Chapter 33 Journey to the Center of the Earth
We took a taxi from the hotel into the mountains. The road was full of sharp bends, and the two of us in the back seat were being tossed around like on a pendulum, sometimes touching the left door and sometimes crashing into the right door.
Actually, if she hadn't felt so nauseous, Jian Zhen would probably have quite enjoyed this unexpected intimate contact.
However, she used all her willpower to grit her teeth and had no mind to think about anything else. Besides, it was colder on the mountain than in the city. Both of them zipped up their windbreakers all the way up, and the sound of the hard shells hitting each other was like two plastic awnings rubbing against each other.
When they reached the halfway point of the mountain, the taxi driver dropped them off on the roadside and turned back to the village, telling them not to worry before leaving, as this was the location designated by the tour guide.
"How can you trust him so much? What if he's lying to us?" Xu Weisheng asked, looking pale as he carried the large bags he and Jian Zhen carried.
Jian Zhen was too preoccupied to answer the question. She stood by the grassy slope, bent over, and leaned on her knees. She vomited with a "whoosh," and while vomiting, she gestured to Xu Weisheng to turn away and not look.
Xu Weisheng's stomach was churning violently, but Jian Zhen was afraid he would see it, yet he insisted on going over to watch the spectacle. He craned his neck to take a peek and said cheekily, "Isn't this the edamame topping from the noodles this morning..."
As soon as he finished speaking, he couldn't hold it in any longer and turned his head to vomit violently.
The two stood a meter apart, vomiting violently side by side. They only stopped after vomiting all the food in their stomachs and intestines, and each held a bottle of mineral water and gulped down their mouths.
Jian Zhen's voice was hoarse from the stomach acid, and she said in a hoarse voice, "There are a lot of bamboos down there."
“Wherever there are valleys, there are bamboo forests.” Xu Weisheng was so nauseous he could barely speak, but he still insisted on mocking her: “So you admit you’re a naive northerner who’s never seen the world?”
"Hehe." Jian Zhen was too lazy to argue with him and asked softly, "Is Pingping a bamboo viper?"
"Possibly, after all, it's a story set a thousand years ago, so there's no need to go too far into the current distribution. But compared to the distribution of species, there's one thing that definitely hasn't changed."
"What?" Jian Zhen turned to look at him.
“Erect the grave on a shady hillside.” Xu Weisheng raised a finger and gestured behind him. Jian Zhen turned around following his finger and saw a cluster of tombstones of varying heights on the hillside, most of them hidden in the shade of the trees.
She watched quietly, her face showing none of the fear Xu Weisheng had imagined.
"Aren't you afraid?" Xu Weisheng asked in surprise.
"What's there to be afraid of?" Jian Zhen glanced at it disdainfully, then took unsteady steps toward the tombstone.
The Jiangnan region is prosperous, and farmers in the mountains also attach great importance to the ritual of funerals. The tombstones are built to be sturdy and heavy, and the surrounding bases are all made of cement, making them flat and clean.
This was probably the communal dwelling place for the deceased villagers. To make it easier for the living to visit, a small stone staircase was specially laid up the hillside. Jian Zhen walked up the small stone staircase, briefly browsing the life stories of several people from the last century. Then she turned around and came down, only to find Xu Weisheng waiting for her at the bottom of the stone staircase.
"Are there ghosts in the world of 'The Hundred Demon Records'?" she asked.
"No, but the world-building dictates that a grave is a place where a person's soul can temporarily reside after death. The duration of this stay depends on the individual's connection to the real world, ranging from one or two days to five or ten years. During this time, the soul can communicate with other members of its kind and with fairies."
“That’s interesting.” Jian Zhen jumped down the last two steps, and looking back at the tombstones, she said, “These souls that could vanish at any moment must be Pingping’s first friends, right?”
"Oh?" Before the main story even started, Xu Weisheng already felt that this trip was worth the price of admission. Jian Zhen completely immersed herself in the plot. She used her eyes to observe the world that Pingping lived in, constantly enriching the details of Pingping's actions.
She has an innate ability to empathize with fictional characters and to find the highlights in the mundane. These are essential qualities for a qualified creator. I was right about her; she was born to make animation.
"The tour guide is here." Jian Zhen heard the sound of a car.
A white SUV sped up, rounded a bend to reveal itself, drove straight past the two men, then turned back a few seconds later and stopped uncertainly in front of them. A dark-skinned, lean, and muscular young man leaned out of the window and asked, "Are you the ones exploring the cave today?"
The cave is named White Pagoda. Unlike the caves that most people imagine in the mountains, White Pagoda Cave requires you to go down from the mountainside to the valley floor and find a downward entrance. At first, the space is wide and flat, but the further you go, the more the light disappears and the space narrows. Before you know it, you are no longer walking on wet soil, but on the narrow Huarong Road, which is only wide enough for one person to pass sideways.
"Teacher Xiaobai, how much further ahead is it?" Jian Zhen had two quickshoes tied around her waist, her toes touching the wet rock wall, feeling for any hollows or protrusions she could use for support.
"It's still early." Guide Xiaobai led the way. He was very young, but he had a lot of experience exploring caves. According to him, this was the "simplest and least strenuous" route in the White Pagoda Cave.
Jian Zhen was on the verge of tears. She didn't know how many meters underground they were, only that there was no signal, no sunlight, and... no trace of life.
"Xu Weisheng." Jian Zhen turned around, her headlamp shining on Xu Weisheng's shoulder as he covered her rear. She said mournfully, "Go back and change that stupid setting of you coming out of a cave. There aren't even any living creatures in this cave, let alone snakes."
No sooner had she finished speaking than a dark, unidentified creature fluttered out from behind her.
