Sham Well Raiders

Chapter 1, The Raven

On the twenty-first day of the twelfth lunar month, it was sunny with little snow.There are still ten days until New Year's Eve.

Avoid getting married, getting a certificate, installing a door, burial, and making a stove.

Everything is wrong.

On a very ordinary morning, no one would have guessed that this day will be the inflection point of the future of all mankind.

An ordinary one-story courtyard, the roof and courtyard are covered with thin snow, and the smoke from the small chimney curls up, deserted and warm.

At six o'clock, the alarm on the antique Nokia mobile phone rang, and the fresh senior high school student Lian Yingxiong sat up.Last night, holding the sleeping black wooden spinning top, I lay quietly beside the pillow.

When Lian Yingxiong went to the closet to put it on, the wooden spinning top started to spin strangely.

After putting it on, when I turned around, the wooden spinning top was already quietly lying in its original position.Lian Yingxiong put it into the wooden box under the bed and whispered, "Dad, I'm going down the well."

After all, I went to wash up and have breakfast.

As soon as he went out, several crow cries of "acridine" came to his ears, which made Lianxiong feel very strange.

Everyone knows that crows are dumb birds in winter, no matter what, they will never sing in winter.

He didn't have time to think about it. As a skilled winter worker, he had to go to the mine to dig coal today as usual.

……

To the west of the mountain, in the northwest of Dayuan City, there is Loufan County, which is located in the middle and upper reaches of the Fen River and the hinterland of Luliang Mountain, less than [-] kilometers away from Dayuan.

A few years ago, the underground coal reserves suddenly discovered reached 15 billion tons. What was originally a key poverty alleviation county in the country suddenly became the hope of Dayuan City's economy to a higher level.

The name of this mine is a bit funny, it is called "Pansi Cave", and the entrance of the cave opens on an east-facing hillside.

The twelfth lunar month has been full of snowflakes all night, and the snow around the entrance of the cave has just been simply cleared. The hillside is white and the entrance of the cave is dark and gloomy. The white is a little dazzling, and the black is actually a little warm.

The old eighth mine owner who was standing near the mine mouth rubbed his upper right eyebrow angrily, jumping up early in the morning, bad luck.

The workers who were about to go to the mine went to the changing room one after another, where they had to put on hard miner's lamps, dirty underground overalls and knee-length water shoes.However, the mine is very humane, and the newly purchased batch of water shoes are specially added with fleece.

The Pansidong Mine went into operation at 07:30 in the morning.At a quarter past seven, a familiar thin shadow, fully dressed in downhole equipment and carrying a mining hoe, cast a long shadow on the toe of Zhang Laoba's Armani leather shoes.

"He is always the first to arrive." Zhang Laoba has become accustomed to it.

The visitor was tall and straight, more than 1.8 meters tall, with well-proportioned and slender limbs, and his steps were slow and steady.His hair is a bit dry and yellow, but his eyebrows are delicate and soft, his nose bridge is straight, and his cheeks are thin, giving him a sense of determination.

The young man's thick canvas clothes, helmet, and shoe uppers are all covered with charcoal stains. Perhaps because of this, his smile looks particularly clean and sunny.

"Morning boss! Good morning Cashier Lin!" The young man greeted the elders in the same village, respectfully but not intentionally.

"Morning!" Zhang Laoba did not hide his admiration, and nodded back: "Hero, are you full? I remember you came to our mine when you were less than 15 years old. Summer vacation and winter vacation, year after year, time It went by so fast!"

The young man named Lianxiong lowered the mining hoe to his feet, and the morning light shone around his silhouette, which became a little dazzling for a moment.

"Yes, boss. Don't worry, I am no longer a child laborer." Lian Yingxiong replied with a smile.

Lin Juan, the cashier standing next to Zhang Laoba, breathed a sigh of relief and laughed: "Xiao Lian is getting more and more handsome, I'm almost drooling seeing my sister!"

"You're joking." Lian Yingxiong shook his head.

Cashier Lin said with a smile: "Sister, this is the truth. Men like to see beautiful women, and women also like to see handsome guys! I will introduce you to my cousin later, you must like her!"

