The Magical Underground Demon Palace
The Magical Underground Demon Palace by Jun Qing. In 1956, I once visited a salt mine deep, deep below the ground in Poland. It was a crystal world, sparkling white, excavated and carved out by human hands. At the time, I was amazed by the divine power of creation and the endless wonders of nature, and for this I wrote an essay titled "Underground Crystal Palace." Because it recounted this rare wonder of the world, this article attracted many readers...
A Magical Underground Palace
Jun Qing
In 1956, I visited a salt mine deep, deep underground in Poland—a crystal world of dazzling white, carved out by human hands. At the time, I marveled at the power of creation and the endless wonders of nature, and I wrote an essay titled "The Underground Crystal Palace." Because it described such a rare spectacle, the essay drew great interest from readers and is still being reprinted and circulated today. Now, when I visited the recently discovered Yellow Dragon Cave in the Wuling Mountains of Xiangxi, Hunan, my astonishment far exceeded what I had felt at the underground crystal palace years ago.
This is an entirely different magical world. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I could never have believed such a wondrous place existed. Unlike the Polish underground crystal palace, where everything in the salt mine—the halls, chandeliers, murals, and figures—was carved by hand, here there is not the slightest trace of human carving; everything is formed by nature.
Karst caves are not rare around the world, and stalactites always form within them. But a cave like Yellow Dragon Cave—with its immense scale, the sheer number of stalactites inside, and their bizarre shapes—is something I have never seen or could compare to any cave, whether in China or abroad.
Yellow Dragon Cave is located on a green, grassy mountain about eight kilometers east of Jundiping. Originally, the cave entrance was very small—a person had to stoop to crawl in—so it attracted little attention until it was discovered in recent years. Even now, some parts of the cave remain unexplored. Based on surveys so far, the cave's total area is estimated at at least over 300 mu, stretching more than 20 li in length. It is not a straight tunnel but spreads out like the tangled roots of a great tree, with countless large and small branches winding in all directions. Inside the cave there are mountains, and on the mountains there are more caves—truly large caves within small ones, mountains within mountains, water within mountains, and rivers within caves. That is why people call it an underground magical palace. A few years ago, several local youths explored the cave for the first time and got lost inside, wandering through its twists and turns for a day and a night, barely making it out. Now, many parts of the cave have been surveyed and roughly divided into six major scenic areas: Dragon King Palace, Immortal Hall, Stone Zither Mountain, Heavenly Spring, Crystal Palace, and Echoing Water River. The narrow entrance has also been widened. The day we came, the weather was extremely hot. After walking along the riverbank and climbing the slope, we were panting and drenched in sweat, unbearably hot. But when we were still a dozen steps from the entrance, we felt a chill wind blowing straight out from the cave. By the time we reached the entrance, this cool breeze, like an air-conditioned fan, had dried all our sweat and left us feeling wonderfully refreshed. Once inside, we actually began to feel cold.
We walked along the narrow, winding path inside the cave, as if in a tunnel. All around us were stone walls, and above hung stalactites of varying lengths, like icicles in winter, each pointing downward. On the stone walls to either side were uneven, milky-white stone veins, like drifting clouds or surging streams—truly beautiful. But this was only the beginning of the fantastical scenery.
After a long stretch of the narrow cave path, the view suddenly opened up, revealing a broad hall. In the hall, stalactites stood straight up, some short—just one or two meters—and some reaching dozens of meters. Their shapes were myriad: some spiraled upward like a giant screw, some rose in layer upon layer like thousands of lotus blossoms, and some resembled candles with wax-like drips on their sides. Even more astonishing: the stalactites I had seen in other caves were all milky white, but here they were brilliantly multicolored—some blood red, some orange yellow, some black, some dark green. Under the lamplight, they looked like groups of fairies in colorful robes dancing in the hall. No wonder people call this hall the Dragon Dance Hall. On the high walls surrounding the hall stood rows of stone pillars, like rows of spectators in balcony seats looking down at the dance below.
Past the Dragon Dance Hall, after walking a bit further, a high mountain appeared before us. Ah, there are mountains inside the cave! Truly, caves within mountains, mountains within caves, and caves within mountains again. We followed a newly opened stone-paved path winding up the slope. The cave was dimly lit, with wisps of mist drifting among the slopes. Standing at the foot of the mountain and looking up, in the dim light we could not see the shape of the slope above, only the shadows of people in white clothes moving in the misty fog, like immortals appearing in the ethereal clouds halfway up the sky, now visible, now hidden, seemingly real, seemingly illusory. When we reached the slope and looked down, we saw below us also mist and drifting shadows, figures in white like fish swimming in water, indistinct and floating, appearing and disappearing. Suddenly, a tremendous sound reached our ears—like rolling stones, like thunder. Tian Bo, who accompanied us from the Suoxiyu Scenic Area Management Bureau, told me: "That is the sound of the great river rushing inside the cave. This river is called Echoing Water River." Ah, there is a river inside the cave, and a large, deep one at that. Standing on the slope and looking down, we saw below us cliffs and precipices, and the surging river rushing through the valley beneath the cliffs. Tian Bo shone his flashlight downward. In the bright beam, we saw white waves churning and the water flowing swiftly. I picked up a stone and threw it into the river. It made a dull splash, from which I could tell the water was deep. Tian Bo told me the river is over 500 meters long, with depths ranging from several meters to over ten meters. They plan to build a stone dam on the river to raise the water level, so that boats can row along the deep, secluded channel inside the cave.
Near the mountaintop, in a gorge, we saw another strange sight: a semicircular dike formed by stalactites, with water inside, exactly like a man-made reservoir. Below this reservoir, in the gorge, were winding ridges and embankments formed by stalactites, just like terraced fields. It is truly unimaginable how nature could create scenery so closely resembling the man-made reservoirs and terraced fields in the fields outside the cave.