"There are still some," Xu Weisheng joked. "How about changing Pingping to a bat spirit?"
"No." Jian Zhen felt a chill run down her spine just thinking about the bat's appearance and decisively refused: "Too ugly."
"Be careful, don't just chat!" Xiaobai reminded them from ahead, "It's slippery up ahead, make sure your fasteners are properly secured, or you might really sink!"
I didn't know it would be like this before I came!
Jian Zhen complained that she hadn't done her research thoroughly and had signed up for the caving project on a whim. Now she couldn't back out, and no matter how scared she was, she had no choice but to grit her teeth and keep going.
"Did you hear the sound of water?" Xu Weisheng stepped on the spot where she had just moved her foot, covering her climbing route.
"I heard that." Jian Zhen couldn't laugh, and could only give a forced response to his question: "There's an underground river."
If it falls in and gets swept away by the water, even a god couldn't find it.
"Almost there, keep going! We'll be able to get it up ahead and hang it up and walk!" Xiaobai's voice echoed in the cave.
Jian Zhen didn't know how far "ahead" he was referring to was. Right now, what was blocking her way was a large, protruding rock. Its presence created an acute angle to the path on the cliff face. Only by crossing this rock and turning to the other side could she see Xiao Bai ahead.
She removed a quickdraw and tried to attach it to the next section of rope, but it was too long to hang up. After several failed attempts, she had to change her mind and decided to turn her body around first before attaching the quickdraw.
"Don't rush." Xu Weisheng saw that she was tense all over, and his tone became serious.
"Hmm." At this moment, Jian Zhen only wanted to get out of the world alive and see the light as soon as possible. Her attention was focused on her hands and feet. She gripped the rope tightly and stretched out her left leg to test the foothold.
After about half a minute, Jian Zhen still hadn't found a place to put her foot down. She was getting a little anxious. She shuffled her right foot forward, trying to give her left leg more room to explore. Just then, her right toe slipped, and her legs suddenly left the rock wall. Her body lost its support and she felt weightless for a moment.
It's actually very difficult for a person to shout or scream when under extreme tension. For a moment, Jian Zhen thought she was going to die. If she were to unfortunately perish, her last words would be a soft, short "Ah—" coming from her throat.
Even Xiaobai didn't hear the call, but Xu Weisheng's voice reached his ears, making his heart clench.
Xu Weisheng: "It's okay! I'll pull you up!"
Jian Zhen looked up. She hadn't yet fallen into the pitch-black hole. She was relying entirely on another quickdraw around her waist. One end of the quickdraw was fastened to a sturdy rope, and the other end was tightly wrapped around her waist and thighs, suspending her in the air with her head tilted back.
"What's wrong!" Xiaobai's voice echoed and mingled with the sound of the underground river.
"Give me your hand," Xu Weisheng said softly, extending a hand to her.
Jian Zhen had never been suspended by wires before and did not know that when you are suspended, it is difficult to control your limbs. Her will to survive forced her to desperately raise her arms, but the more she tried, the more the taut rope around her waist resisted her, making it impossible for her to exert any strength.
"It's okay, keep going, just a little bit more." Xu Weisheng kept encouraging her. The two got a little closer, but their fingertips were still half a palm's distance apart, and they could never get close.
A few minutes later, Jian Zhen's shoulders and arms were already at their limit of soreness and fatigue. Maybe she should just give up. A terrifying thought popped into her mind: everyone has to die eventually, and dying here would be a novel experience.
The moment the thought crossed her mind, her arms began to tremble, and she looked like she was about to fall.
"Jian Zhen!" Xu Weisheng shouted her full name. In his haste, he took the initiative to untie one of his two quickdraws, grabbed the quickdraw rope at his waist with one hand, and reached down with the other.
Jian Zhen was so angry at him that tears streamed down her face, but it seemed as if a new force was injected into her back, supporting her to lift her upper body and reach upwards.
Snap! Xu Weisheng grabbed her hands; they were two wet palms covered in dirty mud from the rocks.
Xu Weisheng pulled her up, his voice still trembling: "Step here."
Jian Zhen, with tears streaming down her face, didn't bother to wipe them away. She hung up the other quick-release clip first, and when she looked back, Xu Weisheng had already finished hanging it up as well.
Xiao Bai, having returned from who-knows-where, circled around from the other side of the rock and saw that they were still there. He breathed a sigh of relief and apologized, "Sorry, I'll walk closer to you from now on. Come on, step here."
Ten minutes later, we finally escaped from that treacherous cliff and arrived at the "flat ground" that Xiaobai had mentioned—a world of stalactites, with countless stalactites that had grown over millions of years hanging about three or four meters above our heads.
Xiao Bai shone the flashlight around, and after confirming it was safe, he took out his phone and said, "Let me take a picture of you. You can turn off your headlamps."
"Huh? Okay then..."
The two turned off their headlamps, plunging the surroundings into absolute darkness. The next second, Xiaobai's flashlight, which he had placed on the ground, became a light source, passing by their feet and separating them on opposite sides.
"Stand closer!" Xiaobai urged.
Xu Weisheng was still hesitating when Jian Zhen suddenly stepped to the side and touched his shoulder. The backs of their hands, which were hanging at their sides, touched together. Jian Zhen then decisively grabbed his hand.
"Wow—" Xu Weisheng turned to look at her in surprise. This scene was captured by Xiao Bai's camera, and he took many more pictures, loudly asking the two of them if they wanted to change their pose.
Xu Weisheng moved his arm, but Jian Zhen thought he was going to pull away, so she immediately gripped his hand tighter. He heard Jian Zhen take a breath and say in a trembling voice, "Let's hold hands a little longer!"
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