Qinling Deep Well Wen/WenJin

　　The 15.56-kilometer-long Qinling Tiantai Mountain Long Highway Tunnel, with its huge construction volume of double-hole two-way six-lane road, has once again refreshed the record in the history of tunnel construction in the world. In the summer of this year, I had the opportunity to go deep into the hinterland of the Qinling Mountains and inspect this major project that I had admired for a long time. Sure enough, it is everywhere, and it is worthy of the name. In particular, the experience of vertically descending to the bottom of the Tiantai Mountain Tunnel shaft of more than 500 meters is even more impressive.

　　Before going down the well, I put on waterproof pants, rain boots, put on a hard hat, a miner's lamp, gloves, fastened a seat belt, and then climbed the iron ladder under the command of the staff and entered a bucket with a diameter of two or three meters. The bucket can hold up to five people, but the weight is four tons. The hoist roared, the bucket on which it was riding rose in the air, the platform on which the bucket was placed slowly opened, and the bottom was a bottomless abyss. After the bucket is lowered, the platform to prevent falling objects and the anti-throw net are slowly closed. The platform obscured the sky, but the light was still bright. The bucket descends at a rate of about three meters per second, and the wellhead is getting smaller and smaller. During the construction of the shaft, it is excavated downwards and lined the surroundings, so that the well wall is smooth and recognizable. The bucket fell silently, so smoothly that it could hardly feel the fall, and the chaotic sound of nature receded like a tidal wave, as if the air had been sucked away into a vacuum. As the depth of the descent increased, the air became more and more humid and thinner, and the thick moisture from the four walls condensed into droplets of water, and fell from a high place, I understood why I had to wear a heavy coat and rain boots. After descending for more than two minutes, the alarm bell sounded, the bucket gradually slowed down, and we landed steadily at a depth of 532 meters at the bottom of the well.

　　Then climb out of the bucket along the ladder, as if landing on the surface of Mars. Looking up at the sky, the deep well, which was about the same thickness as above and below, was visually cone-shaped, and I was shrouded in the center of the huge cone, and the wellhead was compressed into a cone tip. The searchlight of the construction light at the bottom of the well hit the cave wall, and the cave wall was black and wet, glowing with water and reflecting a faint seven-colored halo. The bottom layer is a few meters unlined, the hard and rough granite is exposed in the air, and the water droplets oozing from the mountain are dripping from the protruding edges and corners like beads, forming a tiny waterfall. Under the feet are rocks that have not been cleared after the explosion, large like a football, small like a bowl mouth, mostly flaky, so the ground is relatively flat. There may be pumping equipment, and the surface area of water is only a thin layer, occasionally a puddle of loose stones. The shaft is too deep for the outside world to be heard to the bottom, so it is surprisingly quiet like a paradise, only the ticking sound of water droplets falling from high or low weightless drops. Stepping on the rocks, the bulky rain boots made a boastful sound. These noises bump into each other in cramped environments, causing a constant humming echo. In the continuous excavation of the shaft for more than a year, every inch of the umbrella drilling rig on the mountain rock is a new understanding of the Qinling Mountains that rose from the earth 80 million years ago. The cooling magma, which has been enclosed in the ground for hundreds of millions of years, is uncovered layer by layer in small explosions, and then reappears in the sky and is exposed to the air. Again and again, the rock mass below 100 meters unloads thousands of tons of heat and pressure, as well as the cosmic rays that have been imprisoned since the formation of the earth, and finally released...

　　Standing at the bottom of the well, my heart is as calm as water, like a clear spring like an ancient well, like returning to my mother's womb like returning to the chaos of the universe. It's a tranquility that has never been seen before. Why is that? It was I who entered Qinling's mother's heart, touched her richest nerves, and listened to her strongest heartbeat; perhaps I was just a slightly salty bubble of water that sneaked into her skin, pores, and even blood, and became one with her. Except for a very small number of underground blasters and mechanical operators, no one has been so naked for hundreds of millions of years to pursue the secrets of Qinling, listen to Qinling's breathing, stroke Qinling's heartbeat, and feel Qinling's pulse. I was the lucky one who was selected by Qin Ling, and I fulfilled my promise with Qin Ling in my previous life and future life. Because of the agreement in my heart, I came sincerely, and Qin Ling accepted me with an open heart, so that the humble me felt the vast and calm emotional storm in the depths of Qin Ling.

　　I don't know how long it took, five minutes, ten minutes, maybe just three minutes, and I had to go up the well. I hesitated, I knew that this was the first time I had gone down to the depths of the Qin Mountains, and it was also my last. I really wanted to stay under the well and stay with Qin Lingchang. Reluctantly back to the bucket, I rose a meter to the ground under the tug of the steel rope. Time began to flow slowly again, and then faster and faster, and I heard the cheerful flow of time, and the birds and insects in the mountains. I saw the direct sunlight again and heard all the noise of the long-lost nature. I was not relieved to return to safety on the ground, but rather to lose sight of it. I lost the Qinling Secret Realm and could only understand the indescribable feeling, and this feeling was so unforgettable.

　　On July 30, 2019, the exhaust and supply shafts of the Qinling Tiantai Mountain Special Highway Tunnel Shaft Project of the National Expressway Yin (Sichuan) Kun (Ming) Line Baoji to Pingkan Project were successively bored in place, and the builders threw their hats to celebrate, and I felt a lot of emotions. I knew that after a brief celebration, they would also quickly dismantle the equipment and move elsewhere. And my magical experience of underground will become specious because of the loss of these frames of reference and the evidence of witnesses, like a dream, which can only be stored in memory.