Traveling back to ancient times to determine the zodiac

After asking three times, there was still no response. Dong said, "Xing, the bandicoot probably doesn't live in this cave. Let's look for it somewhere else."

"Brother Dong, don't be anxious, let's wait and see." Xiaoxing stared into the cave, hoping for a miracle to happen.

"Xing, let's throw a stone down to test it out. If there is any movement, it means the bandicoot may be inside. If there is no movement, it means it is definitely not inside." Chen suggested.

"Chen is right. Let's throw a stone in and see what happens." Dong saw a stone not far away, so he picked it up and threw it into the cave.

The stone drew an arc in the air and fell accurately into the hole. Everyone pricked up their ears, but for a long time, they could not hear the echo of the stone falling to the bottom, let alone any other movement.

"Xing, there was no sound when I threw the stone down, so the bandicoot must not be in it." Chen said dejectedly.

"Yes, this is probably an abandoned cave. Let's look somewhere else!" Dong said.

The crowd continued to search for the cave along the foot of the mountain. Soon, some people discovered several cave entrances, but after throwing stones to test them, they all fell into the sea.

As the sun was about to set and everyone was getting impatient, Lei suddenly shouted excitedly, "Brother Dong, Brother Xing, everyone come over and see, I found a big hole in the ground."

Xiaoxing, Dong, Chen and others rushed over when they heard the words. As expected, they saw a cave half as big as the previous one, which was just as deep and dark, with no bottom in sight.

"Get out of the way, let me throw a stone down and try it out." Xi had already picked up a fist-sized stone and threw it into the cave.

"Ah ...

"Are those bandicoots in the cave? We are humans from Hongmeng, and we came here to eliminate the Nian Beast. Now the Nian Beast and the Dog King are hiding in the Mihun Cave. The cave is very complicated, with countless forks. The Dog King has sharp ears and eyes, and he chased them several times, but they escaped each time. In desperation, I come to ask you, bandicoot, for a favor." Xiaoxing asked again impatiently.

"I don't care who you are, first tell me why you are throwing stones at me?" The person below was indeed a bandicoot - a thousand-year-old bandicoot spirit, who asked angrily.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Xiao Xing apologized hastily, "We were testing you with the stone just now. We didn't mean to hit you. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry."

"Since it wasn't intentional, forget it!" said the bandicoot.

"Thank you for your generosity, Bandicoot. However, we still need you to come out and help defeat the Dog King and the Nian Beast."

"I forgive you for hitting me for no reason, and you still want me to help you?" The bandicoot curled up impatiently and ordered them to leave: "Go away quickly and don't disturb my sleep!"

"Beast, we are begging you. As long as you help us to eliminate the Nian beast, we will be very grateful." Xiaoxing saw that you were rejecting and begged quickly.

"Why should I help you? Go away and don't disturb my sleep!" A cruel rejection came from the cave again.

"Xing, the bandicoot refuses to help, there's no point in saying anything more." Dong shook his head and said.

"What should we do? Without the bandicoots coming out of the mountain, we can't break into the Cave of Enchantment and eliminate the Dog King and the Nian Beast." Chen said helplessly.

"That damn bandicoot, I'll catch it to help me even if I have to!" Lei became anxious, walked to the edge of the cave, stomped his foot hard, and said viciously.

With a loud "wow", the ground that was stomped on collapsed. Lei was caught off guard and fell into the hole in the blink of an eye.

It turned out that the bottom of the edge of the cave was hollowed out, and it was difficult for a person to stand on it. Moreover, with his strong stomping, how could it not collapse?

"Thunder——", "Thunder——", the incident happened so suddenly that others were too late to reach out and could only watch the thunder fall.

"Everyone, step back! Be careful of the ground collapsing again." Xiaoxing waved his hand and ordered everyone to step back a few steps. Then he lay down at the entrance of the cave and shouted loudly into the cave: "Lei, how are you? Are you injured?"

Feng and Yun, not afraid of danger, also lay down at the entrance of the cave and shouted into the cave: "Lei, are you okay? Woo woo..."

After a long while, Lei's weak response came from the cave: "Brother Xing, Brother Feng, I'm not injured, I'm fine."

"Lei, don't worry, we will find a way to rescue you now." Xiaoxing comforted Lei while thinking quickly about how to get him out.

"Xing, how can we rescue my brother?" Feng asked.

"I think there is no other way except to put a vine rope down to hang it. I just don't know how deep this cave is and how long the vine rope needs to be?" Xiao Xing scratched his head and replied, then shouted into the cave: "Lei, how deep is this cave?"

"Brother Xing, this cave is about ten feet deep." Lei looked at the small hole from above and gave an estimated answer.

"Lei, we'll find a vine rope to lift you up now. You better be patient down there." Xiaoxing shouted.

"Got it! Brother Xing, I will hold on." The people above are brothers who share life and death together. Lei knows that everyone will definitely not give up on him.

"Xing, this mountain is full of five-finger palms. If you want to cut vines, you have to look somewhere else." Chen looked around and said.

"Chen, no matter how far we go, we must find Tengsuo to save Lei." Xiaoxing said.

"Xing, it's getting late now and we won't be able to see the star soon. Why don't we wait until tomorrow?" Dong suggested.

"Brother Dong, even if it's dark, we have to cut the vines back quickly. The longer Lei stays in the cave, the more dangerous it will be." Xiaoxing answered without any room for argument.

"Xing, if we all leave, Lei will definitely collapse in the cave." Chen said worriedly.

"Chen, Dong Ge and I are enough to cut the vines. You and Hong'er, Lan'er, and a small number of brothers Feng, Yun, Dian, etc. stay here to accompany Lei." Xiaoxing ordered.

