Among us, Fatty, the Silent Oil Bottle, and I have some swimming skills. A Gui can swim, but they usually only do so in streams and aren’t accustomed to treading water for long periods, so I’m afraid they won’t be much help. Yun Cai, on the other hand, is a good swimmer, but she doesn’t have a swimsuit. We can’t exactly have her wearing a tank top to help me dive; Fatty would probably lose all motivation to do anything.

As for holding breath, there’s really no definite standard. Fatty claims he has large lungs and can hold his breath for five minutes, but I said that’s impossible. With his size, the pressure underwater is much greater than ours; generally, anyone who can hold their breath for three minutes is already exceptional. He should really avoid trying to show off; this isn’t a joke.

Fatty said he isn’t too worried about that. We’ll definitely try the water in shallow areas first. The problem is we don’t have fins, so we’ll descend slowly, and we might run out of breath before reaching the bottom.

I nodded. Actually, free diving isn’t completely hands-free; there are related equipment and safety measures, the most important of which is a person’s mental fortitude. When I was in Xisha, I heard some divers say that the key to deep diving is precisely psychological quality. All deep divers, especially free divers, practice yoga and meditation. In deep water, surrounded by darkness, it feels like being in a void, which can easily induce panic. Underwater, once panic sets in, it’s hard to focus, and accidents can happen easily. With scuba gear, oxygen consumption increases significantly, and without it, one might experience psychological suffocation.

Unfortunately, the water in that area of Xisha is too shallow and too clear, so I didn’t get to experience that feeling and don’t know how it would actually feel when encountered.

However, free diving isn’t too demanding in terms of equipment; we can find some alternatives. For example, regarding the question Fatty raised, we can simply use stones to accelerate our descent. The lake here might have been deep originally, but given the water level has dropped over the years, it’s unlikely to still be over a hundred meters. I think fifty meters deep is already the limit, but of course, we need to explore a bit before diving.

We discussed some details in depth, and all three of us were excited. The next day, we got up early, taking advantage of the fact that the sun hadn’t come out yet. I continued my last search along the shore to confirm my impressions from yesterday. There was a thin mist around the lake, but it only reached the lake’s perimeter. Yun Cai and the others were used to waking up early and had already prepared breakfast. It was a very thin porridge; Fatty could drink ten bowls himself, but since Yun Cai made it, he wouldn’t dare say it was bad.

After eating, Fatty came to help with the search, this time bringing a dog. Fatty teased the dog, saying, “Find bones, find bones! If you find bones, I’ll get you a female dog.” But the dog ignored him and went to the lakeside to drink water and play.

By the time the sun came out, I had already made another round and confirmed that it was unlikely we would find anything. I discussed with them that we definitely needed to go into the water, setting the time for the afternoon when the water would be a bit warmer. So, following yesterday’s plan, we began to gather and prepare a long rope, a small float, and a few appropriately weighted stones.

A’gui and Yun Cai helped us weave some grass ropes. They didn’t need to be too sturdy, just enough to measure the depth, but they had to be as long as possible. The Fatty used a sickle to cut a lot of grass and then spread it out to dry, but not all the grass was suitable for weaving; more than half of it was unusable.

I teamed up with the silent oil bottle to tie two small floating rafts the size of a table with the woven ropes. Then we found stones about the size of a thigh and tied them with the grass ropes to use as ballast.

We managed to weave three sections of grass rope, totaling over ten meters. For two people to achieve this in one morning was quite impressive, considering it hadn’t been well processed and was rather rough. However, I didn’t care much; I wasn’t expecting it to last for months—just a few hours would suffice.

Additionally, I cut up the Fatty’s nylon bag, pulled out the nylon thread, and coiled it into a loop, tying a small stone on top to serve as a small anchor for depth detection.

Once everything was ready, we piled all these items onto the small raft and then stripped down to just our underwear before slowly walking into the lake. The Fatty’s underwear, bought by him, had two little chickens on it, which nearly made Yun Cai faint from laughter.

By this time, it was around two in the afternoon, and the surface of the lake was still icy cold, definitely connected to a flowing water source. If it weren’t for the sun, with such a large temperature difference, we might have even cramped up when entering the water.

As we waded through the water, the color beneath our feet quickly darkened, which made me a bit uneasy; places where you can’t see the bottom always feel unsafe. However, having weathered storms before, that feeling quickly faded. The lake wasn’t very big, and we soon found ourselves at the center.

The lake breeze was very refreshing, alleviating the summer heat. In the center of the lake, it took more effort to paddle in order to maintain our balance. The Fatty wiped his face with his hand and asked, “Innocent Captain, what should we do first?”

“First, let’s measure the water depth,” I replied.

The Fatty picked up the nylon thread tied to the small stone and tossed it into the water. The stone sank steadily, pulling the thread down, and the line kept spinning in the Fatty’s hand. Soon, only the line was visible as the stone disappeared into the darkness below.

After waiting for over a minute, the line finally stopped spinning. The Fatty pulled the line up bit by bit while counting the number of loops, ultimately determining that the water was over thirty-three meters deep.

