Chapter 14 Deep Sea

According to Uncle Three, this statement was only half true—it was true in that the cloud cover really was bad, but the rest was a lie because he just wanted to scare Xie Lianhuan a little bit. Older siblings always try to scare their younger siblings, so I’m sure those who have a sibling can understand what Uncle Three was thinking at that time.  

But Xie Lianhuan was no fool—instead of reacting, he just sneered and stopped talking. In the end, Uncle Three was the one who made a fool of himself.

The reef was rather small, with only a few parts conspicuously sticking out of the water. They didn’t know the exact location of the cave entrance, but they figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to find. Xie Lianhuan continued rowing them forward while Uncle Three turned on the lantern they had brought with them. They entered the cluster of reefs and began searching them one by one, soon locating the cave entrance under a molar-shaped reef on the west side.

The entrance was wide enough to accommodate about two people while the cave itself seemed bottomless, as if it followed along the length of the reef. There were faint excavation marks on the rocks by the entrance, making it obvious that it hadn’t formed naturally. The entrance was a small depression hidden under the water at the base of the reef, so if you didn’t know about it in advance, you’d never be able to see it.

Uncle Three put on his diving equipment and prepared to enter, but Xie Lianhuan quickly stopped him, saying that it was better if Uncle Three stayed behind him—the route below was complicated, but he knew the way.

Uncle Three agreed that this made sense and didn’t bother arguing with him, so Xie Lianhuan swam into the entrance first, with Uncle Three following behind.

When they made it thirty meters into the cave, they realized that it actually was a naturally formed cavity in the reef. Coral was growing everywhere, embedded in the surrounding rock walls in staggered levels that made it look like they were swimming through a giant ribcage. The way the ends of the “ribcage” were fused with the surrounding rock made it look like countless strange starfish were stuck to the walls.

Diving in underwater caves was quite dangerous, but neither of them had any experience so they weren’t aware of the danger they were in. Without taking any precautions, they just kept swimming further inside.

After about ten minutes of swimming, Uncle Three eventually saw a fork in the path. As it turned out, the cave stretched throughout the entire reef like octopus tentacles, with passable openings everywhere. Some were so shallow that they could see the opposite wall as soon as they shined their flashlights in, while others were so terrifyingly large and bottomless that you could fit a liberation truck through them. There was no sunlight here, so hardly any sea anemones or coral could be seen. There were, however, many small colorful fish, starfish, and sea cucumbers, which made the cave seem more inhabited.

Following Xie Lianhuan, Uncle Three swam through this extremely large and complex reef cave system, feeling just like a mouse in a maze. In case something happened—and to have an ace up his sleeve—he started using his diving knife to carve marks at every intersection.

Half an hour later, they finally swam out of the reef cave. Uncle Three turned on his waterproof flashlight and swept it around the area, only to find that they hadn’t actually entered the ancient tomb yet. Instead, a strange place had appeared in front of them.

It looked like a huge deep pit had formed in the middle of the reef, with darkness surrounding it on all sides. He looked up and saw the coral reef hanging overhead, but when he pointed his flashlight beam down towards his feet, he found that he couldn’t see anything at all—it was like a deep abyss.

Even though it was frightening, so many years had passed since then that Uncle Three couldn’t remember all the details clearly. He talked about it for a long time, but I still couldn’t understand what kind of place it was, so I eventually found a piece of paper and told him to draw it for me.

Uncle Three’s drawing was so bad that it looked more like graffiti than an actual sketch, but it still helped clarify some things. With my imagination and Uncle Three’s explanation, I was gradually able to gain a better understanding of what he was talking about.

Based on my understanding, they ended up in large cave that was hidden inside the reef. As for the exact location, there was no way to verify it. The place where they entered was at the very top of the cave, and judging by how dark Uncle Three said it was below his feet—as if he had entered a black abyss—it seemed to be an impressively large cave.

When Uncle Three and Xie Lianhuan arrived there, they found that they had essentially reached a dead end—there was nothing in front or on either side of them. As they swept their flashlights around the cave, all they could see was a lot of white sea debris floating in the water, and the dark abyss below. The only clear point of reference in the otherwise dark cave was the reef behind them. In Uncle Three’s words, it was a bit like floating in outer space.

