Chapter 5.15 Salt (Extra)

I was wearing a headlamp, which I felt was the most suitable for cave exploration among all the lighting devices I had used before. Although it couldn’t light that far ahead, it moved in sync with my head. The only problem was that it was easy to go blind if two people talked face to face.

“Don’t look at me” often became our mantra.

After Poker-Face went down, we tied a pulley to the rope and hung all the equipment on it. We would use the rope to go down, and use the pulley to lower the equipment once we reached the bottom. Like this, we wouldn’t have to bear a heavy load and could save our energy.

Fatty was the second one to go down. The stone tunnel wasn’t straight, but had enough of a slope that it was like a slide. It was clear to see that it had been artificially cut, but this slide was very long and there were a lot of sharp protrusions sticking out of it. If we lost control while sliding down, then we would be shredded into minced meat. As a result, we stepped on these protrusions very carefully, preferring to go down like we were rock climbing.

After going down for more than ten minutes, the fish ladder was completely dark. During all my explorations, I had always hated groping around in dark and narrow spaces. Being unable to move freely made me feel very anxious. The stone tunnel here was only as wide as a forearm was long, which made me feel very uneasy. Lei Benchang was experiencing this process for the first time, and I could see that he was breathing harder and his hands and feet were shaking.

After coming in, I knew why Poker-Face told us not to talk. He was listening to the airflow, which was weak but turbulent in the stone passage. The wind was whistling slightly as it blew through the stone passage and ruffled our hair.

I listened carefully to it, trying to see if I could gain some information from it. As I listened, I could hear some small movements that weren’t from the wind. I really didn’t know what they were, but Poker-Face was completely absorbed.

We continued climbing down silently and found a place to rest. Poker-Face had stopped tiptoeing around and started to make noise again. We ate some bacon and started talking amongst ourselves.

“Have you ever thought about how we’ll get up later?” Fatty asked. “It looks like we’ll have to spend the Lantern Festival (1) down here. This isn’t a good sign, you know. Definitely not a good sign.”

“Shit, why didn’t you say that when you took the job?” I scolded him. My headlamp was shining on the rock wall, and I could see a lot of traces of where it had been eroded by water. The wall was colored in various degrees of gray and I couldn’t help but wonder about the water. Where did the water in this fish ladder go? Based on our current position, we were already far below that deep pool’s water level. If the water systems were interlinked, then why was there no water here?

I touched the rocks and tried to find a trace of water vapor on the surface, but it was dry. The only moisture was coming from the humid air.

Fatty showed a very pleased expression as he looked up at me. “You know, when I see you paying attention to the details, I really feel safe.”

I rubbed my fingers and found that the rock dust on the wall was very dry. In any case, it shouldn’t have been as dry as it was. “Why?” I asked him.

“Because you went to college. It’s better to observe things from different angles, after all.” Fatty said while gasping for breath. He was already covered in a sweat.

College. The off-topic conversation gave me a sudden flash of inspiration. I had recently been thinking about what I should do, but I never thought about going back to school.

I had a very uncomfortable time studying back then, so I never thought about going back after I graduated. But now that I thought about it, it was a good idea to take the two of them to college. At least there were some things to do, and it could give them more chances to understand the world. And it wasn’t like they’d retire for half a year and then have to climb underground again. With Fatty’s character, he’d definitely be willing to go to a place where there was an abundance of female students.

But this passage was too dry, and really didn’t look like a stone tunnel in the mountains. Was it really a fish ladder leading to an underground lake?

We put down our equipment and placed the pulley in the resting position in case the rope was used up. I had a sudden whim as I looked at my fingers and lay down on the rock and licked it.

“Wow, Mr. Naïve, you pervert. What are you doing?” Fatty asked angrily.

I smacked my lips and found that the rock was very salty.

“It’s salt.” I said. The rock here contained salt.

Fujian’s sea salt was very developed, so no one cared about the small salt mines in the mountains. Was there a salt layer in the rock strata here?

As I thought that, I licked it again. Lei Benchang found my movements odd, but he also copied me and licked it. Fatty licked it too, and then quickly spit it out.

Interesting, I said to myself. I probably had a few theories I could come up with. I used to have little control and would spout them off like a frog suddenly jumping out. It used to bug me, but now I kept these thoughts to myself. I knew that I could really gain a lot of information as long as there was another clue, so I wouldn’t worry about it now.

We continued our descent for another three hours before a large area of rock clusters began to appear. When I broke one off, I found that it was also salt. Under the illumination of our headlamps, these salt clusters glowed as bright as gems.

This was a salt mine.

If this underground area was in this kind of geological state, then the lake below may not be a fresh water lake. But the pools in the mountains were all fresh water.

A theory was starting to form in my head, but at this moment, I felt like something was wrong. My stomach began to ache, which meant that there were bad impurities in the salt.

I clutched my stomach and endured it for more than ten minutes, but my face turned pale as the cramps increased. Should I do it right here on the slope? But if it rolled down, Fatty and Poker-Face would get a face full of it. All my hard work over the past ten years would be for naught.

Maybe I had a terrible expression on my face, because Lei Benchang asked me what happened. I waved my hand. As both an expert and leader, I had to solve this problem myself. And it had to be a very sophisticated solution, too.

<Extra 5.14> <Table of Contents><Extra 5.16>

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TN Notes:

(1) Celebrated on the 15^th day of the first Chinese lunar month, the Lantern Festival traditionally marks the end of the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) period

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Oh God, I’m having flashbacks to Li Cu and Sand Sea. Don’t do it Wu Xie! Hold it like your life depends on it!

Or maybe we’ll be seeing this next chapter lol: