Secret 1

Chapter 4: At the End of the Tunnel (1)
2006年9月24日上午16点13分。

Sun Zichu finally breathed a sigh of relief, and the sickle in his hand fell to the ground.There was applause in the car, and everyone applauded for their bravery.

Ye Xiao and the photographer patted each other's shoulders, but in fact they were covered in cold sweat.They said a few more words to the car: "We are going to explore the road ahead now, you must not come out and walk around casually, you must wait until we come back!"

After all, the three men held "weapons" in their hands and walked towards the mountain road ahead against the heavy rain.

The photographer patted Ye Xiao's chest and said, "Is your injury serious?"

"I just got scratched and scratched, it's okay." When the police are injured, Ye Xiao really didn't feel anything, but he was very interested in this long-haired photographer, "Thank you."

"no need thank me?"

"The ax you just saved my life, otherwise I would be a corpse without eyes."

The photographer laughed smartly: "Hehe, it's a trivial matter, so there is nothing to thank."

"My name is Ye Xiao, what about you?"

"Okay, brother, my name is Qian Mozheng, and I usually live anywhere in the world. I take a few photos to make ends meet."

"Qian Mozheng?" Sun Tzuchu finally couldn't help interjecting, "Mozhengqian? What a good name."

The three men walked a few hundred meters talking and laughing all the way, turned a few turns on the winding mountain road, and suddenly found a huge mountain lying in front of them—countless stones and soil, piled up on the road like building materials, turned into countless mountains with the heavy rain. There is a small stream, and gravel continues to roll down the mountain.

They looked at the scene in front of them in amazement. Is this a bombing in a human war, or is it the boundless power of nature?
"Mudslide!"

Photographer Qian Mozheng shouted that he has traveled to many places in the world, and of course he has seen such natural disasters.Usually when there is heavy rain in mountainous areas, it is easy to cause such flash floods.The road is thus engulfed, making it impossible for any vehicle to pass.The geological conditions here are very unstable, and a second eruption may occur at any time.

Man is not as good as God!They shook their heads in despair, only to turn back the same way.

When the three returned to the tour bus, the driver was wearing a raincoat and repairing the crashed parts.The people in the car looked expectantly, thinking that the rescuers ahead would come.But Ye Xiao told them the bad news truthfully, and immediately sent everyone back to the [-]th floor of hell.

Are you going to be trapped to death in this desperate situation today?

"Everyone, don't panic!" Ye Xiao stood in the middle and said loudly, "At least there is no war! We will definitely find a way out."

Suddenly, there was a sound of an engine under the car, and the driver jumped into the car excitedly and said, "The car has been repaired!"

The tour group cheered again, as if they had survived a desperate situation.Everyone is ready to return home, and returning to Chiang Mai the same way is their only choice.

The driver quickly reversed the car out.There was also a noticeable crack in the windshield.On the narrow and slippery mountain road, he turned the car around carefully, and then drove quickly towards Chiang Mai.

Everyone finally let out a sigh of relief. Today's journey was extremely thrilling. They almost became sacrificial objects without even seeing the shadow of Lanna's tomb.Everyone was exhausted, most of them closed their eyes and fell asleep, only Ye Xiao was still staring out of the car window.

The T-shirt on the chest was scratched by the mandrill's iron claws. Fortunately, the wound was very shallow and almost felt nothing. It had already solidified and scabbed, but if it was half an inch deeper, it might be fatal.Ye Xiao felt scared now, as if an invisible wall had been built around him, trapping him firmly in it.Perhaps, coming to this distant Thailand is not a tourist, but like a criminal in ancient times, who was exiled to the ends of the earth.

Although, trying to see the road outside the car clearly, the eyelids are getting heavier and heavier.There were bursts of chills coming from under him, a voice in his heart was struggling violently, and his brain had gradually plunged into darkness.

The darkness of another world...

Seemingly having been asleep for a lifetime, Ye Xiao woke up again from the dream.

The car jolted violently, and everyone in the car woke up.He subconsciously grasped the handle, his forehead was covered with bean-sized cold sweat.There is still endless heavy rain outside the car window, and the cliffs are invisible. There are deep canyons on both sides, and a soaring stream next to it, with this rugged road in the middle.

He stared blankly for a few seconds, and was the first to react. He jumped up from his seat and said, "No! We didn't go this way!"

Yes, on the way here in the afternoon, he carefully observed the roadside scenery, but there was absolutely nothing like what he saw now—they had never been to this canyon, and the stream next to it was completely unfamiliar, and the car did not follow the original path. Back, where is the driver going to take us?

