After the agreement was reached, Shen Luo left the horses to the care of Yu DaDa and his wife, while he held the boat and swung towards the river.
Before setting off, Yu DaDa did not forget to give him detailed instructions for fear that something might happen to him. Naturally, Shen Luo did not dare to neglect this and wrote down the situation of each river section in detail. and things to note.
The woman even added clean drinking water to the boat. She also brought out a few pancakes and some dried meat from home, wrapped them in linen, and insisted on taking them on board to eat.
Shen Luo couldn't resist the kindness, so he also accepted the package with a smile.
The small black-topped boat drifted down the fast river. Shen Luo stood at the bow of the boat, holding a bamboo pen in his hand, but he did not support the boat, but floated on both sides of the boat one by one. Explore the rocks.
Soon, the boat bypassed clumps of reeds as tall as a person and entered a reed swamp.
According to what Yu boldly said, this section of the river is the most turbulent in the entire Luanshui River. When the boat first entered the water, the speed was not too fast, but as it went downstream it became extremely fast. The speed increased so much that Shen Luo had to start using a bamboo pen to probe the bottom to slow down the boat.
It's just that he is no good at punting, and it's not a big deal in calm water. In this kind of rapids, even though he has concentrated on it, he still can't avoid bumps and bumps.
"Bang, bang, bang"
The boat swung east to west and kept hitting the reefs under the river. It shocked the geese flying over the reeds on both sides and the water birds soared into the sky. .
When encountering some large eddies and reefs, he has to use all his strength to push the boat away, otherwise once he is involved, the boat may capsize if he is not careful.
Shen Luo soon became so tired that he was sweating all over and his eyes were filled with stars. However, the water force forced him to rest, so he could only grit his teeth and hold on.
Along the way, he paid special attention to the river banks on both sides to see if there was any narrowing of the river. However, due to the high and dense reeds in the river, his vision was affected and he could not see clearly clearly. He could only Make judgments based on changes in water potential as much as possible.
After all, where the river narrows, the water flow speed will also increase.
Shen Luo drifted like this for seven or eight miles, not encountering any rocky beaches along the way, but there were quite a few sandbars in the middle of the river.
His boat plunged head-on into two narrow sandbanks.
The sandbank was covered with green reeds, as if a natural waterway had been created. As soon as the boat entered it, its speed suddenly accelerated and it rushed out.
There was a muffled "bang" sound, and when the boat rushed out of the reeds, it suddenly shook violently.
Shen Luo staggered and almost fell from the bow of the boat.
He held his bamboo pole, steadied his body, and looked forward. He saw that the front of the bow actually hit a rocky beach with a radius of dozens of feet. Fortunately, the boat The wood was strong, but not damaged.
Different from the sandbars seen along the way, the rocky beach is filled with fist-sized gray-white pebbles and sand, unlike the boats.Where the heads hit each other, there was a brown river reef that was much larger than the other rocks.
Not only does this stone look craggy and weird, but only about two feet are exposed above the water, and more of it is hidden under the water.
Unfortunately, the bow of the boat got stuck in a groove of this strange rock. Fortunately, it was not damaged.
Shen Luo looked at both sides of the river for a moment, and found that the rivers on both sides had narrowed significantly at this point, with a smile on his lips.
"The narrowing of the river, the rocky beach, and the underwater reefs, it looks like this should be the place." Shen Luo murmured.
According to Yu Yan, their ancestors found the unknown book under a rocky beach. Now this place is very consistent.
I thought it would take a lot of searching, but I didn’t expect that it didn’t take much effort.
Shen Luo threw the pennant onto the rocky beach, leaned over and tied the rope tied to the bow of the boat to the river reef, and tugged hard to make sure that the boat would no longer float away with the water. , just sat down in the cabin and fell backward.
He had just rowed the boat all the way, and he was already exhausted. At this moment, he no longer had the strength to go down to the river to find the Book of Heaven or even to jump off the bow of the boat.
After Shen Luo rested for a long time and ate some solid food, he finally took a breath and stood up again.
He took out a bundle of thumb-thick hemp rope from the cabin, tied one end firmly to the river reef, and tied the other end twice around his waist before jumping off. The boat arrived at the rocky beach.
The rocky beach is approximately elliptical in shape, consistent with the direction of the water flow. It is long and narrow from east to west and slightly narrower from north to south. The river reef stands at the west end of the rocky beach. Shen Luo stood next to the stone and looked into the river.
I saw that the river water was dark and had a faint muddy smell. There were white waves on the nearby stone beach, and there were whirlpools of different sizes floating on the river in the distance. I couldn't see it at all. conditions below the water.
He calmed down a little, stretched out one foot, and cautiously stepped toward the water.
As a result, the rocks on the water's edge were loose, and they suddenly slid down when a little force was applied.
Shen Luo suddenly stepped on the air and fell into the river with a "plop".
The river here was quite deep. His whole body was buried in the water, and he was suddenly rushed by the rushing river water. His back hit the boulder directly. He couldn't help but open his mouth and said directly I choked on several large mouthfuls of river water mixed with silt.
In panic, he struggled to turn around, grabbed the boulder and climbed up, put his head out of the water, took a sharp breath, and then coughed violently.
"Ahem..."
It took Shenluo a while to regain his composure. He reached out and wiped the river water on his face, feeling a little frightened in his heart.
"This place is really dangerous, but if it hadn't been so, the Nameless Heavenly Book wouldn't have been here for so long, and no one would have found it." Shen Luo thought, and his desire for the Nameless Heavenly Book became more and more intense. The hair became stronger.
This time,He took a deep breath, pinched his nose, and suddenly sank into the water. He held the boulder behind him with one hand and explored the water bit by bit.
After entering the water, he slowly opened his eyes, only to find that the water in the river was a bit turbid, and he could not see much clearly, nor could he see very far at all. He could only rely on the assistance of the river reefs to see as much as possible. Go to the bottom of the river.
What surprised him was that the river bed was quite deep. When his feet stepped on the sand at the bottom of the river, the breath he was holding was no longer enough.
He resisted the feeling of suffocation and tried his best to look at the bottom of the river under the rocky beach with his eyes wide open. He vaguely saw some mud caves with no apparent depth inside. I couldn't see it clearly, so I hurriedly put my hands over to explore.
After only touching it for a short while, holding his breath for a long time made him dizzy and his chest felt heavy, so he could only hold on to the piece and climb up a little bit, back to the water.
Shen Luo sucked in the air, his chest rising and falling violently.
After his breath calmed down a little, he plunged into the water again and sank toward the bottom of the river.
This time, in order to stay at the bottom of the river for a while, he sank much faster. As soon as he reached the bottom of the river, he immediately started groping underwater.
It’s just that the bottom of the water is dim and there is mud and sand, so the eyes can do very little to help. Shen Luo can only fumble around like a headless fly.
After a while, his breath ran out, and he could only return again.
After recovering a little, he plunged into the bottom of the river and groped around under the rocky beach.
After a few back and forth, when Shenluo came up to the surface to take a breath, he felt tired and cold, and his lips were a bit blue.
He hugged the river reef, raised his head slightly and looked at the western sky, and found that the sun had begun to set in the west.
"Try again..."
Shen Luo's eyes narrowed, and he took another deep breath. His whole body sank down again and dived towards the bottom of the river. Go down.
He had touched almost every mud cave under the river reef, so he walked around the rocks and swam towards the south side of the rocky beach, pressing his palms against the river bed as he swam inside. touch.
This time, when his right hand squeezed through a small hole and looked inside, his fingertips suddenly touched something completely different from a stone.