It was probably the fat guy’s shout that gave me a premonition, and I suddenly felt a chill in my heart. I hurriedly wiped the water off my face to take a look. My first instinct was that the muffled bottle might have found those corpses, and I was already prepared to see a pale, lifeless body.

Unfortunately, I was wrong. What I saw thrown onto the raft looked like a dead animal the size of a climbing backpack. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the “sunken corpse” was surrounded by a mass of rotting, blackened tentacles. The “corpse” had swollen up in the water, looking like a ball, and it seemed to have been rotting for a long time.

Anyone who has seen dead pigs and dogs floating in flooded lakes knows how disgusting such corpses can be. I immediately felt a wave of nausea and quickly turned away to distance myself from the raft, thinking, why is the muffled bottle fishing this thing out?

After swimming out for more than a meter, I immediately rinsed the rotten corpse water that had splashed on my face with lake water; it felt slimy. The fat guy was already cursing there, saying, “Little brother, damn, you really have the guts to touch that disgusting thing!”

The muffled bottle, however, was unfazed. He leaned over the raft, pressing his hand directly onto the rotten corpse, and immediately, corpse water was squeezed out, flowing along the raft to the surface of the lake. Then he began tearing the tentacles off the corpse and tossing them into the water.

At first, I almost threw up, but then I realized something was off because I didn’t smell any strong stench of decay. I then saw that the fat guy seemed to have discovered something and was waving for me to come over.

I swam back again, and the “tentacles” that the muffled bottle had thrown out were still floating around the raft. I held my nausea in and picked one up to take a look, discovering that it wasn’t a tentacle at all, but a strange, waterweed-like substance. Looking more closely at the black “sunken corpse,” I realized I had misjudged it. The “corpse” had a belly that had deflated, and upon closer inspection, it didn’t look like a body at all; it resembled a deflated soccer ball, while the surrounding tentacles were all that strange, waterweed-like substance.

I went over to help the muffled bottle remove the waterweed from around the “sunken corpse,” and finally saw clearly that it was actually a rotting, blackened old leather bag, the leather completely soaked and blackened, with the outer layer rotted away, leaving only a thin layer of lining.

This was an old large bag used for carrying big luggage, with a wire frame inside, so it hadn’t fallen apart; otherwise, it would have definitely disintegrated.

“What is this…?” the fat guy was speechless.

The muffled bottle said, “Where I dove down, there was a layer of fence, and many bags and miscellaneous items had sunk to the bottom of the lake, getting stuck on the fence, scattered over a large area. I saw rifles, leather bags, and tents; I only fished one up.”

I immediately realized what this was: “This must be what Pan Ma was talking about. After they killed people, they sank the guns and equipment into the lake along with the bodies. It seems I was right; indeed, these were all sucked down to the bottom of the lake by the siphon tide and got caught on the fence.”

The muffled bottle nodded, clearly agreeing with my statement.

“A fence? Damn, is there really a village at the bottom of this lake?” The fat guy still couldn’t believe it.

My mind was in a jumble, thinking, why would I lie to you? If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it either.

The ancient village submerged underwater is quite large, and this situation of being completely engulfed by a lake is very unusual. It is typically caused by the sacrificial flooding from large-scale water conservancy projects, such as the Three Gorges Dam, which has submerged many low-lying villages and even historical sites. There are also cases where earthquakes have caused mountain collapses, leading to reservoirs flooding valleys and submerging villages, or where the foundations of entire villages have collapsed due to earthquakes, causing them to sink underground and then be flooded.

However, the terrain here does not appear to have been affected by an earthquake. This stone lake is also very strange, with the bottom covered in gravel whose origin is unknown.

Damn it, this village must be connected to the whole situation. The archaeological team that came here back then clearly arrived at the lakeside to salvage the iron pieces at the bottom of the lake, which are evidently located in that ancient village. What connections are there between these factors? What happened here?

It seems that the secrets hidden in the water are definitely beyond my imagination.

“Forget about that for now. Let’s see what’s in the bag,” the fat guy urged, eager to open it. However, the bag was large, and the raft was small, making it difficult for the three of us to manage. The fat guy struggled for a while but couldn’t find the trick to opening the bag, and the raft felt like it was about to tip over. I was feeling anxious and couldn’t focus on these thoughts, so I stopped him and said, “Don’t rush. If we capsize, it will all be for nothing. Let’s head back to shore first.”

“No way,” the fat guy replied. “We don’t know what’s inside. What if it’s a corpse or something that shouldn’t be seen by A Gui? Are you going to kill someone to keep it quiet? We need to check it out here first.”

I thought he had a point; letting them know too much wouldn’t be good in the end, so I urged him to hurry.

The shape of the bag was still intact. When we tugged at the thin, rotten leather, we found it still had a lot of resilience. The quality of military products back then was truly impressive. This kind of bag usually has metal clasps, and we carefully turned the bag over on the raft to find the clasp on the back. When we flipped it, it felt like the contents inside were soft, almost like a clump of cotton.

Such bags are typically used to hold clothes or fabric, and I thought to myself, “I hope it’s not a quilt or something; that would be ridiculous.”

After opening it, we saw two rusted clasps that couldn’t be opened anymore. The fat guy pulled out a sickle and made a cut in the bag, revealing the iron wire frame inside.

I had seen an old domestic crime film before, where such bags were used to dispose of bodies, filled with body parts, and it left me with some psychological trauma. The fat guy was also very careful, using the sickle to peel back the leather. Sure enough, inside was a clump of nearly rotten cotton, remnants of a blanket that had been soaked in water. The fat guy stirred it with the knife, and soon we discovered some items at the bottom of the cotton. He carefully pulled them out, like an archaeologist, and they turned out to be a woman’s personal belongings.

What led me to this conclusion were the three combs. Men might carry a comb, but they wouldn’t carry three, and one of them had particularly large teeth, which must have been used for long hair.

There were also two hairpins, a Mao Zedong badge, a wooden mirror frame, a jar of Baique Ling snow cream, and another tea canister.

The Baijuerling snow cream and tea can are both made of tin and are heavily rusted. However, due to the stable conditions at the bottom of the lake, it’s clear that the rust has stopped at a certain point. What interests me the most is the wooden picture frame, which has a photo inside, but it has completely rotted from being submerged in water, leaving only clumps of colored strips. As soon as you unscrew the back cover of the frame, everything inside must be decayed; even if it hasn’t rotted, it’s impossible to tell what the photo depicts just from the color strips.

When the tea can is shaken, it makes a sound, indicating that it is sealed. The fat guy wants to open it, but it’s rusted shut. He doesn’t believe in bad luck and uses a sickle as a hammer to strike the bottom of the can, but the raft can’t withstand that kind of pounding. He has to float on his back while banging the can against his chest, producing a crisp, drum-like sound that echoes across the lake, resembling a hefty otter.

I find it amusing to watch, but it’s effective; soon the bottom of the can is broken open, and he pours out a black object, immediately exclaiming in surprise.

When I look at it, my heart sinks—it’s a small piece of iron, very similar to the one I found under the bed of the oil bottle. The fat guy mutters, “Another one of these things. It seems this suitcase really does belong to the archaeological team from back then; Pan Ma didn’t lie to us. What the hell is this thing?”

I take the iron piece and examine it carefully, shaking my head in silence, because I notice that this piece of iron is slightly unusual compared to the one from the oil bottle.