The people around also saw that something was wrong, and they started making noises in fear. Ye Xiao rushed to the driver and asked, "Where is this going?"

"I'm sorry!" The driver finally stopped the car, his face was full of despair and guilt, "I don't know either."

"What?" The young man holding the DV just woke up and asked anxiously when he realized something was wrong, "You don't know either?"

The driver replied in stammering Chinese: "I... I obviously returned by...the original road...but I was driving...I felt something...something was wrong...it didn't seem to be the road I drove just now... But I can't remember... where I made a mistake."

The tour guide, Xiao Fang, also just took a nap, and when he woke up, he asked anxiously, "Did you go to a fork in the road?"

"I can't remember either...Maybe it's raining and I can't see clearly...Maybe all of us in the car...bewitched?"

"Bewitched by an evil spirit?" Xiao Fang is not polite anymore, "Nonsense!"

Ye Xiao shook his head and said: "Forget it, it's useless to be in a hurry, let the driver drive with peace of mind. I think he is also too anxious. If he is not careful again, all of us in the car will really be ruined."

She turned around and asked Yuling again, but she couldn't figure it out: "I'm sorry, I didn't see which fork in the road just now. It's strange, I grew up near here, but I never knew there was such a canyon!"

Yuling comforted the driver in Thai, calming him down a little.She wanted the driver to turn around, but found that the road was too narrow.There is no possibility of a U-turn for a tourist bus of this length, so it doesn’t mean it’s always going backwards, right?In the end, it was decided that the car would continue to move forward. If there was an open space in front, the driver could reverse the car and go back.

Ye Xiao looked at his phone again, but there was still no signal.The expressions of the others were even more desperate, as if they had just escaped from a dangerous situation and entered the tiger's mouth again.

The car shuttled between the canyons, and he leaned out the window to look at the top of his head.The cliffs on both sides are as sharp as knives, at least five to sixty meters high, like two tall stone walls with a narrow path sandwiched between them.Above was a veritable "line of sky," a blinding white light falling into a dim canyon, accompanied by countless icy raindrops.

The driver drove forward in a daze. In the canyon, it was completely impossible to distinguish the north, south, east, and west. There was only the road in front of him, which corner of the world?
The bus bumped for another ten minutes, the road twisted along with the rock wall, the driver kept turning the steering wheel, and the car had no chance of turning around.

The people in the car became more and more anxious, and the "sunglasses man" was the first to call out: "Where are we going? When can we return to Chiang Mai? Today is really an 'exorcism festival', villagers Drive the devil on us, and then go with our car, no wonder the villagers want to thank us!"

"Okay, are you finished?" A girl with an obvious "Taiwanese accent" interrupted him, "It's really annoying! Let the driver brother drive with peace of mind."

The bottom of this uninhabited canyon is like a resonance box of string music. The sound of rain is repeatedly echoed and amplified, which is deafening, accompanied by the howl of some kind of beast from time to time.Just when the whole tour group fell into despair, the canyon suddenly came to an end, and in front of them was a towering cliff.

It turns out that this canyon is a dead end!

It is like a long and narrow pocket, and also like the cecum in the human body, the bottom has already been firmly knotted.

The driver hit the brakes.

Everyone stared at this scene dumbfounded—at the bottom of the cliff, there were tens of meters high hanging vines, dragging like a woman's long hair all the way to the ground.There is a small waterfall pouring down next to it, which is the source of the canyon stream.

This is the legendary dead end?Unwillingly, Ye Xiao hit himself with his fist, while the driver almost collapsed on the driver's seat.Everyone else yelled in fear, and the whole car, more than a dozen people, was in a mess, like an army driven into a desperate situation, as if there was an army chasing after them.

Ye Xiao asked the tour guide Xiao Fang to open the car door, and jumped out of the car alone in the rain.The waterfall splashes high and high, and the bottom of the valley looks like thousands of troops roaring.He took a closer look at the road under his feet. Although it was covered with gravel and weeds, he could still see that it was paved with asphalt, and there were traces of white paint lines in it.It is obviously a road built artificially, but why is it in this "dead end" where there is only an entrance but no exit?
No, it is impossible without an export!Ye Xiao walked to the front of the car, raised his head to observe the surrounding situation, dense raindrops fell into his eyes.At the bottom of the dark canyon, the halo above the head was dizzying, and "A Line of Sky" was also stopped.

It is really a natural danger that is difficult for apes and birds to cross!