Zhang Laoba interrupted Lin Juan impatiently: "According to the plan, we are going to dig through a depth of 450 meters today, young man, work harder!" After speaking, he patted Lianxiong on the shoulder vigorously.

Lian Yingxiong, leaning on a mining hoe, stood in the daily queue and waited for the workers to come.

The surrounding area is not empty, more than 100 meters to the left, there are coal mountains piled up with coal, and an excavator is loading the trucks queuing up to load coal.

A hundred meters behind is a row of warehouses and offices built of colored steel.

On the right is a hand-excavated drainage channel.

In front is the mine entrance. The ground at the entrance is paved with railroad tracks, one end leads to the coal unloading yard, and the other end holds dozens of bucket trucks for transporting coal, stretching all the way to the deep well with dim lights until it is submerged in darkness.

Hero Lian enjoyed the slightly cold wind in high spirits, not knowing what he was thinking.

Relying on mountains to eat mountains, relying on mines to eat mines, as long as they go down the well, there are not many men in a radius of tens of miles who are intact. After a few years, as long as they don't die, they will work until they can't work.

Grandpa used to go down the well all year round and got pneumoconiosis. Now his lungs are gradually fibrosis, and there is no good way to cure it.

Lian Hero now lives with his grandfather and mother.And my father, who suffered from gas poisoning in another mine a few years ago, has passed away forever.

Ten minutes later, the miners who went down the mine lined up one after another, and those who hadn't entered the line were smoking cigarettes one after another not far away.Once you go down the well, because there is gas in the well, if you want to replenish nicotine, you can only go out of the well in the evening.

"Can you do it, boy, be the first one to arrive every day!" A fat man sneaked over and gave Lian Hero's ass a kick.

Lian Yingxiong pretended to stagger, and was about to fall forward. An uncle with a mustache next to him quickly supported his arm.

"Hey, hey, you're flopping, I'm going to give you a yellow card!" The fat man who kicked someone was a little impatient.Everyone knows that Fatty is a child who practiced heroes, and the relationship between the two is very strong, this is just a joke.

However, a few uncles in their 40s and [-]s took the opportunity to surround Fatty one after another, laughing and kicking Fatty's buttocks one by one, kicking Fatty so that he screamed.

The opportunity to kick people for free, if you don't kick, you don't kick.After staying with vigorous young men like Hero Lian and Fatty Ma Shanglai for a long time, the middle-aged uncles will also become childish.

After playing for a while, the whistle sounded, and everyone hurried back to the queue. Ma Gaoyi, the mine manager in his early 50s, shouted angrily: "Stand at attention! Look to the right! Take a break! Applause welcomes the boss to speak!"

Zhang Laoba cleared his throat: "Workers brothers! Good morning! After today, our Pansi Cave will become the deepest mine in Jingyou Town! Break through 450 meters..."

"Acridine~acridine~acridine!"

Zhang Laoba's face changed drastically when he heard the sound.Everyone looked at each other in blank dismay, looking around, looking for the source of the voice.

The corners of Lian Hero's eyes twitched twice.Just now, a string of crows rang out.

The crow call is regarded as an ominous omen by the local people, and it appeared at the morning mobilization meeting for refreshing the depth of the Pansidong Mine.

Such an ordinary sunny morning became a little depressing because of a crow.

Could it be the crow that followed him to the mine when he went out?Lian Yingxiong felt that the crow's cry was a little different from what he had heard in his impression, but he couldn't say exactly what was different.Perhaps because it was too cold, the crow's throat was trembling.

After a brief commotion, Ma Gaoyi, the mine manager, yelled and reorganized the meeting place, and the chirping discussions gradually died down.

Fatty Ma Shanglai spat: "Bah! Bad luck!"

Lian Yingxiong gently pushed him, motioning him to shut up.In fact, I feel a little uncomfortable when practicing heroes.

Zhang Laoba was no longer in the mood for a long speech, and hastily ended the mobilization meeting.He signaled Ma Gaoyi to do the work of going down the well, and he left the mine with the cashier Lin Juan.

