Endless Road of Corpse - C63
Five months and seven days ago.
The three of us stood at the top of the mountain, staring at the brightly lit egg-shaped building. As the sky darkened, its transparent dome became brighter and the shadows inside became more and more conspicuous. The massive Boeing 777 slowly revealed itself like a ghost in the night.
“Yes …” that plane…? ” I swallowed hard.
San Mao was so shocked that he could not speak, and could only nod his head mechanically. On the contrary, Mao Tou didn’t know about the situation nor why we were so shocked.
“Do you still want to go down?” After staring blankly for a long while, Mao Tou finally could not hold back and said.
“You f * cking found me a path!” San Mao regained his senses, he pointed at the cliff and bellowed: You still say you aren’t messing with us?
Mao Tou smiled sinisterly, bent down, and began to grope around the edge of the cliff. After a while, I heard the sound of metal clanging against metal. “Clangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclangclanging.”
“Found it!” Mao Tou cheered softly. We went over to take a look and saw Mao Tou pulling a chain that was as thick as an adult’s arm, leading him straight into the depths of the pitch black cliff.
“Damn, what is this?” San Mao squatted down and stuck his head out of the cliff to have a look, while smacking his teeth at the flower, he said, “Is this smuggling, or is this drug trafficking?”
“Of course not …” Mao Tou laughed and replied, “These are for gathering medicinal herbs, Dendrobium!”
“Dendrobium?” The Daoist originally stood a meter away from the cliff, but after hearing Mao Tou’s words, he became interested and also walked over. He bent down in an exaggerated manner, almost lying on the ground, and only peeked out of the cliff to look around.
“Wild?”
“En!” Mao Tou nodded his head and said: “There is no need to grow them here, all those years ago, our village relied on this cliff and lived a good life.”
“That’s …” The Daoist lied on the ground like a chick pecking at rice as he nodded his head, “The wild Dendrobium is almost extinct, its price is even higher than wild ginseng!”
“Back then, the villagers said that they …” Mao Tou pointed to the glowing egg-shaped building and said, “Why did you set up this base? It’s because of this, you have to harvest Dendrobium to extend the old leader’s life!”
“Right!” Mao Tou suddenly turned his head and said to me: “It’s written on this book, every time it’s a Feng Shui Treasure, there will be a heavenly resource appearing. Isn’t this the evidence of an ancient tomb?”
“Ugh …” I was immediately speechless. I thought to myself, ‘This dwarf is really obsessed with robbing tombs. He changed the topic and said, “I can’t even get down that chain. There’s no other way!”
“There’s a way, there’s a way …” Mao Tou quickly complied, and just as he finished speaking, he jumped off the cliff.
Ah!” The three of us simultaneously let out exclamations of surprise, I immediately stuck my head out to look, only to see Mao Tou floating one or two feet under the cliff, laughing at us.
“Fuck you!” San Mao grabbed a stone and threw it towards Mao Tou. Mao Tou dodged and then used his legs to rub on the cliff beside the iron chains.
Following his movements, the moss on the cliff started to peel off, slowly revealing a shallow notch. San Mao placed one leg into the groove to stabilize his body, and then started to kick the other side of the cliff. Immediately, the other side of the groove revealed itself.
“Come on, it’s a good trip!” Mao Tou called out to us softly after he went down for a while. At this moment, his figure was already covered by the darkness of the night. We could only hear the sound of him kicking against the rock wall.
“How is it?” I swallowed a mouthful of saliva. My heart was beating like a drum, this road of iron chains looked extremely dangerous, plus the night was dark and the fires were dim, what was even more unpredictable was that no one had maintained this chain for many years. Who knows if it would be able to support the weight of the few of us who had already rusted and loosened.
“They’re already here, what else can they do? Just go down, it would be your life if you fell to your death!” San Mao was the same as him and did not take it seriously at all.
“Ah …” “No!” The Daoist Priest on the other hand, retreated. He who was originally lying on the ground, upon hearing San Mao’s words, uncontrollably twisted his body and shrank back like a lizard crawling on the ground.