Finally, his eyes fell on the vines directly in front of him, and there seemed to be something behind the dense branches and leaves.Ye Xiao couldn't help reaching out and touching the vines, but they were not as thick as imagined, and seemed to have grown recently.He lifted the branches and leaves in front of him with his hands, and found that the inside was actually hollow!

There is a tunnel hidden behind the vines!
Ye Xiaoxin returned to the car ecstatically, and instructed the driver to drive straight ahead immediately.The tour guide Xiao Fang thought Ye Xiao was insane and wanted to hit his head on the cliff.

After finally explaining clearly, the driver stepped on the accelerator carefully.As the vines in front of them got closer and closer, everyone's hearts were in their throats...

Finally, the windshield collided with the vines, and the green branches and leaves spread out like a waterfall. The inside was not a cold rock, but a dark void.

The driver turned on the headlights, illuminating a dark and long tunnel.As the car moved forward, the vines slid from the front of the car to the rear, and every window seemed to be caressed by long hair until the whole car was completely dark.

Sitting in the last row, the former female doctor who took care of the injured foreigner looked back at the back of the car—the vines closed again like a huge curtain, and they entered an empty stage.

Tunnel Journey - Everyone stares intently ahead.This is a two-way, two-lane tunnel. The interior forms a regular arch shape, and the road underneath is quite flat, which is equivalent to a high-grade highway in the mainland.

Many people think of the train tunnel, suddenly plunged into darkness, only the endless sound of rails and wheels, waiting to return to the light under the sky.In fact, there are still many dripping sounds in the tunnel, but they are covered by the roar of cars.There is no light inside, so we can only use the car's own lights to illuminate the distance of more than ten meters ahead.The driver must be driving very slowly, less than 20 yards an hour.

Ye Xiao paid attention to the time. He entered the tunnel at 04:30 in the afternoon, and it is now a quarter past four. The car is still driving in the dark, so it is at least several kilometers - longer than the tunnel under the Huangpu River , I wonder what is on the top of this tunnel?What about the other end of the tunnel?

Suddenly, some white light spots flashed outside the car window, which stood out against the black cave wall.Everyone was taken aback. Those light spots seemed to be floating in the air, flickering and flashing.As if some people's eyes were like everlasting lights, Sun Zichu thought of the will-o'-the-wisps that were common in ancient tombs.

"Is this the ghost in the ground?"

I don't know which girl said softly, which immediately caused a group of girls to scream.Ye Xiao patted the driver's hand and said, "Don't stop, keep driving."

The "wild fire" gradually subsided, but the long tunnel was still endless. There was still a big curve ahead, and only the lights in front of the car could be seen in the dark.Ye Xiao suddenly had a certain illusion, as if the dozen or so people had returned to the mother's body.Yes, everyone has to go through a long and difficult tunnel at the beginning of life.

The amniotic fluid has broken, the mother is breathing hard, and the fetus opens its eyes as it struggles through the birth canal in labor—if hell isn't the end of the tunnel, it's their birth again.

end!They see the end!

At the far end of the tunnel, there was a white shadow shaking, and the people in front of the car became nervous.The wheel rolled forward a few more times, and the shadow became more and more obvious. It was a white light—exit!
The exit of the tunnel!
It was like the moment when the fetus was born and was about to see the world outside the mother, the whole car clapped excitedly to celebrate.The driver also stepped up the accelerator, the white halo in front of his eyes became more and more obvious, and Ye Xiao was stabbed so hard that he closed his eyes.

Finally, the car drove out of the tunnel.

their second life.

The tourist bus galloped out of an arched gate, back under the long-lost sky, and the heavy rain continued to pour.Everyone inevitably squinted their eyes, and the driver could only slow down the speed.

"Finally get out of this damn tunnel!" The tour guide Xiao Fang rarely cursed, pointing to the mountain road ahead and said, "It's really a hole in the sky."

Sun Zichu thought of Tao Yuanming's "Peach Blossom Spring". Didn't the people of Wuling arrive at the legendary paradise through a tunnel at the source of a stream?

Everyone else heaved a sigh of relief, Ye Xiao only felt his feet go limp, his body was cold after being exposed to the rain just now, and he really wanted to take a good hot bath.

What the driver saw was a winding mountain road, and above the tunnel entrance in the mirror was still a cliff.Blocked by layers of mountains all around, they seem to have entered a basin.

Ye Xiao glanced into the distance and was stunned - he saw countless buildings.