Every two miners squeezed into a bucket truck, and the bustling crowd of thirty people quickly disappeared at the mine mouth with the sound of stainless steel cables rotating.

Lian Yingxiong and Ma Shanglai sat in the same bucket truck, and the sequence was at the front. The mine manager Ma Gaoyi and the safety officer responsible for detecting harmful gases such as carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide in the mine were at the front.

Fatty Ma has a large tonnage, and his butt covers twice the area of ​​Hero Lian. Hero Lian leaned against the black and cold iron wall of the cart, his ribs being squeezed and numb.

The journey down the well is more than 400 meters, and it will take about 12 minutes, which is about the same speed as the small train for children in the playground.

The electric lights on one side of the well wall, like a row of pale yellow balloons, receded slowly. The light hit the black cave wall like a sea of ​​stones, and the whole tunnel was deep and mysterious.

At this time, someone sang "The Shepherd of Keketuohai", as if to fight against the lifeless silence.The unprovoked singing repeatedly collided on the cave wall, superimposed layer upon layer, and the symphony at the scene was even better than the midnight singing in the toilet.

Some people in the crowd cheered loudly, and some deliberately booed. It was very lively for a while, and it seemed that the haze brought by the crows was swept away.

Ma Gaoyi, the mine manager, had a rare smile on his mature and stable mouth.

As the finish line approached, suddenly there was a scream from behind, which quickly turned into a curse.Lian Yingxiong felt something fly over his head, flapping its wings darkly, casting a black shadow with sharp beak and sharp feathers.

At first glance, I thought it was a bat, but after careful identification, I realized that it was a crow.

Huge crow.

It is four or five times as big as a common crow, and its figure is close to that of a slender pullet.

Now it is almost certain that the crow's cry just now was made by this guy, no wonder it feels different from the general crow's cry.Someone scolded angrily, saying that when the party reaches the ground, this bad star must be arrested, plucked and drank blood.Practicing the hero has an ominous feeling.

Could it be that the crow chose to live in the mine temporarily to avoid the cold?But such a big crow is completely beyond the scope of cognition.

Ma Shanglai jumped up and reached out to catch the crow. As soon as the crow accelerated, he dodged it. Ma Shanglai couldn't reach the bird's feathers, and almost fell out of the cart.

"What the hell, it's quite flexible!" Ma Shanglai cursed.

Not sure if it was an illusion, Lian Yingxiong felt that the crow turned around and took a deep look at himself.

As the steel cable stopped, the bucket truck came to a stop with a rattling noise.The miners jumped out of the car one after another, and a few men went to the special bucket to pick up the mining hoes, and went looking for crows everywhere.

Only after practicing the hero did he slowly get down to the fight.He didn't take part in the hunt for the crow, but his unease grew.

The men searched carefully for more than ten minutes around the brackets supporting the cave wall, but found nothing.

"I really saw a ghost, where did the **** thing go?" someone muttered.

"Don't tell me it wasn't changed by a ghost? Speaking of such a deep pit, it's not surprising even the hell! What do you think, fat man!"

Someone deliberately frightened Marshanglai.

Marshanglai knew it was a joke, but he still couldn't help getting goosebumps all over his body.

Among the middle-aged and naive ghosts who like to make fun of Fatty Ma, someone immediately played the classic BGM in Liaozhai...

It wasn't until Ma Gaoyi got angry that everyone returned to their jobs.

In fact, everyone's main job this morning is to cooperate with the mining machine operators. It takes a few strong men to exert their breastfeeding strength to set up the drilling machine and prepare for drilling 450 meters.

Several other people need to quickly and firmly build wooden planks and thick triangle irons in the expanded tunnel, otherwise, if it collapses, everyone will have to be buried alive at a depth of more than 400 meters.

nine in the morning.

After Ma Gaoyi's roll call, Lian Yingxiong, Majia Village's Ma Daguang, Ma Dazheng, Ma Daming, Ma Daliang and other machine operators assembled and put on goggles.Ma Gaoyi gave an order, and the big drill bit of the drilling rig was controlled to drill to a depth of 450 meters.