Night invaded the last ray of light, and the surroundings were immediately surrounded by darkness. Everyone built a bonfire and lit torches. Then, Xiaoxing and Dong led half of the brothers to search for the vine rope with torches at night.

Chen, Hong'er, Lan'er and the others gathered around the campfire, waiting boredly at the cave entrance. Hong'er looked at the mountain of brown fruits and couldn't help but feel greedy again, saying, "Brother Chen, it's boring to wait now, can you help us pick some brown fruits to eat?"

"Yes, yes, Brother Chen, please help us pick some palm fruits to try. We are hungry now." Lan'er begged.

"Okay. Hong'er, Lan'er, I'll pick it for you right away." Chen agreed without thinking when he saw that they wanted to eat it. So he chose a five-finger palm and climbed up in a few steps.

After a while, Chen dropped a brown fruit from the tree, then climbed up another tree to pick more. Soon he had picked more than ten big brown fruits.

Hong'er used a stone knife to split the brown fruit, peeled off the hard skin, and inside was the tender white flesh. She couldn't wait to open her mouth and take a bite, and then spat it all out with a "Puh" sound.

"Oh, what's this taste? Bitter and astringent." Hong'er frowned.

"Really?" Lan'er took it curiously and took a bite, then immediately spit it out, saying, "Oh, this brown fruit really looks good but doesn't taste good, what a pity."

"Hong'er, Lan'er, since you say they are not delicious, I will burn these brown fruits as firewood." After Chen said this, he threw the brown fruits into the bonfire one by one.

The bonfire was burning fiercely. After a while, the brown fruits were roasted and cracked, and a fragrant smell wafted over from the fire.

"Wow, what smells so good?" asked Hong'er when she smelled the fragrance.

"Hong'er, this fragrance comes from the palm fruit." Chen sniffed it hard and then said, "How can such a fragrant palm fruit be unpalatable?"

Chen suspiciously pulled a brown fruit out of the fire, cut it open, and found the flesh inside was fragrant and hot. He took a bite and then shouted, "Wow! It's delicious, like a roasted sweet potato, so delicious!"

"Brother Chen, I want to try it too." Lan'er took the brown fruit from Chen and took a bite. It tasted completely different from before, soft, sticky and sweet. She praised excitedly, "Yeah! It's really fragrant, pink and delicious!"

When Feng Heyun and the others heard this, they all said, "It's so delicious, I want one too."

Everyone picked all the palm fruits from the campfire and ate them all in a short while. Feng was worried about his brother Lei and said, "Brothers, let's pick some more palm fruits and roast them for Lei down below."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and then they picked more palm fruits and put them on the fire to roast. Soon, the palm fruits were roasted. Feng took one out, peeled off the skin, held it to the entrance of the cave, and shouted down: "Lei, you are hungry down there, right? I'll throw you a palm fruit to eat."

After saying that, he threw the peeled palm fruit down.

"Okay, Brother Feng. Thank you!" Lei replied from below.

After a while, Feng came to the top of the cave again and asked Lei: "Lei, have you finished eating? Do you want more?"

"Brother Feng, these palm fruits are so delicious. Hurry and bring some down for me." Lei shouted.

"Okay, brother, I'll get you some more right away." Feng agreed, took out a few roasted palm fruits, peeled them, and threw them into the hole.

But Lei below kept shouting that it was not enough and asked for more. Everyone thought Lei was starving, so they threw a few more, but he still kept shouting that it was not enough. Only after he had thrown down all the dozens of palm fruits he had just picked, Lei finally shouted, "Enough, enough. Brothers, don't throw any more."

"Whoa..." Feng took a long breath and said to Yun, Dian and the others, "Brothers, let's pick some more palm fruits to eat."

"Yes, Brother Feng." Everyone agreed and was about to take action when they heard someone shouting in the distance: "Chen, Feng, brothers, we are back."

"Brothers, it's Xing and Dong Ge who have transferred here!" Chen said to everyone happily after hearing that.

The crowd came forward with torches, following the sound. They saw Xiaoxing, Dong and others returning happily with several bundles of rattan ropes.

"Brother Dong, Xing, it's great that you cut the vines back so quickly!" Chen said to the crowd.

"Chen, is Lei okay in the cave?" Xiaoxing asked.

"Lei is fine. We just dropped a lot of roasted palm fruits here. I guess he is eating them to his heart's content in the cave." Chen replied.

"That's good. Let's go save him now." Xiaoxing said.

Everyone carried the vine rope to the edge of the cave and put it down. Xiaoxing shouted into the cave: "Lei, we have cut the vine rope. Let's put it down to save you now."

"Okay, Brother Xing." Lei in the cave replied.

Xiao Xing and the others lowered thumb-thick vine ropes into the cave one by one. When they had lowered about ten feet, Lei in the cave touched the vine ropes and shouted, "Brother Xing, that's enough vine ropes."

"Lei, hold on to the vine rope now, we will lift you up!" Xiaoxing shouted.

"I understand, Brother Xing." Lei held the vine rope tightly and answered loudly.

"Brothers, pull the vine rope upwards with all your strength to lift Lei up." Xiaoxing ordered everyone.

"One, two, three; one, two, three..." Everyone shouted slogans and pulled upwards. After a while of effort, Lei was successfully rescued from the cave.

"Lei, are you okay?" Xiaoxing asked again.

"Brother Xing, there are thick fallen leaves at the bottom of this cave. Although it hurts a bit when I fell, I am not seriously injured." Lei stretched his arms and kicked his legs to show everyone.

"Brother Lei, have you eaten all those brown fruits?" Dian asked curiously.

"No, I didn't eat those brown fruits," Lei replied.