Coming up the mountain, we were greeted by a stone pillar, white with a tinge of yellow, standing tall by the path at the summit. Its shape resembled an old man of longevity—bald head, long beard, upper body leaning slightly forward, one arm bent upward in a V shape with fingers pinched together. Tian Bo said:
"Look, this Old Man of Longevity is pinching his fingers, telling people: 'Count on my fingers—two hundred million years.' This cave has a history of two hundred million years."
After Tian Bo said this, the image of the Old Man of Longevity seemed even more lifelike.
Yes, he is counting the age of the cave for visitors, and also welcoming them into the Dragon Palace. For the spot where he stands is right at the entrance to the Dragon Palace. Behind him, on the ridge, stand dozens of huge stalactite pillars. One of them, about a dozen meters tall, is dark green, covered entirely with lotus-shaped patterns, as if formed by thousands of blooming dark lotuses stacked together. Another is milky white, shaped like a silver needle, fully twenty or thirty meters tall, piercing straight into the cave's void. The others, too, vary in height and shape, like a group of warriors guarding the palace gate.
After passing through these stone pillars and turning a corner of the mountain, the view suddenly opened up. Below the mountain, in a vast open space, appeared a circular hall. In the center of the hall, on a throne-shaped stone platform, stood a stone peak, wide at the base and pointed at the top. On either side of it were arranged a group of shorter stone pillars. Tian Bo told me this is the Dragon King Hall; the one seated high on the throne is the Dragon King, and the stone pillars beside him are his attending ministers. This Dragon Palace is so large, so tall, so spacious. Its area is over 12,000 square meters, and the character-shaped rock dome above reaches dozens to over a hundred meters at its highest point. Inside the hall, thousands of stone peaks and pillars jut out in jagged profusion—some like jade bamboo shoots, some like ornamental columns, some like white towers of marble, some like finely carved flower pillars, some like teams of beauties dancing, some like crowds of officials at morning court. Most astonishing of all: along a corridor about several dozen meters long leading to the Dragon Palace, two rows of stone pillars of roughly equal height and size stand on either side, arranged so neatly they resemble two rows of soldiers in strict formation. This is simply inconceivable—how could such a neatly arranged stone forest have formed?
And there is something even more amazing: on the mountaintop above the Dragon King Hall, we saw two ponds, one called Golden Flower Pond and the other Silver Flower Pond. In the Golden Flower Pond, the water is crystal clear to the bottom. Beneath the round basin-shaped water surface is a whole pond of golden flowers, each the size of a wine cup's mouth, shaped like snowflakes with many angles. They are densely layered, one after another, like a field of blooming yellow flowers, giving off dazzling golden light under the lamplight. The Silver Flower Pond, meanwhile, is filled with milky-white silver flowers blooming underwater.
This is truly a rare spectacle in the world.
And a rare treasure in the world.
Unfortunately, some of the golden flowers in the Golden Flower Pond have been secretly taken out by visitors, leaving the great flower disk that formed a single whole with defects. This is an irreparable loss. A treasure formed naturally over hundreds of millions of years has been damaged—when again will we see the complete Golden Flower Pond regrown?
Tian Bo sighed repeatedly, deeply regretful. After the cave was discovered in 1981, he personally went to explore it, surveying inside for three days and nights. He explored the Dragon King Hall, the Echoing Water River, the winding plank roads, and also the priceless Golden Flower Pond and Silver Flower Pond. But because the cave had just been discovered and no organization had yet been established, supervision was lax, and the Golden Flower Pond was damaged. This is truly heartbreaking.
When we finished touring the Dragon Palace and returned along the same path to the cave entrance, Tian Bo told me: this was only a tiny part of the cave. What has been discovered so far, besides the Dragon Dance Hall and Dragon King Hall, includes many other wonders such as Immortal Hall, Stone Zither Mountain, Heavenly Spring, and Crystal Palace. Each has its own features and wonders. Stone Zither Mountain, for example, has many stalactite pillars of varying heights and sizes; when struck with a wooden stick, they produce sounds of different pitches. Even more amazing: of the seven musical notes, all except G, which is half a tone off, are standard, so complete melodies can be played.
This truly deserves to be called an underground magical palace.
Today, this underground magical palace is famous far and wide and has been developed into a scenic spot, a place for people to visit and for geologists and other scientists to study. The thousands of towering stalactite peaks and stone forests are products of nature's magical power and records of the vastness of time in the infinite universe. Stalactites form when minerals in water droplets dripping from the rock walls condense. According to calculations, it takes hundreds of years for a stalactite to grow one centimeter. From this, one can deduce that these stalactite pillars dozens of meters high were formed by the accumulation of hundreds of millions of years.
Now, these stalactites are still growing continuously, and nature continues to use its magical power and vast time to create unimaginable wonders.
Tian Bo told me: within the Suoxiyu Scenic Area, over a hundred karst caves, large and small, have been discovered. Yellow Dragon Cave is only one of them, and it is hard to say whether it is the largest. From what has been surveyed so far, it is probably smaller than Camel Cave. Explorers who entered Camel Cave walked for three days and nights without reaching the end. There is also another one called Golden Coin Cave, which has 36 holes like the eyes of copper coins. Each time you pass through one hole, a new vast world of extraordinary scenery appears ahead. And there are as many as 36 such holes, and as many as 36 such fantastical halls of hidden wonder.
Ah, the world is so vast, truly full of wonders.
Indeed:
The cave holds a vast universe,
Beneath the ground another world.
Recalled in Shanghai, August 10, 1984