Chapter 033
Shimen Yihshyong
Yihshyong, Jenqyih, and Shannchyuan were already standing right in front of the wide-open door of the underground passage. They put drinking water and first aid kits in one corner of the room. While they would bring the kerosene pressure lanterns into the underground passage. Yihshyong and Jenqyih, besides carrying flashlights, each carried a kerosene pressure lantern, while Shannchyuan only carried a flashlight.
"Are you ready?" The question slipped out of Shannchyuan's mouth just before they entered the passage.
Yihshyong and Jenqyih nodded quickly. Shannchyuan invited Jenqyih and Yihshyong to first step into the dark alley. After the three passed through the door, Shannchyuan locked the door from inside the passage.
"Eh?" Yihshyong exclaimed.
"I don't want anyone else going into the cellar under our backyard while we are exploring this passage."
Jenqyih and Yihshyong nodded.
I'm sure the person who had been wandering around in this passageway must have gone a long way. But there's nothing wrong with being more careful.
Wasting no time, the three walked down the dark passage deeper. Jenqyih walked in the front. Shannchyuan was in the middle, and Yihshyong was in the back. Slowly, they moved forward. A moment later, they came to a very sharp bend. The bend led to the right. Jenqyih carefully passed the bend. Shortly after disappearing behind the bend, Jenqyih reappeared in front of them.
"Nothing suspicious," said Jenqyih briefly.
How is it possible that Jenqyih could carefully examine the passage ahead in such a short time?
"Let's continue our journey." Shannchyuan smiled. He immediately stepped forward.
"Wait a minute!" Yihshyong said in a low voice.
"What is it?" Shannchyuan, once again, stopped walking.
"Look at that!" Yihshyong shone his flashlight at the wall of the hallway around the bend.
"Jenqyih! Let's stop here first." Shannchyuan's tone was unyielding. He also highlighted the wall there.
"What is it?" Jenqyih approached them.
"Didn't you see this earlier?" Yihshyong pointed at the hallway wall.
Jenqyih looked very surprised to see the strange writings on the wall. "Sorry, Dahge, I was too focused on the front. So I didn't pay attention to the walls of this hallway."
"It's okay," Shannchyuan said. "I didn't notice either. It's a good thing our Yihshyong this time is sharp-eyed."
The three of them noticed the scribbles on the wall. For Yihshyong, it was just doodles. But he was sure that Shannchyuan and Jenqyih must have had a different opinion.
"What do you think?" Shannchyuan was still shining his flashlight at the wall.
"I do not know." Jenqyih shook her head. "I've never seen anything like it."
"I know that you must be very eager to research this. But, this time, we have something else to do," Shannchyuan said.
Jenqyih nodded. "I understand."
"Let's continue our journey again." Shannchyuan gave the command.
They all passed from the bend. After that, they encountered a winding passage. Yihshyong, who was the last to walk, tried to estimate the distance they were then, from the underground room in their backyard.
"How far have we walked?" Yihshyong finally asked after his head heated because he wasn't sure of his own ability to make predictions.
"According to my calculations, we've walked about two hundred and fifty to three hundred meters since departing from the dungeon earlier. But because this passage is so winding, I don't really know how far this place is from that room." Jenqyih's voice sounded so sure.
Shannchyuan, who was walking behind Jenqyih, said nothing. The three of them continued walking with great vigilance.
"Stop!" Jenqyih suddenly shouted loudly. He stopped walking.
"What is it?" Yihshyong was worried that they would have to face an obstacle so quickly.
"The passage in front of us is a little wider than the one we've been through." Jenqyih's tone sounds a little different from before.
Shannchyuan advanced ahead of Jenqyih. He shone his flashlight around the place. "This is the confluence of two passages," said Shannchyuan. "So, if we walk from the direction of the wider hallway, then we encounter a branching passage. The one to the right leads to a dungeon in our backyard. While the one to the left leads to an unknown place. Which one we should check? The one that forks to the left or the slightly wider passage?"
"I think the left branch of the passage leads to the dungeon in someone else's backyard. Probably this wider passage leading to the exit." Yihshyong was very excited when he said those words.
"I agree with Shyongge," Jenqyih said. "I think we should check these two passages. But right now, our priority is to find a way out. This wider passage makes more sense."
"Alright, let's explore this wider passage," said Shannchyuan.
The three of them walked down the wider passage. Their position was the same as before. Jenqyih in the front, Shannchyuan in the middle, and Yihshyong in the back. Unlike the previous passage, the passage they were going through didn't have many turns, and the distance was relatively short. About a hundred meters from the fork, they had arrived at the end. Cautiously, Jenqyih stopped at the end of the passage. Shannchyuan once again got ahead of Jenqyih. He walked into the room at the end of the passage.
The room behind the end of the passage was large. Wider than the dungeon in their backyard. Since it was spacious, it might be more appropriate if they called the room a hall. The hall was in the shape of a hexagon. On each side was a door leading to another passage. The door was just an empty hole. There were no doors that separated the hall from the passages behind. So a total of six doors in the hall. A large circular stone about eighty or ninety centimeters in diameter was located right in the center of the room. The boulder was about half a meter high. The surface of the stone is flat. Yihshyong and his friends immediately drew near to the big rock.
