Ye Shengtao's original "Record of Jinhua's Double Dragon Cave"

2024-09-09 06:23

On April 14th, I was in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, visiting the Double Dragon Cave in Beishan. It was about five kilometers away from Jinhua City to Luodian. After passing Luodian, they gradually entered the mountain. The road twisted up. The mountain was full of azalea flowers. Both the flowers and leaves looked more energetic than potted azalea flowers. The tung trees were also blooming. There were clumps here and clumps there. The sand on the mountain was pink in color, and it seemed that he had never seen it anywhere else. Pink mountains, all kinds of azalea, plus some dense or light green, it was bright and beautiful in front of him. Along the way, they faced the stream. Along with the mountain, the stream was sometimes wide, sometimes narrow, sometimes slow, and sometimes fast. The sound of the stream also changed its tune from time to time. About five kilometers into the mountain, they arrived at the entrance of the Double Dragons Cave. The stream came out of the cave. Looking up at the cave entrance, the mountain was quite high, abrupt and dense, very imposing. The entrance of the cave was like a bridge, very wide. Walking in, it was as if they had arrived at a great hall. Surrounded by stone walls, there was a high stone roof above them. It would definitely not feel crowded if there were a thousand or eight hundred people gathered there for a meeting. The spring water flowed out from the right side of the cave. This was the outer cave. The source of the spring water in the outer cave turned out to be the hole under the stone wall on the left. Although it was a void, it could still accommodate a small boat. How small was the boat? It was just right for two people to lie on their backs side by side. There was no room for a third person in such a small boat. Rope was tied to both ends of the boat. The workers from the management office would enter the inner hole first and pull the rope inside. The boat would go in. The workers from the outer hole would pull the rope at the other end and the boat would come out. I lay alone in the boat with curiosity. I thought that from the back of my head to my shoulders, to my buttocks, to my heels, there was nothing that was not attached to the bottom of the boat. I just said,"Okay," and the boat slowly moved. It was dark in front of me, but I could still feel the rocks on my left, right, and above pressing down on me. I felt that if I had raised my head even a little, I would have broken my forehead and grazed my nose. After about twenty to thirty feet of water, they landed and arrived at the inner cave. The inner cave was pitch black, and nothing could be seen. The workers carried the oil lamp, but they could only see a small area. The rest was dark, and they did not know how wide it was. The workers raised the oil lamp high and pointed at the scenery in the cave one by one. First, there were two dragons winding on the top of the cave. One was a yellow dragon, and the other was an azure dragon. I followed his instructions and saw that it looked a little similar. Then there were stalactites and stalagmites. What was this and what was that? Most of them were imagined as immortals, animals, palaces, and utensils according to their shapes. There were more than 40 names. These stalactites and stalagmites had a variety of shapes and colors. Even if they were not compared to anything else, they were still worth admiring. After walking around the cave, he felt that the inner cave was much bigger than the outer cave. It was about the size of ten houses. The spring water flowed slowly to the right, and the sound was soft. Shang Yuan was in a dark cave. I waited in line, then lay back in the boat and went out of the cave.