“How about… “I’ll cover you guys here …” The Taoist pushed himself a few meters away from the cliff and stammered, “I …” I… There is fear of heights! ”
“I’m afraid of your head!” San Mao went over and grabbed the Daoist by the collar, and growled in a hoarse voice, “Then return the money for yesterday’s Big Health Care!”
The Daoist man’s face turned green. It was unknown whether he was afraid of heights or of money, but he could not help but let out a cold breath. After a while, he sighed and said, “Am I not good enough?”
Only then did San Mao let go of his collar, patted his back and said, “This is what you call a brother!”
I heaved a sigh of relief. Although the Taoist looked petty and petty, he was the one who understood the most. If he didn’t go in with us, I’m afraid we would lose our sight of him in many places.
I nodded and said to them: “I’m afraid that this Chain will take too long, and it won’t be able to hold our weight. I will go down first, and when I reach the ground, I will shake the chain, and then take it out.
The two of them nodded in agreement.
I walked to the edge of the cliff, crouched low, and looked down. It was dark beneath the cliff, and the chains, reflecting the faint light of the stars, shimmered in the darkness, leading straight down into the unfathomable darkness.
I took a deep breath, turned my body upside down, and put my legs down first. After half a day, I could only feel the indentation of the upper part of my body, which could only be placed into the sole of my foot. After stabilizing my body, I grabbed onto the metal chain and let my upper body leave the cliff face.
Watching someone else climb and being in it were two completely different experiences. Humans have a natural fear of things that could threaten them, such as beasts, snakes, water, and heights. For the first few meters, the genes within my body that have lasted for millions of years roared at me — Quickly! Get out of there! Danger! My body crazily secretes adrenaline, which makes my heart beat like a F1 racing engine. I’m breathing heavily, my limbs are trembling, and every next step is a challenge to my instincts.
After I climbed down for a few minutes, my mind and body gradually got used to it. I started to grasp the key points of the climb, from shakily holding onto the metal chain for half a day before I took a step down to climbing in a rhythmic fashion, I even had the intention of looking around. I saw clusters of orchids and slender grass growing from the crevices between the cliffs, little stars with purple and white flowers blooming on them.
In this darkness, I felt that the cliff seemed to be endless, stretching all the way down to the netherworld. Gradually, my arm started to burn like fire, my thighs started to spasm, and my body started to become weak, and just when I wanted to stop to rest for a while, my foot that was extended downwards stepped on empty air, and the groove that was following the chain all the way down disappeared!
I hastily withdrew my feet and looked down while holding onto the chain. The chain in my hand was nailed into a rock wall not far from my feet. Further down, it was pitch-black and I could no longer see anything.
Was this the end? In my heart, I thought that once this chain was discovered by the garrison and cut off from the middle, if it was the latter, I would no longer have the stamina to climb up again. What about Mao Tou? This fellow couldn’t be luring us here on purpose to kill us for our wealth, right? I curled up on the cliff, all sorts of bad guesses rushing in. I wanted to shout for Mao Tou, but I was afraid of summoning patrols.
“Jump!” Just as I was unable to advance or retreat, I heard Mao Tou calling out to me with an extremely low voice beneath my feet. I looked down again and saw that it was still an unfathomably deep pitch black.
“Jump!” Mao Tou said again: “It’s very low!”
I hesitated for a while, thinking that it was impossible to go up anyway, so I steeled my heart and leaped!
In fact, my altitude was much lower than I expected. I was like a person who walked down the stairs in the dark. I originally expected to be on the first step, but in reality, I had already reached the bottom. I got up from the ground and walked over to the chain. I reached out my hand to touch it, and when I touched it, it was only about two meters off the ground. I shook the chain, and after a while there was a slight vibration on the chain, and I knew it was coming down.
This is because when I tiptoed, I was able to touch his legs. This allowed him to relieve the greatest fear of the unknown in his heart, so that San Mao was even more at ease. When he landed, he didn’t even bother to squat on his butt.
We only saw a milky white halo in the distance. When I looked back at the cliff, it was already so dark that I couldn’t see the top of it, and the metal chain was also hidden in the darkness, so I didn’t know what ingenious arrangement it had made so that I wouldn’t be discovered when we were developing the base. I shook my head and pointed ahead, saying, “Let’s go!”