This kind of feeling was actually quite unpleasant because normally, no matter where you were, your flashlight would always illuminate something and at least give you a sense of your own existence. But in that undersea cave, the light of their flashlights illuminated nothing, leaving them surrounded by absolute darkness. They had no way of knowing if something was waiting for them up ahead, lurking in the darkness beyond.

By this point, they had consumed a lot of their oxygen. Cave diving was different from general diving in that oxygen consumption had to be strictly controlled. This was because enough oxygen had to be reserved for the return trip outside of the cave. To ensure there was enough left, divers had to check their oxygen gauges from time to time, which could cause quite a bit of psychological pressure.

But Xie Lianhuan didn’t appear too concerned. In fact, he seemed to have a plan in mind—after circling around in the water a few times, he actually motioned for Uncle Three to turn off his flashlight.

Without their flashlights, it would be pitch black all around. Uncle Three wondered what Xie Lianhuan was up to. Even with the flashlights on, they couldn’t find the way forward, yet he still wanted to turn them off?

Based on how insistent Xie Lianhuan was, though, it became obvious that this was one of the foreigner’s instructions. Uncle Three knew that he didn’t have any other choice, so he did as Xie Lianhuan asked and turned off his flashlight.

After the two flashlight beams disappeared, darkness washed over them like a pool of black ink. At the same time, a circle of luminous paint on the handles of their flashlights slowly started to glow, indicating their respective positions (this was to help divers find their flashlights if they dropped them while night diving).

Beside him, Xie Lianhuan was waving his flashlight like a pointer, silently telling Uncle Three to look at something.

When Uncle Three looked, he could vaguely make out a large mass of glowing green dots in the dark depths beneath his feet. They almost looked like the eyes of a group of creatures that were slowly moving in the water below.

Uncle Three felt his heart thump, and he suddenly became nervous—he had heard many fishermen say that all kinds of strange creatures could be found in the sea. Were these green eyes some creature lurking in the dark depths below?

Thinking about it, his hand instinctively moved towards his knife, but at this time, Xie Lianhuan suddenly waved his flashlight a few times. Then, the glowing circle began to move towards the group of green dots below.

Uncle Three cursed to himself. Despite his usual carefree attitude, he was actually very cautious when out on a job. Yet here Xie Lianhuan was, recklessly rushing forward like that. But Xie Lianhuan clearly knew what those dots were, and was signaling Uncle Three to follow him.

It was the same old story—no matter how annoyed Uncle Three was, he didn’t have any other choice but to keep following his cousin.

Diving without any light while following a faint glowing circle made him feel like he was either going blind or merging with the cold darkness around him. Uncle Three had experienced this uncomfortable feeling before when he was underground, but feeling it while underwater made him feel even more uneasy.

The mass of green dots was getting closer and closer, but because the light was too weak, it was still impossible to tell what it was. As the two men approached, Uncle Three was horrified to find that the dots were not only moving, but moving at a fast pace. The idea that they were a group of sea creatures suddenly became much stronger than before.

But Xie Lianhuan didn’t seem to realize this and kept rushing after them. Soon, the two men were hovering more than thirty meters above the green dots. Uncle Three’s fear reached its limit, and he rushed over and grabbed Xie Lianhuan to prevent him from getting any closer.

Xie Lianhuan, not understanding what was going on, was shocked by the abrupt action and also stopped.

Uncle Three and Xie Lianhuan started waving their flashlights around, trying to talk to each other, but neither could understand what the other was trying to say.

Uncle Three was so annoyed that he was tempted to turn on his flashlight and explain things clearly, but his fear of being so close to those strange dots kept him from doing so—if they turned out to be a shark or some other dangerous sea creature, then turning on the flashlight would destroy the two men’s chances of escape.

While anxiously wondering how to get Xie Lianhuan to understand what he was saying, a white light suddenly pierced the surrounding darkness—Xie Lianhuan had turned on his flashlight. Obviously, the other man got fed up with the situation and wanted to know why Uncle Three was holding him back.

Startled, Uncle Three hurriedly blocked the light with his hand and looked down.

In the darkness below, a white human-shaped object wrapped in tattered gauze could faintly be seen in the flashlight’s glow. As Uncle Three’s eyes adjusted to the light and he was finally able to see the thing clearly, he felt all of his hair stand on end.

As it turned out, it was an ancient corpse suspended in the water. It had been placed in a strange pose, its facial features were indistinct, and the white gauze wrapped around its body was floating in the water, making it look like some kind of huge jellyfish or flower from the underworld.

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