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Chapter Seventy-Five: Because, Therefore

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  With a loud "thud", the two snowmen suddenly raised their arms and slammed them down heavily, the cry was mournful, and the ground shook with a loud "crack".

  "You reap what you sow, and cannot live!" A cold glint flashed in Feng Qi Yun's eyes as he transformed into a white shadow. Alas, it was too late. The ice-encased earth could not withstand such a pounding, and an icy pillar burst forth like an earthquake, tearing open the ground. In that instant, the earth shook and mountains trembled. Ape-like cries echoed through the air. Thunderous roars filled their ears as the earth beneath them began to punish those who had desecrated nature. The ice layer shattered, ending their journey forward. Feng Qi Yun's sword pierced its chest, and in that moment, they both tumbled into the suddenly opened chasm.

  It's all over, everything is over. In the blink of an eye, the earth was like a monster's mouth, once opened it could never be closed again. Watching one familiar person after another being swallowed up, but you were powerless to do anything, because you were also one of them.

  Is it a deep abyss of ten thousand zhang? Well, Xiao Bai, I've done my best, let me accompany you like this...

  Zha Wenbin stretched out his arms, he felt himself flying up, a sense of ease he had never experienced before. Sorry, Concubine Ping, let me be an ox or a horse in the next life to make it up to you, I'm tired...

  With a "bang", Zhang Wenbin felt a severe pain in his back, followed by an endless amount of water rushing in from all directions, into his ears, nose, and mouth. It was extremely unbearable. He didn't know how long he had been sinking when someone grabbed his hand, and after some chaotic kicking, the pressure on his body finally decreased significantly. The moment he broke through the surface of the water, gasping for air, he realized that only by dying once can one understand: being alive is actually pretty good.

  (Translation note: I've kept the original text's tone and style as much as possible in the translation.)

  Some struggled to climb ashore, fortunately, everyone was there. The last one to get up was Feng Qi, who had been pressed down by the giant snowman and sank to the bottom of the water. It turned out that it was Gasa who pulled Cha Wenbin ashore earlier, and seeing him shivering with cold, Cha Wenbin also felt a pang of heartache. The fat man measured their falling distance with his flashlight, estimating that they were now at an altitude even with the lake, about 50 meters high. The crevices on both sides of the crack were knife-sharp ice layers, and everyone thought it was too risky to climb up further. The ancient glacier that had just collapsed was very fragile, and any external force could trigger a secondary reaction.

  Looking at the direction of the water flow, it should be towards the lake, Kasan said that there is only one gorge with a river around here, so the end of this river should be connected to the gorge. The location they are in now is a large block of ice-covered rock, and both sides of this underground river channel are filled with thick ice layers, as for the thickness, it's hard to say.

  Fatso wrung out the water from his clothes and said, "Did you guys notice when we fell into the water earlier? There are many column-shaped rocks at the bottom of the river, scattered all over the place."

  "No..."

  "Ah, right. I was holding a flashlight when I fell down earlier, it was quite spectacular, you guys missed it."

  Yun Dao said: "You say those are some pillar-like stones, and there are many of them?"

  Fatso gestured: "Not shallow, but the water here is very deep. I estimate that those rocks are at least ten meters below, similar to the pillars on either side of the Grand Temple."

  Just then, Ye Qiu said: "I also saw it, and there is a statue of God, when the fat man swept with his flashlight, I took a glance, sitting at the bottom of the water, those eyes are bigger than my head."

  The discovery of these two people was unexpected, and such a large underground river channel actually had someone build a large building! Feng Qi Yun looked at the calm flowing waterway under his feet: "It's a pity that the water temperature here is too low, and it won't last long after going down. There are also those fish, this river must be connected to the lake outside, and its width and depth exceed our imagination. The things seen by the two friends at least explain one problem: there was once a highly developed civilization here, but now it has sunk to the bottom of the water, perhaps they were washed down from upstream bit by bit."

  The wind and clouds are right, the top priority now is to hurry out, nothing has been lost, but the wet clothes have frozen into ice. In this situation, their body heat will only accelerate consumption. If they can't find a place to warm up, hypothermia will take their lives soon.

  As I walked, sipping on the Qingke wine, the wind rose and clouds dispersed, it was the fragrance of the wine that brought out this Yeti. This wasn't the first time a Yeti had been discovered. In the Himalayas, over 300 years ago, a British expedition team encountered this mysterious species between humans and apes, and in 1941, a former Soviet military doctor captured a white-haired monster in a small mountain village in present-day Tajikistan's Pamir region, it couldn't speak, only roar.

  Later, the border guard mistook it for a spy and shot it, which made the military doctor very sad. The name of this military doctor was Vyacheslav Stepanovich Zvyagintsev. He wrote an article about this incident and published it in a medical journal. It is worth noting that this place is very close to Pamir, where the wind rises and says that it is the ancestor of the Neanderthals, a species contemporaneous with the mountain people.

  For that little snowman, everyone felt sorry, but this is the cruelty of nature. Perhaps the pair of snowmen knew they would die in this way, and to prevent their child from falling into the hands of the "enemy", they chose to kill it themselves, which was also a kind of courage.

  The ice surface on both sides of the riverbed was fortunately solid enough, and even Fatso didn't notice anything unusual when he walked up. After walking for about half an hour, the eyebrows and hair of these people were all frozen into frosty colors. They finally welcomed the long-awaited sunlight. As they walked further back, the ice layer became thicker and thicker, until they couldn't see the river anymore. Gradually, rocks began to replace the ice layer, which meant they were about to leave this vast mountain range. Sure enough, when a ray of bright light appeared, everyone was excited to the point of almost crying.

  As they walked out of the cave, they realized that they were indeed lucky to be alive. The exit was completely formed due to the avalanche and collapse, and it was very small. Outside, the thick ice was about 7-8 meters thick. Perhaps the rocks falling from the mountain above had smashed open this exit just in time. As they crawled out, the heavens smiled with warm sunlight.

  A few people rolled and crawled down from the mountains, everything at the foot of the mountain was so beautiful. The green and lush water grass, the beautiful but not charming flowers, the low and sparse forest on both sides still had unknown shrubs with green leaves, this is simply two worlds, the big mountain behind blocked the strong wind and gave this piece of land a rare peaceful place in the snowy mountains.

  The benefits of filling up with kerosene and flint were fully utilized at this moment, the fire heap that was born from the thick smoke mixed with living wood did not make anyone feel choked, this is simply a heavenly treatment. Gasa's face was roasted to be red and swollen, this child had reached the limit several times on the way, but he insisted on following the team without falling behind, at the most difficult time he kept shouting "father" in his mouth, perhaps it was really his father who guided them to find the right direction.

  "Following this small river upstream is the Gangler Gorge," said Kasang. "Here is the best land on the grassland, and our cattle often sneak up for two days to cross the towering snow-capped mountains just to eat a mouthful of fresh grass. Do you see that pile of stones in front? That's the boundary, even if the grass inside is better than here, our cattle dare not move forward."

  Following the direction of Gesang's finger, Zha Wenbin indeed saw a row of stones on the horizon, about 100 meters long, like a white dividing line clearly separating the two worlds.

  "That was drawn by our ancestors and the great sky god together, any place outside of that line can have our cattle and sheep, once past that line it enters the territory of the canyon, tonight we will spend the night here."

  This little guide had everything arranged properly, and even if they had to pay the price of their lives to arrive a day earlier, no one complained. Everyone started to like this child more and more. Looking at the snow-capped mountain behind him, Cha Wenbin knew that night was about to fall again.

  Tonight, it seems like no one has the intention of sleeping. The wind rises and clouds ask Gangsa, "Is there a snowman here?" Gangsa says, "Snowmen dare not come here, this is the territory of gods and demons, snowmen will not take risks."

  That day, when the sky was not dark, they saw a large group of gazelles on the other side of the dividing line. The gazelles were eating grass on their side, and Cha Wenbin noticed that none of them crossed the line even as they left. It seemed that the creatures here had reached an agreement with the power that ruled this place, just like the clear division between the Chu River and the Han border.

  Kasang told them that there were many lives in the canyon that belonged to the canyon itself, and they lived a completely different life from the outside world. Fatso asked him how he knew, and he said it was Grandpa Buji who told him. As he spoke more, Zha Wenbin also became interested in this Grandpa Buji of his, Kasang's age was about the same as theirs when they were sent to the countryside as young people, and with these two days of interaction, this grassland child gradually got along with them, from his mouth, they slowly learned more about this mysterious land and those mysterious people.

  Before liberation, Tibet was a society of serfdom, where all land and pastures were allocated to noble families, high-ranking monks and monasteries as their source of income for maintenance and repair. Buzhou was born into an official family, his father being the local Zhongben, or headman, who held the highest power in the area. When he was around ten years old, Buzhou fell in love with a daughter of a serf, but his father would not allow such a scandal to occur in their household, and so the girl and her family were flogged by Buzhou's father. As Zhongben had absolute power, they could take the lives of serfs at will, and so the girl was beaten to death.

  Booji was heartbroken and wanted to leave this sinful place to cleanse his soul. He wanted to help the deceased lover's spirit reach the heavens, so Booji became a monk. He chose to be an ascetic monk, every day holding a prayer wheel by the lake of Shenmu Le, reciting the oldest scriptures for the spirit of his loved one. One day, his master asked him: "Booji, has your loved one reached the embrace of the heavenly gods?"

  Booji said: "Master, I don't know, because I can feel that she is unhappy."

  The master said to him, "That's because she has already forgiven this world and gone to heaven, where the joy that was originally there made her forget the sorrow of this place. But when she sees you so sad every day in heaven, how can she be happy? Go back and become your original Bujji again. Let her feel your happiness, and you will also feel hers."

  After listening to his master's words, Buji returned to secular life again. At that time, the country had already been liberated, and his father, who was a member of the landlord class, received trial by the people and eventually died in prison. Because Buji had become a monk before, he had long since drawn a clear line with his family and did not get involved. He thought it was the guidance of that girl's soul in heaven to him, she gave him a brand new life, so Buji never married again for the rest of his life.

  Zha Wenbin knew that many people in the Tibetan region believed in religion, and the teachings of these ancient sects had not changed for thousands of years. Many wise men would seek their own meaning in religion, and that old Bhutanese man was no exception.

  The plateau at night is very beautiful, the sky is low-hanging, and the stars in the sky seem to be within reach. Living in such a place may be called life. Zha Wenbin sighed, Gasa and Paozi leaned against each other, both big and small were snoring.

  "You're very skilled." Feng Qi Yun said to Ye Qiu.

  Ye Qiu was unmoved by his flattery, but still said a word of thanks: "Thank you."

  The wind rose and the cloud's eyes flashed, he stuck to Ye Qiu's ear and asked: "When it was knocked down, you were awake, what a good opportunity you could have killed it, but you gave up, tell me why?"

  He fell silent for a while, and after a long time he raised his head and said: "Because I saw that little one before you..."

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