The coal cinders, dust, and sparks brought out by the drill bit filled the entire underground in an instant. Almost everyone lost their eyesight, and only a huge roar filled their ears.

Ten minutes later, with a clicking sound, Lian Yingxiong felt that the drill he was holding on his hand suddenly became lighter, and then there was the sound of an idling motor coming from the motor.

"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Ma Gaoyi also noticed the abnormality and shouted loudly.

The air gradually cleared, and everyone regained their sight.

A big hole that can allow a fat man to bend down and pass through is impressive.

Behind the coal seam at a depth of 450 meters, it turned out to be empty!

There were gasps of air-conditioning one after another.The uneasiness of practicing heroes is even heavier.

For a moment, the entire mine seemed to have fallen into a deathly silence.Lian Hero can clearly hear his own heartbeat.

As expected of being a mine manager, Ma Gaoyi reacted the fastest, spread his palms to the side, and whispered, "Flashlight!"

Lian Hero quickly stuffed a bright flashlight into his hand.

Obviously, this military-grade flashlight was fully charged last night, and the white beam of light penetrated into the cave, turning around and around in the cave, but there was no reflection, and nothing could be seen.

I don't know if it's because the black walls absorbed the light, or the cave that was suddenly dug through was too huge, so huge that even the glare of the flashlight couldn't reach any of the cave walls.

Ma Gaoyi took a breath, and the beam of light moved to the ground, along the opening of the cave, trying to slowly explore the distance.

The move had an immediate effect.Lian Hero's eyes followed the movement of the aperture, and found that the ground in the cave was solid gray rock, and it was very flat. Although there were no traces of artificial chiseling or splicing, even Ma Shanglai could make such a judgment. : This is absolutely impossible to be a naturally generated ground.

The beam of flashlight gradually extended until Lian Hero's line of sight completely failed, and it was not blocked by any wall.

Then Ma Gaoyi shone the flashlight upwards, and Lian Yingxiong discovered that it didn't even reach the top of the cave!
This is a huge underground space that is at least comparable to an international standard football field!
After a while, Ma Gaoyi turned off the flashlight and closed his eyes.Everyone asked questions in one go:

"Mine manager, what did you see? What's inside?"

"Uncle, what's going on?"

……

Others discussed with those around them.But this time, no one talked about ghosts in the underworld scaring Fatty Ma, and everyone avoided this topic tacitly.

After quarreling for a while, Ma Gaoyi suddenly said, "Hero, what do you think?"

Looking at Lian Yingxiong who was surprised by the sudden question, he had no choice but to add: "You are well educated and educated than us, please tell me your opinion!"

Lian Yingxiong pondered for a while, and tried to analyze: "From the geological structure, I have some conjectures.

First, the exclusion is a natural cave, and I didn't see any stalactites just now.

Second, exclude the passage of the underground river, because it is too huge.

Third, exclude cracks formed by crustal movement, because the ground is too flat..."

Lian Yingxiong took a look at Ma Gaoyi, and under the eyes of more than [-] people around him, he said cautiously and firmly: "I think this is an artificial underground relic!"

Everyone's breathing became heavy all of a sudden!
Artificial ruins? !Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang or something like that?

Lian Yingxiong knows that these workers who are usually not very educated must immediately think of gold ingots, bronze wares, and official kilns... If they are more educated, they may think of the Qinling sacred tree, golden jade clothes, river kilns, etc. Tuluoshu...

Originally, everyone wanted to get out of the well first. After reporting to Boss Zhang, they figured out that it was safe before going down to work. Hearing what Lian Yingxiong said, they all came to a consensus: "Go to your mother's Zhang Laoba, I am rich, why dig mines! I am going to hunt for treasure!"

These words are hidden in the mind, but the forest is so big that there are all kinds of birds, only to hear someone shouting excitedly:

"Go to your mother's Zhang Laoba, I'm rich, why dig mines! I'm going to hunt for treasure!"

　This chapter explains the specific background of the story, especially the environment and specific working atmosphere of the coal mine. It is a bit long, but it is necessary.Newcomers and new books, please recommend.

　　


(End of this chapter)