When I was a child, the cattle farm filled with swallows made it hard for me to distinguish whether it was a place for raising swallows or cattle. I don't know why there were so many swallows. Upon reflection, they couldn't have been bats; they wouldn't fly in such large numbers during the day, swirling chaotically in the open Gobi Desert, but miraculously, they seemed to avoid collisions, or perhaps if they did collide, they could adjust their flying posture in time. They weren't sparrows either; the colors were wrong, as they were mostly black with little white.
The Gobi Desert might have been green grassland before, grazed bare by cattle, temporarily abandoned. There could be many such lands in the Western Regions, and on such land, one could see several holes, some large and some small, with no signs of human entry. Perhaps someone had entered before, but the winds and sands of time had erased the traces.
I was fostered at my aunt's house, and I wasn't very brave. If I had to go into that hole alone, I wouldn't dare at all. My cousin and his classmates were very adventurous; in this area, whether it was private land or uninhabited territory, whether in trees or water, anything they wanted was easily within reach. However, they were unwilling to take me along; I was six years younger than them, and I was only 6 or 7 years old at the time.
But this time, they took me along to explore the cave. Now that I think about it, was there some kind of conspiracy? Probably not. It was just that having more people gave them courage. Exploring a cave still required some preparation; candles and matches were essential, and they also brought yarn, the kind used for knitting sweaters, which I didn't know what to do with at the time but was asked to hold. When we arrived at the place, they lit two candles, but the wind was too strong, and they blew out before we could enter the cave. After trying twice, someone said there was no wind inside the cave, so we should go in first, but no one moved because, although it was noon and the sun was blazing, the cave was incredibly dark. Everyone was scared, looking at each other's palms and backs of hands to see who was unlucky. In fact, the two of them had probably exchanged glances, and a roll of the eyes or a few blinks might have been the signal for "palm up," but I didn't know that. So every time at that moment, I felt like the chosen one.
I was light because I was thin. However, one of them couldn't lift me into the cave at all. Although the cave looked quite shallow, I didn't dare to jump in directly. One person pulled my left hand, and another pulled my right hand, and that's how I entered the cave entrance. It was dark, only darkness at first. I wanted to close my eyes, but I didn't dare. Some places under my feet were soft, and some were hard. I could feel this without moving my feet. My ears could hear a whistling sound, a sensation that could only be heard in one ear. My vision gradually adapted to the darkness, and I could see some conditions inside the cave. The cave wasn't deep, and the entrance was an irregular circle, probably formed by natural collapse. Inside the cave, there were two directions leading into dark extensions. The cave was about 70-80 cm wide. They asked me if I was afraid of ghosts. I said I wasn't.
My cousin said, "Move a bit to the side; I'll go down too." I didn't dare to crawl into the dark hole, so I pressed myself against the cave wall and let him come down. My cousin came down and said, "Why are you shaking?" I said, "Where's the candle? Hurry up and light it." There really wasn't much wind inside the cave, so it wouldn't go out once lit, but the effect was indeed not very noticeable, only increasing the visible range by 1 or 2 meters.
Suddenly! Something burned me a little. I looked at my arm; a drop of candle wax had landed on it, and they both jumped in surprise! Then they tried to hold the candles more steadily. We lit three candles, one for each of us. My cousin was in front, I was in the middle, and we walked toward the silent side. I was hunched over, and they crawled. Later, I crawled too; it felt safer. Inside the cave, there wasn't much except for scattered small stones embedded in the dirt, some present and some not. The cave walls had places where they had crumbled, leaving small piles below. Our speed matched my cousin's pace. I didn't know how long we had been crawling in there, feeling like years had passed. Suddenly, my cousin said, "Dead end. Retreat." Initially, I thought they would switch places, but it was indeed unnecessary trouble, and then his classmate became the leader. On the way back, we moved much faster, and I seemed to vaguely see a light ahead.
Soon we reached the cave entrance. After some commotion, everyone was less scared. We set off toward the direction of the sound. Our speed was still slow, cautiously. We cleared the stones that hurt our feet to the sides. Suddenly, we stopped, saying we had discovered a creature. I couldn't tell if the eyes were yellow or green or what color; there were a total of two points. Four or five meters away, or maybe even closer, someone said, "Is it a snake?" Everyone was very tense. Do snakes fear fire? I don't know. The indescribable light didn't run away either. My cousin said he would go take a look and asked us to stay away so we wouldn't affect his escape. I focused my gaze on my cousin as he tried to stretch his hand forward to let the candlelight extend ahead, slowly moving forward. He held a fist-sized stone in his left hand, using it to touch the ground to reduce friction on his palm, and he could use the stone for defense at any time. I also subconsciously found a stone to hold in my hand.
Then the light suddenly disappeared.