"At close range, this rock looks like a huge bench." Jenqyih shone his flashlight on the rock face. "There's no way this is a table."
Maybe this is a bench. A giant stone bench. Sometimes, the simple thing is the answer we have searched for so hard.
"This is very much like the situation in the ancient stories in the novels I used to read when I was a teenager." Yihshyong stretched out his hand. He rubbed the surface of the stone bench.
Jenqyih laughed. "You mean fantasy adventure stories that tell of the existence of the secret underground passages?"
"Yes. But I don't mean just a secret passage. More specifically, the scene or the part where the story's main characters went underground and found large, heavy objects."
"Like this big stool?" Shannchyuan asked.
"Yes. Like a bench this size or the stone table in the basement of our backyard. I've read a few stories whose scenes are similar to the situation we're in now. The authors of the stories never explained how large and heavy objects, such as this stone bench, got underground. How do people get it down? Then how to bring it all the way to this hall? It was impossible to transport a rock of this size by hand alone. There must have been certain tools that people used to move this stone here. To be able to load stones of this size, the tools they use must be huge. The problem is, tools that are so big obviously can't fit in the passages we've been through."
Shannchyuan nodded. He then inched away from the stone bench. He highlighted the door holes in the hall wall.
"They never explain that in their books?" Jenqyih half laughed when he asked the question.
"Never! Maybe they couldn't explain it themselves either. So they left it entirely to the imagination of the readers."
"I'm sure there are also authors who have really thought about everything related to the background from the location and settings in the scenes in their books," said Jenqyih.
"Indeed, I have heard that there are also one or two authors who explain in great detail to readers. But usually, readers cannot read their lengthy explanations."
"You mean the editors cut that stuff down because they thought it's verbose and unimportant?"
"I guess so. Not all readers hate that sort of thing. There are also some readers, like me, who want everything explained."
"Dahge, what do you think?" Jenqyih turned to Shannchyuan.
"About what? About the events in the fantasy novel? Or about the events we're going through?" Shannchyuan asked back.
"About this boulder that seems to serve as a bench. How did people put it here?" Jenqyih asked while drawing a big question mark in the air.
"To be honest, I don't know either," Shannchyuan replied with a laugh. "There are always things that are really hard to explain."
After saying that, Shannchyuan approached the stone bench. Yihshyong and Jenqyih followed behind him. He then sat down on the large stone bench. His two friends, without hesitation, also followed what he was doing.
Shannchyuan rested his butt on one part of the stone bench. "Besides the passage we came from, there are five other passages here. We don't have enough time to explore all those passages. Which one do you think we should enter?" As he asked, he shone his flashlight again into the halls on each side of the hexagon.
Yihshyong and Jenqyih did not immediately reply. They looked at each other.
"It's up to Dahge." After about five seconds of silence, Jenqyih finally spoke up, while Yihshyong just nodded.
"Then we'll choose the one in the opposite direction from the one we came from earlier," said Shannchyuan.
Dahge must have just randomly guessed. There's no point in asking about the reason behind this guess.
The three of them got up from the bench right away. Walk towards the hallway whose entrance was directly opposite the entrance of the hallway they came from. Just like the previous passage, it was also quite wide. Even though the passage's entrance was only a hole that was one meter wide, the inside was wider, which was about two meters. With the hallway's ceiling height of about three meters, they could even swing without constraint. They could hold their hands up high without worrying about touching the ceiling. In fact, if they wanted to, they could also freely jump around in the hallway. But of course, they didn't do that. At least not that time. Maybe someday, when the situation and conditions they felt were more relaxed.
The passage was very long. Besides winded, the surface's contours of the path fluctuated. Luckily, they weren't carrying heavy things. Almost twenty minutes later, they arrived at the end of the hall. Yihshyong breathed a sigh of relief. But soon, he realized that perhaps something else was waiting for them there. Things that were most likely no less surprising than the things they had already experienced.
The end of the passage was like a dead end. There was nothing on the wall in front of them. Shannchyuan highlighted the walls to the left and right at the end of the passage. There was also nothing there. Shannchyuan then took a few steps back. He highlighted the walls on the right and left, a few meters from the end of the hallway.
On the wall to the right, about two meters from the end of the hallway hung a metal candle holder. Not very high, only about a meter and a half from the surface they were on. There was no candle attached to the candleholder. Shannchyuan shone the candleholder with the flashlight he brought with him. Even though there were no candles there, the candle holder looked quite clean. It seemed that someone had touched it often.
Shannchyuan turned off the flashlight and put it in his trouser pocket. "Please point your flashlights at this chandelier." Having said that, he stretched out his hand. He fumbled for the metal candle holder. After fumbling for about half a minute, he tried to move it. It turned out that Shannchyuan could tilt the candleholder to the left. After he tilted the candle holder about fifteen degrees, suddenly, there was a very subtle rumbling sound. It was more like a hum. The left wall, which was about two meters from the end of the hall, moved to the right. Slowly, the wall kept moving until it stuck to the wall on the right. The left wall was opened.
ns 18.68.41.142da2