A city!
The car also stopped at the same time, and the driver stared at the scene in front of him dumbfounded.Just below them, the road winds down a hundred meters, and a city stands in the middle of thousands of mountains.

Surrounded by majestic mountains, there is only a huge flat basin in the middle, and those high and low buildings are erected alive in it. It is a veritable "Valley City".

Although this gray city was a bit bleak in the heavy rain in the southern country, it was enough to make the whole tour group cheer.Today's journey has gone through a lot of hardships, and I finally saw a densely populated place. It seems that this tunnel is the exit to the world-it's really lucky!

The driver finally calmed down his excitement and continued to drive down the Panshan Road.Everyone stares at the last fish on their plate like a hungry cat.

It was nearly five o'clock in the evening, and the heavy rain still showed no sign of stopping.

The city in the valley was getting closer and closer, and Sun Zichu thought it would be the ruins of an ancient city.However, the height and layout of those buildings clearly tell everyone that this is a modern city.He even saw a huge billboard at the entrance of the city, with Andy Lau's smiling face printed on it, promoting a certain brand of mobile phones.

Two minutes later, the car drove under the billboard, and the driver stepped on the brake again.

Everyone in the car felt like they were back in the world. Some people expected to have a quick dinner, some planned to settle down in the hotel, and some wanted to find the toilet immediately.

However, Ye Xiao felt something was wrong.

Because there is no one.

The car turned off the engine, and there was silence except for the sound of rain.Under the billboard is a two-way, four-lane road with several three- and four-story buildings on each side.But there were no vehicles on the road, and not a single person could be seen on the sidewalks on both sides.

The tour guide Xiao Fang opened the car door, and everyone was silent for a minute. Except for the sound of rain, there was still no movement.There was no change in the street in front of me, only Andy Lau on the billboard was smiling.

"What's going on?" Ye Xiao looked ahead nervously, "Stop the car here and don't move."

Then, he was the first to jump out of the car again, and the tour guide Xiao Fang also boldly got down.The men and women in the back couldn't hold back any longer, and got out of the car one after another to find the toilet to solve their internal emergency.

Ye Xiao finally held up an umbrella and walked carefully into the street ahead. Does this count as entering the city?The pavement is paved with patterned stone slabs, and the rain has washed away a lot of dirt.He noticed the drainage channel on the side of the road, and the rainwater was sent underground in time, so that although this place was located at the bottom of the valley, there was not much water on the ground.

He took out his phone and checked, but there was still no signal, which made him even more uneasy.At this time, the American girl had already walked in front of him, Ye Xiao said loudly: "Hey, don't walk around casually!"

But the American girl didn't hear it, and walked straight to the front of the house, which turned out to have a sign of a public toilet.She was the first to boldly go in, and then several girls followed in. It seemed that no one could stop this physical need.

Ye Xiao simply walked into the men's toilet next to him. As soon as he entered, he smelled a strange smell. It wasn't the sour smell that is often smelled in ordinary toilets, but the stale smell raised by the dust all over the floor.The water in the urinal is still clean, and it can be flushed automatically.When Ye Xiao walked out of the toilet, other men rushed in one after another.

Carefully turn on the faucet of the sink and let out what appears to be clean tap water.After Ye Xiao washed his hands in a hurry, he looked at himself in the mirror. The mirror had already been covered with a layer of dust, and only a pair of sharp eyes could be seen in the blur.

Just when he was in a daze, another face appeared in the mirror—a young and beautiful woman with bright eyes with long eyelashes.Four eyes met on the dusty mirror, the woman immediately lowered her head, turned on the tap and washed her hands.

Ye Xiao involuntarily took a step back, returned to the rain and held up an umbrella.Then the woman also turned her head and stared at him with a stern expression. She didn't know whether it was contempt or reserve. She walked past Ye Xiao quickly, bringing a faint fragrance.

At this time, Sun Tzuchu also came out of the toilet, and patted Ye Xiao on the shoulder: "Why are you in a daze again?"

"who is she?"

Sun Tzuchu looked at the young woman's back: "It's also from our tour group. It seems to be engaged in music. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, remember, remember—"

Ye Xiao bit his lip and walked to the side, but he didn't remember it at all.

He watched everyone around him carefully, trying to memorize all the faces in the tour group, so as not to be confused with other people in the city.

However, he has not seen a single "other".

There was a small supermarket across the road, and the photographer Qian Mozheng was the first to walk in. Ye Xiao didn't have time to shout "Don't go in here", so he ran over quickly.

(End of this chapter)