bluestone.
The first thing I saw was a large amount of mud and sand.
The ring-shaped sand was like a strange smoke ring, a very clean, clear yellow color. There was not much vegetation in the seemingly barren valley, and only large and small rings of sand were scattered among the withered and sparse vegetation, which looked very abrupt and uncoordinated.
I looked ahead and heard someone on the other side say, "Master, what the hell is this mountain? Why does it make me feel so anxious?"
The man was very tall, but he didn't look like a good person (this should be Xu You), and he looked very scheming. But I didn't seem to be on guard against him, and I answered honestly:
“It certainly doesn’t look like a quarry.”
My voice is also strange, a little neurotic, and with an indescribable sense of ignorance and viciousness.
After looking around, he wondered, "Is this all there is in the mountain? Then we need to go deeper."
The mountain villager who was leading the way had a bad look on his face, "Master, aren't you looking for a strange place? What's wrong here?" He stood there in a stalemate, and the look he gave him was vaguely unfriendly.
I didn't know what the mountain people were doing, so I nodded as a matter of course.
At this time, a child came out from behind, squatted down and touched the mud and sand on the ground, and seemed to pick up some to taste it.
“Salty.”
I hesitated for a moment, as if I had some misunderstanding about the child, and actually asked him seriously what he had discovered.
No, what I actually said was, I asked the child "what he saw".
The child, who should be Zhang Tianyi, smiled and said:
"Even though we are all prophets, everyone sees different things. Why are you asking me this question? Can you explain why you came here to find a wall?"
This sounded weird, but I actually agreed with this inexplicable logic, so I stopped asking questions and urged the mountain people to take me further into the mountains.
The mountain man hesitated for a moment, and looked at several mountain men nearby, with a murderous look in his eyes. He said, "Okay, Captain Zhang, Master, and this little brother, please follow me." It seemed that he was planning to silence them.
However, the three people present were not simple characters. Instead, they maintained a subtle tacit understanding and pretended not to see anything and started chatting among themselves.
As Zhang Tianyi walked, he rubbed his fingers and turned back to me and said:
"Look at the small bushes and mosses on the ground."
I looked over and realized something was not right. The most sparsely distributed of the circular sand was actually green moss, followed by rocks that were very dry and powdery, a rust-like color. In addition, there was a layer of something like hoarfrost floating on the soil.
"There may be some kind of mineral salt under the ground in this valley."
Xu You also exclaimed, "I guess the salt from the deep water was brought up by these flowers and plants. That's why there is almost no grass growing here, but moss can still grow a little."
But this couldn't explain where those neatly-shaped rings of mud and sand came from. Xu You also touched the yellow mud and sand to taste it, but as soon as he stretched out his hand, he shrank back as if he had been electrocuted. There was actually a dying hermit crab clamped on his thumb, and it was bleeding on his fingertip.
This guy had thick skin and was not afraid of pain, but he glared after pinching the tiny hermit crab with his backhand.
The three of us looked at the little crab and were all a little puzzled.
This thing shouldn't appear in the mountains. There's not even a puddle of water around.
Seeing the crab's belly turning upside down and showing signs of mildew, Xu You touched its eyes but it didn't dodge. It looked like it was dying.
I finally slowed down and started to get suspicious. I stared at the back of the mountain people who were trying their best to lead the way, and whispered:
"Is there seawater underground?"
I said this so softly that I doubt anyone around me heard it, but at this moment I felt a secret joy and pride welling up in my heart.
At this point I have to say something off the topic. Taizi didn't notice it, but I moved my perspective and noticed in my peripheral vision that Zhang Tianyi, who was still a child, was in a state of confusion and quickly gave Xu You a signal look.
At this point, I paused and asked them what kind of lawsuit they were involved in at the time.
Xu You's answer was ridiculous. He said that Zhang Tianyi had asked him for a topographic map of the mountain that night and asked his men to secretly walk around and explore the route.
Then the next day, in fact, the two were mostly playing dumb, borrowing the known information to help Zhang Tianyi pretend to be a prophet. Taizi was very surprised by this "very hidden" fellow, and after struggling for a while, he was finally in sync with the tacit understanding of the two and nodded to agree to Zhang Tianyi's cooperation request.
But when entering the mountain that day, Xu You deliberately did not bring other guys with him in order to divert their attention and buy time to search the mountain and rescue people. He was severely surprised as soon as he entered the mountain.
Because those circular muds were not there when the guys went into the mountain in the dark to explore the bottom.
If you say that this is some kind of trick of the night, or that it appeared out of nowhere overnight, even a psychopath like Taiwanese would not believe it.
It seemed that the mountain folks were used to it and did not react to these unusual phenomena. They were just extremely dissatisfied and annoyed with the three men's insistence on going into the mountains alone.
But back to that moment, "I" who didn't know that the ring-shaped mud appeared suddenly was immersed in the joy of "using my brain" and "discovering something unexpectedly".
I didn't care that the villagers in front of me were walking faster and faster and getting more and more impatient. I said to Xu You and Zhang Tian as if no one was around, "I know. There is a secret passage underground that leads to the open sea or a saltwater lake. The soil here is so salty, it must have been soaked in sea water."
Zhang Tian looked at me and said silently: "This is inland."
I didn't understand what he meant by "I was illiterate". It was completely in my own logic and I grinned nervously.
"But, with so much spitted-up mud and salt circles, there must be a lot of holes and waterways underground." I had a lot to say. "If we leave these dense waterways in the mountains unattended, aren't we afraid of a large-scale landslide one day? Why was the quarry built behind this?"
A burly mountain man in front of me paused, turned around and looked at me gloomily. His eyes were dark.
"Master, what do you think these salt circles can be used for?"
If I were here, I would have noticed that this sentence was a precursor to an attack. But my brain was thinking in a different way. I was a little surprised and asked, "How would I know?" Then I lowered my head and thought carefully, and a smile appeared on my face:
"There's so much salt, it's perfect for preserving corpses!"
"If the water channel down there is straight and deep enough, you can put the unused people vertically down there from head to toe and let them surge, and you don't have to worry about them spoiling quickly."
I got an idea and gave an example, saying that vertical coffin burial has existed since ancient times, and the so-called dragonfly touching the water is a blessed place for tombs. Moreover, it is a coincidence that vertical tomb burials are often wooden or copper coffins, and the coffins are mostly box-shaped, and the pit mouth is bucket-shaped. The outer edge is a circle, and it looks like a ring.
Although the copper coffin requires a lot of minerals, isn't there a quarry here? Copper ore is not a rare subsidiary mine, so we can get enough, right?
Before he could finish his words, he heard the whistling of wind in his ears.
"——Master, you know too much."
I don't know when the mountain man had approached me, and the sickle in his hand, which he was using to clear the way and cut the grass, hit me directly in the face.
With a loud bang, the blood rushed up three or four meters high due to the high pressure of the human body.
Amidst the tearing pain, the mountain man's sickle was stuck on my face. He looked at me in shock, then suddenly screamed in fear and tried to pull it out.
I reached out and grabbed his arm tightly, and layers of peeling skin fell down from my face. The blood, the pain, the discomfort of being exposed to the sunny day, and the strong uneasiness made me utter a somewhat resentful sound for the first time.
"You've ruined at least four of my clothes."
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