On February 28, 2003, a rock collapse occurred at a mine located near the city of Jixi (Heiluts-ziang province). The owner of the mine initially denied the disaster itself, but after the miners' relatives turned to the authorities, he was forced to admit that fourteen miners were missing.
Rescue work allowed to find the bodies of only twelve people. Two, Wang Hu and Lao Peng, remained behind a wall of collapsed rock, which was too dangerous to disassemble. The mine was closed, the owner was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment, and the families of the dead and missing were given appropriate assistance.
Five years later, Wang Hu returned home. Nobody was waiting for the miner. During this time, a lot has changed: his wife, considering herself a hell, got married, the older children left. Wang Hu accepted what had happened stoically, bought a new house, and began to live by gardening. However, after a short time, law enforcement agencies became interested in him: it turned out that his relatives received compensation for his death at the mine illegally. The question arose - why Wang Hu did not make himself felt earlier?
Wang Hu said that he was ready to fully compensate for the payments made, and all these years he lived among the mighty Ktons inhabiting the depths of the earth.
This statement puzzled a government official. By the decision of a special commission, Wang Hu was sent to the hospital for examination. Doctors came to the conclusion that Wang Hu is completely healthy in mind and body, and his story about the years spent is nothing more than a fantasy of a sane mind. However, the doctors could not explain either where the miner actually stayed (which, in fact, was not part of their range of tasks), or why the miner did not have the slightest signs of anthracosis. This lung disease, characteristic of miners, is characterized by a steady progression and there are practically no cases of cure. Five years ago, Wang Hu was in the initial stage of anthracosis, and soon he had to give up his profession if he wanted to live the rest of his life not completely disabled. But when Wang Hu returned, there was no sign of pulmonary pathology.
Moreover, he had thirty-two teeth - although five years ago there were only twenty-five of them. Wang Hu's body in all respects corresponded to the age of twenty-six to twenty-eight, but in fact he was thirty-nine.
The competent authorities have launched a thorough investigation. It turned out that Wang Hu's bank account had about forty thousand yuan received in cash in April 2008, two weeks before the miner returned home. An unspoken search revealed that Wang Hu had more than ten thousand yuan in cash, and, which was especially alarming, unprocessed emeralds worth over three hundred thousand yuan.
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It was suggested that Wang Hu was not Wang Hu at all, but a dispatched agent of a foreign power. The main objection was that the agent of a foreign power in Jixi seemed to have nothing to do, and indeed, the days of traditional resident spies are a thing of the past: millions of Chinese travel abroad and come back every year, so rival special services have the opportunity to recruit agents in a less exotic way …
It also turned out that Wang Hu received the money as a result of the sale of unprocessed emeralds to a jeweler in Shanghai - in fact, the miner himself told about this, the special services only checked the veracity of his testimony. When asked where he got them, Wang Hu replied that he got them during his stay with the Mighty Ctons.
The secret services had to study the story told and then recorded by Wang Hu.
It boiled down to the following: as a result of the disaster, Wang Hu and Lao Pen were cut off from the surface. For about three days they waited for help, but did not hear any signs of rescue operations (at that time they were not carried out, since the owner of the mine tried to hush up the matter). Suffering from a lack of food (there was plenty of water), they decided to explore the ancient passages leading to the depths of the development. One of these moves, which had a bad reputation, led them to a horizon that had not been worked on for more than thirty years due to depletion of the coal seam. After passing through it, they found another move. but it led not to the surface, but to the depths. Just in case, they decided to investigate it too. And there, in the depths, they were attacked by strange people - ktons. Despite the fact that the highest kton barely reached Wang Khudo's belt (the miner's height is sixty-two meters),both miners were defeated and captured. But they were fed their fill - and led on, down to the kingdom of the Ctones.
How deep they descended, one could only guess. Wang Hu believes that the depth is about fifteen kilometers. Contrary to the prevailing theories in geology, the temperature at this depth was tolerable, and the air was clean. There, in the depths, there is a system of cavities in the form of lenses, interconnected by passages. These lenses are up to three thousand steps in diameter and more than three hundred meters in height. The vaults of the cavities emit a faint orange glow during the day (possibly induced by the flow of special solar energy penetrating into the thickness of the earth's crust), getting used to which, one can perfectly navigate and even read. In these huge caves are the settlements of the Ktons, the underground people. Up to a thousand people live in one cave - and Wang Hu has no doubt that the Ctons belonged to the human species.
Among the Ctons, he was with Lao Pen and spent five years. The Kton language does not resemble Chinese, but it is easy to learn, and soon the captives could easily communicate with others. It immediately became clear that they were not considered prisoners at all. The Ctons believe that life on the surface is a great misfortune, and therefore mistook Wang Hu and his comrade for fugitives looking for a way to a better world. Indeed, those who knew neither hunger nor disease.
They ate mold, which grows in abundance in caves. Mold has a peculiar, pleasant taste and is extremely useful. Both he and Lao Pen very quickly felt a surge of mental and physical strength, both had a change of teeth - this is a common thing for Ktons, the teeth of the underground people change every twenty to twenty-five years throughout their life, which is rarely shorter than two hundred years, and here is longer, and much longer - often.
The Ctons are beautifully built, physically the average Cton is not weaker than the average surface male. From various types of mold, ktons make fabric and durable paper on which they write. Ktons and metallurgy know, but iron is rarely used, they use bronze, silver and gold more. Ktons do not recognize luxury and make do with a minimum of things, which they handle very carefully and carefully.
Wang Hu and Lao Peng lived a full life, got wives, and then offspring. But Wang Hu was longing for the sun. The Ktons non-intrusively dissuaded him from returning to the surface, but did not hold him back. Volunteer guides took him to one of the Great Chinese Caves, where there is a hole connecting the kingdom of the Ctones (the kingdom is literally the monarchical system of the Ctons) with the surface.
This is only part of Wang Hu's narrative. The miner was declared insane, but he was not imprisoned in a provincial hospital, but placed in a military base, which in itself is completely unusual, and suggests that the Chinese authorities took Wang Hu's story much more seriously than they deserve a "fantasy of a healthy mind."