Calamity Dance

Chapter 36 The Secret of the Vosges Volcanoes

It was about three o'clock in the morning when Orianna returned to the house. Although she felt tired, she didn't feel sleepy at all.The group of people who visited in the middle of the night brought more uncertainties to the operation, which made her a little upset, so she sat on the sofa until the sunrise.

"It's so early!" Xu Qingquan was the first to go downstairs and saw Orianna, a little surprised, and hurriedly greeted her.

Orianna raised her head and smiled, but the smile was a bit old, after all, she almost stayed up all night.

Xu Qingquan seemed to have noticed the exhaustion in Orianna's expression, walked over and asked with concern, "Why, didn't you sleep well last night? Did you accept the bed? Hahahaha!"

"I'm getting old and I don't sleep much! You young people should cherish the precious wealth that you can still sleep!" Orianna said a few words to put away her tiredness, got up and stretched.

"I'm also thirty, so I'm half-middle-aged." Xu Qingquan sighed, but his tone was teasing.

"Bah, bah, bah! It makes me look like an old man, you'd better not bring up the topic of age!" Orianna scolded, she was not angry, but felt a little regretful that she was indeed getting old.

"It was you who said you were old first, so I followed you!" Xu Qingquan laughed out loud, which caused Orianna to laugh too.

After a while, Sanqianying and Lin both went downstairs.Lynn was still sleepy, but she burst into life when she entered the kitchen, and she was a strange girl.

After the group had a brief breakfast, Orianna talked about what happened last night, and said that if she could pass by the village on the way, she hoped to take a look.The rest of the people also agreed, but they didn't have any clear feeling about the ugly appearance and weird behavior of the villagers that Orianna said.

Before departure, Orianna put away the aircraft and mobile home using the world retraction technique, so as not to encounter any loss when she returned.

"We're all here now, why don't we give the climbing team a name! Did you have a team name when you went out before?" Xu Qingquan took the lead and walked in front. He looked back at the following people and said happily asked.

"Didn't you just go out to climb a mountain? Didn't you just go to Baiyuan's house a few days ago, so why are you so happy!" Orianna expressed helplessness at his happy appearance.

"That's different. There were not enough people at that time, and that one was at most a small hill. If you look at this one, it's simply majestic!" Xu Qingquan pointed to the big mountain behind him.The Vosges volcano, which could only be seen in brochures, is now in front of them.The towering mountain top seems to have been cut off by a sharp knife, showing a flat head shape.The protected rare coniferous forest grows from the foot of the mountain to the foot of the mountain, like a cape on this dormant volcano.The foothills are still covered with some snow, which should be accumulated all year round at a relatively high altitude, like a snow-white scarf on the mountain.The dark clouds last night had dissipated at some point, and the morning dew and the slanting early sun were still a bit cool, and the feeling of stuffiness was gone.

"It's no wonder that this place has become a tourist attraction. It turns out that it looks so beautiful when you get closer!" Lin pulled the shoulder strap of the messenger bag and exclaimed in admiration.

"I used to come here when I was a child. I entered from the gate of the park, and I could walk almost under the snow, but when I entered the mountain, I saw only trees. At that time, I felt that there was nothing to see. Although there are trails at the top, tourists There is no way to go up." Sanqianying recalled her experience of coming here when she was a child, and she took pictures of this mountain with the Polaroid she carried while walking.

Xu Qingquan took a closer look. Now they should be on the west side of the volcano, and the park was built on the southeast side. There must be no convenient way up the mountain on this road, and they can only climb the original mountain.

"This is the place where the system navigation falls. It is estimated that considering that the park is not open during the closed mountain period, it may be a bit troublesome to enter from the main entrance. Now this location happens to be seen by no one. When it comes to the snowy part, we will Then turn to the trail built above, so that you can easily reach the volcanic lake at the top." Orianna looked at the virtual map in her hand, then looked up at the road ahead and said.

"Since you don't say anything, then I'll come. Let's call the Snake Squad from now on!" Xu Qingquan was still thinking about naming everyone.

"It's so rustic!" Lin was very disgusted, and gave Xu Qingquan a blank look.

"Hahaha, okay, call me whatever you like, I'm a smuggler anyway!" Orianna felt that although the name was not creative, it was somewhat cute.The arrival of Xu Qingquan made the entire sanctuary seem to be full of vitality, which Orianna has always seen.

The smuggler team gradually climbed up in the primeval forest. There were no good roads. Some roads might have been stepped on by climbers, and they were covered with turf and fallen leaves after not walking for a long time.Sanqianying picked up a pinch of needles that fell on the ground and put them in her backpack. She seemed to love this trip very much, treating it as a relaxing excursion.

Not long after walking, a path on the left caught Xu Qingquan's attention.The road is narrow, but it looks like someone has walked it recently.However, this direction is not the direction to the main road of the park, nor does it seem that the staff on duty in the park will come.Orianna also noticed at the same time, she stopped and said, "Let's go over there and have a look, maybe there is the aboriginal village over there."

Xu Qingquan took the lead in walking.There were not as many thorns and weeds on this road as on the road up the mountain just now, and the walk was relatively easy. After a while, a small village with only a few dozen households appeared in front of the Ophiuchus team.

