Time passed minute by minute, and in the blink of an eye, it was already noon.
"What is this? Why haven't they come back yet?"
Calculating the time, the group from the Bureau of Religious Affairs had been gone for almost three hours, and seeing that it was already past lunchtime but still no sign of them.
"Darn! Are they just leaving us here like this?"
Another hour went by. Still no sign of the Bureau of Religious Affairs, Zhang Ge began to feel unsettled. He cursed a few times, then brought out a box of mineral water from the car and distributed it to everyone.
I remembered the business card Xu Jingyang had given me, so I quickly took out my phone and dialed the number on it.
Damn! It's turned off?
I had no choice but to put away my phone. After thinking for a while, I called Anding and asked if he had the contact information of the others.
To my disappointment, Anding didn't have the contact information of those people either. It seemed that, apart from continuing to wait here, there was no better way.
Without their return, the Yi people started to become unruly. They were no longer sitting obediently on the ground but wandering around the Qianxu Cave in groups of three or five.
Anding tried to stop them for a while, but when it didn't work, he just let them be.
Qianxu Cave is one of the more famous tourist spots in Dafang, almost everyone locally had been here countless times. During temple fairs, many people would come here to burn incense and pray for blessings or make vows. As a result, no one viewed it as a dangerous place...
By the time it was four o'clock in the afternoon, there was still no news of the Bureau of Religious Affairs. I was starting to feel uneasy! Damn, are they playing us? How could it take so long to go out and buy something?
Helpless, I dialed Xu Jingyang's number again, but still got the same "the number you've dialed is turned off" message.
"Bastard!"
After cursing, I stood up and was about to discuss with Zhang Ge and others whether we should go to the nearest store to buy some food. At this moment, there was a sudden scream coming from a nearby stone cave.
"Not good!" something flashed before my eyes.
Upon hearing the scream, everyone was startled and without hesitation, they all rushed towards the direction of the scream!
When I, Zhang Ge, and Director Han rushed to the cave, some of the Yi brothers had already arrived, but since we couldn't communicate due to the language barrier, we didn't know what was happening inside.
"Where's Anding? Quickly ask Anding to translate!" I almost subconsciously thought of Anding. Among these Yi people, only Anding had good Chinese, to understand the situation at hand, we could only rely on Anding to help translate.
"Not good! Anding seems to have disappeared!"
As soon as I spoke, Zhang Ge behind me suddenly pulled me, looking anxious, and said, "What!"
Hearing this, I couldn't help but change my expression, and quickly started to search carefully in the crowd. Sure enough, where could Anding be found in the crowd?
"Darn!"
I cursed again, then yelled to the crowd, "Who knows Chinese! Quickly tell us what happened!"
After saying this, a rather strange voice sounded in the crowd, "Someone is missing, he's been hanged!"
"Missing?"
Stunned for a moment, I finally realized what he meant, "The headman has fallen in!"
Isn't Brother Anding their headman? In other words, Brother Anding has fallen in?
Without any hesitation, I quickly pulled out a Yi person who understood a little Chinese from the crowd. After a lot of questioning and guessing, I finally understood the rough sequence of events.
According to him, it seems that a Yi person moved something in the stone cave, and then the statue of Guanyin in the cave suddenly fell down with the Yi person, and the first to arrive, Brother Anding, seemed to have also fallen in trying to save them!
"What do we do?"
As soon as Zhang heard that Brother Anding and another Yi person had fallen in, he panicked and quickly looked to me.
"What else can we do?! We can't just stand by and do nothing!" My face didn't look good either, and I said to the Yi person who understood Chinese, "Have your people stand on my formation and I will go down to save your headman. Understand?"
"Understood!" The man quickly nodded, then said something to the group of Yi people, and there seemed to be some arguing. Eventually all the Yi people came out of the stone cave, clasping their hands together and continuously shouting "kasha sasa."
The man quickly told me that "kasha sasa" means "thank you" in the Yi language.
Without much time to consider, I quickly took the torch from the car and said to Zhang and Chief Han, asking them and the Yi person who understood Chinese to cooperate, and watch over the group of Yi people, and not to let anything go wrong! In addition, if the officers from the religious bureau come back, let them come down the cave and join me!
After saying this, I went back into the cave and was about to go down to look for people when a Yi person suddenly rushed to me and knelt down, babbling incessantly.
I didn't understand a word, but I ignored him, picked up my phone and took a picture below. It was pitch black down there, and the flashlight on the phone couldn't see the bottom. I quickly threw a stone down, and judging by the sound coming back, it was at least five or six meters deep. It was definitely not feasible to jump directly down.
Fortunately, Zhang quickly brought a nylon rope from the car, and with everyone's effort, they lowered me down.
As soon as I landed, I found an unconscious Yi person on the ground, presumably the first one who fell! I checked his body, took a breath of relief, it was lucky, no fatal injuries, just a broken arm.
Seeing that he was okay, I quickly took out my phone and looked around, but I didn't find any trace of Brother Anding. I shouted twice, but got no response.
helplessly, I quickly tied the nylon rope around the waist of the unconscious Yi person, pulled the rope, and had the people up there pull him up quickly.
Hearing the cheers from above, I continued to search around, and soon found a pool of blood on the ground.
This blood was obviously not from the Yi person who fell earlier, it should be Brother Anding's, but if it was his blood, where was he?
Logically, he also fell from such a high place, even if he wasn't unconscious, his condition was probably not much better than the earlier person's! How could he suddenly disappear? Remember, from the accident to when I came down, it was only a few minutes at most.
Could it be that besides Brother Anding and the Yi person who fell earlier, there was actually a third person present?
Thinking of this, I became increasingly wary, and I tightened my grip on the torch! Could it be that before us, Sima Yin had already entered here?
The more I thought about it, the more likely it seemed. This hole was not small, and after searching for nearly ten minutes, I finally found a very hidden passage!
The passage was conveniently blocked by the fallen Guanyin statue. If I hadn't sensed the qigong field, I wouldn't have found it with just my naked eye!
Without any hesitation, I quickly moved the Guanyin statue, only to find that although it looked heavy, it was actually hollow inside, so I easily moved it.
With the Guanyin statue moved, a long underground passage suddenly appeared in front of me, pitch black inside, very frightening.
"Grandfather God bless us!"
Muttering quietly, I was about to crawl along the tunnel when, at the moment I got down, a sudden cold wind came from behind me!
"Oh no!"
My heart suddenly jumped, without any hesitation, I quickly rolled to one side. With a rumble, the Guanyin statue that I had moved to one side was smashed to pieces by something!
I quickly shone the light from my phone, and what was revealed was actually a dried up corpse!
A real dried up corpse, all that was left was a dry and shriveled skin wrapped around the bones! And in his hand, there was a corroded and unrecognizable rifle, wearing a tattered military uniform!