Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 372 The Pool in the Cave

Without further hesitation, Xu Xiaoyan aimed the tip of her entrenching tool at the fist-sized hole and began to pry it out little by little along the edge.

Although limestone is hard, the rocks at the edge of the cave entrance have been eroded by groundwater over a long period of time, making them loose and fragile. With a gentle pry from the tip of a shovel, pieces of rock will break off.

She dared not use too much force, for fear of collapsing the entire cave wall, so she could only patiently widen the cave entrance circle by circle.

Gravel and dirt tumbled down, landing on her feet; some rolled into the hole, making a soft echo.

The echo gave her a jolt, because the hollow echo meant that there was space on the other side, not solid space.

About twenty minutes later, she had enlarged the opening to a size large enough for a person to squeeze in sideways.

She first inserted the entrenching tool, then shone a flashlight inside.

Where the beam of light swept, she saw a gray-white, undulating rock formation, with stalagmites rising from the ground and stalactites hanging from overhead.

It was indeed a cave, and much larger than she had expected.

Xu Xiaoyan cautiously poked half her body inside, the beam of her flashlight sweeping across the darkness. She discovered that the cave was not a single passage, but a crisscrossing network structure.

There were wider passages extending out on both sides, but she didn't rush to go in. She first stepped back out and then turned around and went back into the narrow passage that she had dug in earlier.

They started to shovel the dead leaves that had been cleared to one side back towards the entrance of the hole.

She cleared away the layer of dead leaves little by little when she came in, so restoring it to its original state would actually be faster now.

Using the large side of an entrenching tool as a pusher, they quickly shoveled the pile of dead leaves back into the passageway.

She spent about ten minutes restoring the entrance to look almost identical to the surrounding ground from the outside, so that it wouldn't be immediately obvious that someone had dug it.

But she also knew that this was only a temporary measure, and that traces could still be found if one looked closely.

But in this place where not many people come, this should be enough.

Returning to the cave entrance, she squatted down and took out an oil-based pen from her spatial storage.

On the most conspicuous limestone rock on the inner edge of the cave entrance, a large character "徐" (Xu) was neatly written.

She also drew an arrow below the character "Xu" pointing in the direction of the cave, so that if she went in and couldn't find her way back, at least she would know the direction by seeing this mark.

After she finished writing it, she examined it and felt it wasn't eye-catching enough, so she drew a circle around the character "徐" to enclose it.

Next, she took out the watch that Wang Yuming had given her. It was very powerful, not only able to measure altitude, but most importantly, it had offline positioning and trajectory recording functions.

She turned on the screen, brought up the location interface, and successfully located the device a few seconds later. Looking at the latitude, longitude, and elevation data displayed on the screen, she felt a little more at ease.

Then she found the "Record Tags" function, tapped the keyboard on the screen with her finger, and typed "Xu Xiaoyan was here" one character at a time.

If she gets lost in the cave later, she can use this newly entered location to find her way.

The watch will display the straight-line distance and azimuth between her current location and this marker point; as long as she follows the direction, she can always return to this hole.

She checked one last time to make sure the mark was saved successfully, then put the watch back on her wrist and tightened the strap.

Xu Xiaoyan stood in front of the enlarged opening, bent down, and crawled inside.

Stepping on the cave floor made a "crackling" sound, the sound of gravel and stalactite fragments being crushed.

The beam of the flashlight cleared the way ahead, casting a long and large shadow of her.

The air inside the cave was damp and cool, much lower than outside, and carried the distinctive, slightly bitter smell of limestone.

After Xu Xiaoyan crawled into the cave, she stood up straight and swept the beam of her flashlight around the cave.

The cavity where the entrance is located is not large, only about ten square meters. The highest point is about two meters above the ground, with stalagmites growing from the ground at varying heights.

Some have become connected with the stalactites above, forming natural pillars, and the ground is covered with rubble and fragments of calcified deposits.

She took out the ballpoint pen and drew an arrow to the left, because she decided to go left first.

The passageways inside the cave are about one person wide. Some places are very narrow, requiring you to squeeze through sideways, while others suddenly open up.

Every so often, she would make a mark on the rock face, especially at turns, clearly indicating the direction she had come from.

The passages inside the cave are not straight lines, but winding and twisting, and in some places they even turn around and come back to roughly the same direction.

Without these markers, she would quickly lose her sense of direction.

After walking for about twenty minutes, she could clearly feel the road sloping downwards and the air becoming more humid.

When I breathe, I can feel a moist breath entering my nasal cavity, and occasionally I can see tiny water droplets floating in the beam of the flashlight, as if I have entered a damp basement.

The top of the cave began to rise, gradually increasing from more than two meters to three or four meters. In some places, it was so high that even a flashlight could not reach the top.

The shape of the cave is also changing; most of the stalactites and stalagmites we saw before were grayish-white.

But the ones that appear now are darker in color, some even with a hint of pale yellow or light brown, and they are much larger.

She reached out and touched it; it felt cool and slippery. Water droplets fell from the top of her head, landing on her shoulders, hair, and the back of her hands, leaving a refreshing sensation.

After some time, the cave floor suddenly became flat, with fewer pebbles and protruding rocks, replaced by a layer of fine, sandy sediment.

The concentration of moisture in the air had increased significantly, and she could feel that her clothes were becoming damp and uncomfortable against her skin.

The beam of her flashlight swept forward, and she vaguely saw a reflection. If she wasn't mistaken, it should be the surface of water. She quickened her pace and walked over.

It was a pool of water, about ten meters wide horizontally and extending vertically into the darkness beyond the reach of a flashlight. There was a shallow ring of calcified deposits around the edge of the pool.

But to her surprise, the water in the pool was very shallow.

It's so shallow you can see the bottom at a glance. The bottom is a flat, grayish-white sediment, like a layer of fine sand, without any undulations or protrusions.

The water was only about 20 or 30 centimeters deep, and it was incredibly clear, almost transparent.

The flashlight beam pierced through the water and shone down to the bottom, illuminating the textures of the sediments clearly.

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