Sure enough, it was another stalactite cave, the Ziwēi Cave of Chaohu Lake. Once again, I was greeted by the grand spectacle of a giant curtain made from layers of conch shells. Just as my mindset was about to take over, the cave suddenly opened up before me. Looking up, I saw two round vertical holes on the mountain body, with sunlight piercing through the thick cave walls and shining upon us. We, in the Ziwēi Cave of Chaohu Lake, had become frogs at the bottom of a well looking up at the sky. The tour guide said: "This is precisely where the Ziwēi Cave was discovered back in the day." It happened during the Anti-Japanese War when several herbal farmers used ropes to explore the secrets of the giant underground cave. Later, this discovery proved useful when the people of Chaohu sought refuge from the Japanese invaders. They used baskets to lower refugees into the cave one by one, leaving the Japanese baffled by the sudden disappearance of the Chinese. The pioneer team for the development of Ziwēi Cave tourism also entered from here, then cleared the mud ahead to open the entrance we just came through and hired professional engineering teams to dig out the exit tunnel behind.
Similarly unexpected was the river inside the cave. Judging by the water color illuminated by wall lamps, this river must be very deep; looking around, there were no other passages except for the waterway. We boarded a small boat and drifted on the river inside the cave without bamboo poles or oars, completely relying on tourists pulling on ropes tied to the cave walls to move the boat forward. Where does the river come from? Where does it lead to? The guide said: "We conducted an experiment, releasing a marked duck into the river, and later found it in Chaohu Lake." However, we did not follow the trail of the wild duck but stopped appropriately and got off the boat to walk out of the cave.
The original intention for visiting Chaohu Lake in Anhui was due to its reputation as "one of China's five major freshwater lakes" for its beautiful scenery. Who would have thought that upon arriving at Chaohu, I was directly driven by a friend to Ziwēi Mountain and immediately entered the Ziwēi Cave. To be honest, I had little interest in cave landscapes because over the years, I had visited many caves, always finding them similar—mostly just stalactites illuminated by colored lights. What new features could this Ziwēi Cave possibly offer?
The Ziwēi Cave is famously known as the "Number One Cave North of the Yangtze River," stretching 1.5 kilometers deep. As many familiar caves faded and blurred in my memory, the Ziwēi Cave left a deep impression on me, which should be credited to its "characteristics." From this perspective, "without characteristics, there is no landscape, and without landscape, there is no tourism" is likely correct.
I only felt the cave walls on both sides getting increasingly narrow. Soon, I touched the iron chain railing by the road. The guide announced that we had reached the "Cold Iron Chain Bridge." With the help of dim light, I vaguely saw that the mountain path ahead had broken, replaced by a swaying bridge made of iron chains and wooden planks. As soon as I stepped on it, my whole body began to sway uncontrollably, causing sweat to bead on my forehead. Someone in front threw down a bottle of mineral water, and after a long while, the muffled echo of the bottle hitting the ground reached our ears. The guide said the bridge hung over a ten-thousand-foot-deep pit. To this day, I still can't understand how I, suffering from acrophobia, managed to cross this Cold Iron Chain Bridge that day. I never expected that there would be an iron chain bridge inside the Ziwēi Cave of Chaohu.
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