I inhaled sharply; although it was about what I had estimated, hearing it confirmed still felt a bit frightening. Moreover, this might not even be the deepest part of the lake; in a stone lake, the deepest spot isn’t necessarily in the center.

“Thirty-three meters, Chief Mate, we have to dive more than ten stories deep!”

“Damn it, why do I get demoted to a lower rank just hearing about thirty meters?” I cursed, trying to maintain my composure. “Ten stories is nothing, damn it, I’m not afraid of ghosts.”

Saying this, I stuffed mud into my ears with the silent oil bottle, first diving shallowly a few times to acclimate to the water temperature, letting the Fatty keep watch on the surface for now. He wasn’t as agile in diving, so we aimed to get it done in one go to avoid needing him again. With that, I tied the grass rope with the heavy stone around my waist, grabbed the sickle and the flashlight in the plastic bag, and exchanged a glance with the silent oil bottle.

We took a deep breath, and at the limit of our capacity, we pushed the stone off the raft into the water, and as the stone sank slowly, it pulled us directly down into the water.

In Sudan, that is how the chief’s wife was executed for infidelity. I looked up at the water’s surface, without a diving mask, and everything appeared hazy. I could vaguely see the lower half of the fat man and the shadow of the wooden raft, as well as the halo of sunlight on the water’s surface. But these images quickly faded away, and suddenly everything around me plunged into absolute silence. Looking down, I found myself staring into a pitch-black abyss, where I could only see the flashlight of the muffled oil bottle, his head facing down, agile like a water bat.

I told myself this situation wouldn’t last long. With the rapid decrease in light around me, a tremendous water pressure began to build, making my eardrums and chest feel very uncomfortable, forcing me to release the air from my lungs.

Soon, my flashlight illuminated the underwater scene, revealing a bluish expanse of stones gradually approaching me. As I sank deeper, the bottom of the water became clearer. I noticed the stones varied in depth, clearly not flat but rather a slope.

It was almost at that moment that I found it hard to hold my breath. I glanced at my watch; I had been underwater for less than thirty seconds. A pressure surged against my nose, making me desperately want to inhale.

On the other side, the muffled oil bottle continued to descend. I looked up at the surface; oh my, it was a blurry expanse, with just a faint glimmer of light far away. You can imagine the feeling of looking up at a skylight the size of a bowl in a pitch-black hall thirty meters high, fear surged within me, causing my hands and feet to become disoriented, and I felt I couldn’t hold on any longer.

So, I pulled out the sickle from my waist, intending to cut the grass rope that was holding me back. To my surprise, the waterlogged grass rope was very tough; after two cuts, I had only managed to sever it halfway, and the other half remained unbroken no matter how hard I tried.

I panicked instantly, and in a reflex, I told myself to take deep breaths and calm down. The result was that as I inhaled, a mouthful of water rushed into my lungs, making me cough violently.

After finally managing to hold back the water in my lungs, I felt a tremor from one end of the rope; the stone had already fallen to the bottom. I struggled to steady myself and looked down; indeed, the bottom was a monotonous steep stone beach, similar to the one on shore, filled with stones of various sizes. However, these stones had been submerged in water for years, covered with a layer of slime. What struck me as odd was that these stones were completely “clean,” unlike those I had seen before, which were often covered with algae and barnacles.

The stone beach was steep, and my “weighted stone” was wedged between several rocks, preventing it from sliding down the slope. However, the depths below the stone beach were dark and seemed to invite further exploration.

I had no idea how deep I was now. The spot where the muffled oil bottle was diving was certainly much deeper than mine because I could already see his flashlight beam sinking down, like a vague signal flare in the darkness.

I had exhaled all the air in my lungs, and my body began to sink toward the bottom. Soon, I found myself lying on the bottom, and at that moment, I felt I could hold my breath for a while longer. The urgency I felt earlier might have been caused by the water pressure pressing against my chest. I pushed myself up slightly and managed to dislodge my “weighted stone,” tossing it down the slope.

The weighted stone slid down, pulling me down with it, rolling another seven or eight meters, and the slope of the stone beach became gentler, causing the stones to come to a stop once more.

I grabbed the rope and sank down again, wanting to lift a stone. At that moment, I suddenly noticed a huge and vague shadow in the deep, bluish-gray water below the slope, resembling the head of a crocodile. The visibility underwater was extremely poor, and I could only make out a rough outline, which startled me. I thought to myself, could there really be a water monster in this lake?

As I shone my flashlight down, I realized that the shadow was actually an old wooden building, collapsed in the deep trench beneath my feet. It was only a rough frame, covered with sediment that looked like cotton fluff. I held onto the rope to stabilize my position and moved closer to the wooden structure, turning the flashlight again. I saw that there was more than one such building; there were several intermingled dark shapes below, including dilapidated tile-roofed houses. Looking down the slope of the trench, I could see stone steps and fences—everything was quietly submerged in the lake.

Oh my God, I was stunned. What I saw was actually an ancient Yao village.