Chapter 334: Lake Bottom

Among us, Fatty, Poker-face, and I could handle ourselves in water. Agui could swim, but they were used to mountain streams, not staying afloat for long periods, so probably not much help. Yun Cai was a strong swimmer, but she had no swimsuit—we couldn't ask her to dive in just a tank top, or Fatty would lose all focus.

As for holding one's breath, there was no guarantee. Fatty claimed his lungs were big and he could last five minutes. I said that was impossible—with his bulk, the water pressure on him was far greater than on us. Anyone who could hold their breath for three minutes was already a god. He shouldn't push it; this wasn't a joke.

Fatty said that wasn't his main worry. We'd definitely test the shallows first before going deep. The problem was we had no fins; descending would be slow, and we might run out of air before reaching the bottom.

I nodded. Free diving wasn't completely bare-handed; it required gear and protective measures, and most importantly, psychological stability. Back in Xisha, some divers told me that the key to deep diving was mental composure. All deep divers, especially free divers, practiced meditation like in yoga. In deep water, surrounded by total darkness, you felt like you were floating in a void, and panic set in unconsciously. Underwater, once you panicked, you couldn't steady yourself, and accidents happened easily. With scuba gear, oxygen consumption shot up; without it, you could suffer psychological suffocation.

Unfortunately, the waters around Xisha were too shallow and clear; I never experienced that feeling and didn't know what it would actually be like.

But free diving wasn't that demanding on gear—we could find substitutes. For Fatty's issue, for instance, we could just use stones to speed our descent. The lake might have been deep originally, but with the dropping water levels over the years, there was no way it was still over a hundred meters. I figured fifty meters was the max, but of course we'd need to test the depth before diving.

We discussed the details thoroughly, all three of us excited. The next day we got up early. Before the sun came out, I did one last search along the shore to confirm my impressions from yesterday. A thin mist hung around the lake, but only at the edges. Yun Cai and the others were used to rising early and had breakfast ready. It was very thin porridge; Fatty could down ten bowls by himself, but since Yun Cai made it, he'd never complain it was bad.

After eating, Fatty joined the search, this time bringing the dogs. He teased them, saying, "Find bones, find bones, and I'll get you bitches." But the dogs just went to the lakeshore to drink and play, completely ignoring him.

By the time the sun came out, I'd made another circuit and was sure we wouldn't find it. I discussed it with the others; we decided we had to go into the water, scheduled for the afternoon when it was a bit warmer. Following yesterday's plan, we started gathering and preparing long ropes, a small float raft, and some stones of suitable weight.

Agui and Yun Cai helped us braid grass ropes. They didn't need to be too strong, just long enough to measure depth. Fatty cut a lot of grass with a sickle and spread it out to dry, but not all grass was suitable for braiding; more than half was unusable.

Poker-face and I used the braided ropes to tie together two small floats the size of an eight-immortal table, then found thigh-sized stones and tied them with grass ropes as ballast.

We braided three sections of grass rope, only about ten meters total. For two people working a morning, that was impressive, since we hadn't processed the grass well; it was rough, but I didn't care—we only needed it to last a few hours, not months.

We also cut up Fatty's nylon bag, pulled out the nylon threads, and wound them into a coil. A small stone was tied to it as a mini anchor for testing depth.

Once everything was ready, we piled it all onto the small floats, stripped down to our shorts, and slowly walked into the lake. Fatty had bought Poker-face's underwear—it had two little chicks on it, and Yun Cai nearly passed out laughing.

It was around two in the afternoon. The lake surface was still icy cold, so it must have been connected to running water. Without the sun, the temperature difference might have given us cramps.

We treaded water, and soon the color beneath our feet darkened. That was a bit unsettling—not seeing the bottom always felt unsafe, but after all we'd been through, that feeling passed quickly. The lake wasn't big, and we soon treaded to the center.

The lake breeze was very cool, melting away the summer heat. At the center, we had to tread harder to keep our balance. Fatty wiped his face and asked, "Captain Innocent, what's first?"

"Test the depth first," I said.

Fatty took the nylon thread with the small stone and threw it into the water. The stone pulled the thread down continuously, the spool spinning in Fatty's hand. Soon, only the thread was visible; the stone sank into the darkness.

After more than a minute, the spool stopped. Fatty broke the thread, pulled it up bit by bit, counting the loops, and finally determined the depth was over thirty-three meters.