The houses in the village are very old, as if they have been in disrepair for a long time. Some households seem to have been unoccupied for a long time, and the roofs are a little caved in.A sharp and pungent smell spread in the village, and Xu Qingquan could smell it from a distance, and he unconsciously reached out and pinched his nose.

"The smell of sulfur is so strong!" Sanqianying pinched her nose and said, "This volcano has been erupting for thousands of years, why does it still smell of sulfur now!"

Only then did Xu Qingquan figure out that it was sulfur.The volcanic eruption will bring countless sulfur, and at the same time, it will also eject the rich elements in the ground.These substances combined with sulfur cover the land to form a special fertile soil, and this coniferous forest was born from then on.However, long-term exposure to sulfur substances is highly toxic to living things, whether in water or food, so animals here are also very rare.

"Go in and have a look." Orianna casually pushed away a small courtyard that seemed to be inhabited.The people in the room heard the movement outside, opened the door, and came out to check.

The people who came out made the whole snake team get goosebumps.The person who opened the door didn't look like a very old man, but the skin on his face was extremely wrinkled, like a piece of crumpled paper.The weather wasn't particularly cold, he was wearing thick clothes, and his whole body trembled from time to time, which seemed out of tune with the season.The man's hair is already quite thin, and his mental state is even more average. There is no vitality in his eyes.

"May I ask you what's the matter?" The man said, his voice was very hoarse and weak.

"We are climbers. A few villagers visited our camp last night. They stopped by today to take a look." Orianna answered.

"I didn't go, maybe it was someone else, what's the matter with you?" The man took a step outside, Sanqianying subconsciously moved back, and was seen by Xu Qingquan, Xu Qingquan quickly grabbed her arm , indicating not to be nervous.

"It's nothing special, it's just strange. Shouldn't the villagers here have been relocated by the empire many years ago? And they shouldn't be suitable for survival after the volcano erupted." Orianna said her Confuse.

"It's all bullshit!" At this moment, a voice sounded from behind everyone.Everyone turned their heads to look, and Orianna recognized that this person was one of the few people who appeared last night.

"Hello, uncle, we met last night." Orianna greeted him.

The rickety old man ignored it and continued, "We have lived on the mountain for generations. After the eruption, we became homeless and lived on the streets of the city." He paused and took a breath, "Then the imperial army found our ancestors, Promise that they can go back to their hometown, but need help to establish a volcano park."

"That was a long time ago, hundreds of years ago." Orianna asked.

"At that time, we were more than just a village, a small town under the mountain. Tens of thousands of people were tricked back to build this damn park. However, it wasn't long before the volcano stopped erupting, and the forest had just formed, and the environment was too harsh The ancestors who built the park got seriously ill and died soon. However, the Imperial Army didn’t care, and finally built the park, crossed the river and demolished the bridge, and didn’t give us any place to go. We wanted to go down the mountain to complain about their actions, but we kept complaining In the end, I can only return to this mountain forest and continue to live until now.”

Xu Qingquan was greatly shocked when he heard this.Towns that used to have tens of thousands of people were forced to build parks and plank roads at the foot of such a highly toxic volcano. After the completion of the repairs, they no longer care about life or death. This is simply too inhumane!
"You will live in this place full of sulfur for generations?" Orianna said angrily, "Why don't you move away?"

"At first I thought about moving out, but I was always blocked everywhere, probably because we were afraid that we would talk about building the park with human blood. Therefore, after the forest grows, no one wants to move out. But the water and food here are all It has been formed at the foot of the volcano for a long time, and over time, we have all been infected with serious diseases. Last night, when we found movement at the foot of the mountain, we thought it was the imperial army coming to make trouble again, so we spent some time going down the mountain to check, and we met you." The rickety old man sighed while talking, but his eyes were still very firm.

Orianna looked around, feeling very uncomfortable.Unexpectedly, this volcanic park, which brings hundreds of millions of flash net income to the empire every year, has such a dark history. After the war, tens of thousands of people will have to pay unnecessary sacrifices for the war site.

The other three didn't speak the whole time, but just watched the scene, feeling sorry for themselves.But they can't do much, and the villages of the aborigines will literally disappear as the current generation suffers from illness and death.Maybe the four people now are the last to know this story.

These villagers are basically dying of illness.Orianna called the rest of the people together for a simple diagnosis, but now there are some equipment on hand, and they can't treat them very well. In the end, they can only leave some daily medicines for the villagers.

After leaving the village, several people did not speak, and the silence was broken by Xu Qingquan, "The empire has done this kind of thing in such a glamorous place, so will there be more ugly things in other places that will never be known? "

"Yeah, I can only say that after so many years, no matter how dense a towering tree is, there will be rotten branches..." Orianna sighed.

"Then do we still want to save such an empire? Is there any point?" Xu Qingquan looked at the white snow on the mountain and said a little discouraged.

"Why not? It is our world that is being saved, not this empire!" Lin, who hadn't spoken for a long time, said.

"The empire will be destroyed, but the world will always exist, and this is the home of all people and creatures." Sanqianying also said the same.

Xu Qingquan nodded, and was the first to take a step.The Ophiuchus team continued to march towards the volcanic lake on the top of the mountain.

(End of this chapter)