I sucked in a breath. Though it was close to what I'd estimated, hearing it was still terrifying. And this might not be the deepest spot—in a stone lake like this, the deepest part wasn't necessarily the center.

"Thirty-three meters, First Mate. We've got to dive as deep as a ten-story building." "Damn, I get demoted as soon as I hear 'thirty meters'?" I cursed, trying to sound tough. "Ten stories is nothing. Shit, what's there to be afraid of?"

Then stuffing mud into our ears, Poker-face and I took a few shallow dives to acclimate to the water temperature. I told Fatty to stay on the surface for now—he wasn't built for easy diving, and we'd try to get it done in one go so he wouldn't have to go down. With that, we tied the grass rope with the large stone around our waists, grabbed a sickle and a flashlight in a plastic bag, and exchanged a look with Poker-face.

We took a deep breath, and when our lungs were full, we pushed the stone off the raft. It sank slowly, pulling us straight down into the water.

In Sudan, adulterous chieftain's wives were executed this way. I looked up at the surface. Without goggles, everything was hazy—I could vaguely see Fatty's lower half and the raft's shadow, along with the sun's halo on the water. But those sights quickly receded, and absolute silence surrounded me. Looking down, there was only a pitch-black abyss, with only Poker-face's flashlight visible; he was head-down, agile as a water bat.

This wouldn't last long, I told myself. As the light around me plummeted, the water pressure surged. My eardrums and chest ached terribly, forcing me to expel air from my lungs.

Soon, my flashlight illuminated what lay below—a bluish hazy expanse of rock drawing closer. As I sank, the bottom became clearer. I could see the stones were of varying heights, obviously not flat but a slope.

Almost at that moment, I found it hard to hold my breath. I checked my watch—less than thirty seconds under. A pressure surged toward my nose, and I desperately wanted to inhale.

On the other side, Poker-face was still descending. I looked up at the surface—God, it was all blurry, just a faint glow far away. Imagine looking up from a pitch-black, thirty-meter-high auditorium at a skylight the size of a bowl—I couldn't help but panic and lose control, feeling I couldn't hold on.

So I pulled out the sickle at my waist to cut the grass rope holding me. Unexpectedly, the water-soaked grass rope was tough. I cut twice, and only half the rope broke; the other half wouldn't cut through.

I panicked. My conditioned reflex told me to take a deep breath and calm down, but instead I inhaled a mouthful of water, choking and doubling over in coughs.

After managing to hold the water in my lungs, I felt a vibration from the rope—the stone had hit bottom. I steadied myself and looked down. The bottom was indeed a monotonous, steep rocky shore, just like the one on land, covered in stones of all sizes. But these stones, soaked for years, were covered in a layer of slime. What struck me as odd was that they were completely "clean"—no algae or snails like I'd seen on other lakebeds.

The rocky slope was steep. My "weight stone" was wedged among a few rocks, not sliding further down the incline, but below, it was dark and deep, as if there was more to dive.

I didn't know the depth now. Poker-face must have descended much deeper at his spot, because I could see his flashlight sinking like a blurry signal flare in the dark.

I'd already expelled all the air from my lungs, and I began to sink toward the bottom. Soon I was lying on the lakebed, and oddly, I felt I could hold my breath a while longer. The earlier urgency might have been from the water pressure compressing my chest. I braced myself, lifted my "weight stone" from where it was stuck, and tossed it further down the slope.

The weight stone slid down, pulling me deeper for another seven or eight meters. The slope gentled, and the stone stopped again.

I grabbed the rope and sank again, about to lift the stone, when I suddenly spotted a huge, blurry shape in the deep, bluish-gray water below the slope—like a crocodile's head.

Underwater visibility was terrible; I could only make out the outline. Startled, I wondered if there were lake monsters in this kind of lake. Shining my flashlight down, I saw that the shape was actually an old wooden house, collapsed in a deep gully at my feet. Only a rough frame remained, covered with cotton-like sediment. I held the rope to steady myself, approached the wooden house, and moved the flashlight around. I saw that there was more than one such house—below, there were crisscrossing dark shapes, even ruined tile-roofed houses. Looking further down the gully's slope, I could see stone steps, fences, all quietly resting in the lake water.

My God, I was stunned. What I was seeing was an ancient Yao village.