Reborn Action Star: Starting in Hollywood

Chapter 592 Incredible Speed
Hearing Lin Yuan's words, Old Peter, Henry and the other two rescuers were stunned.

They thought it was amazing that Lin Yuan came to the front line in person to boost morale. If he could go into the water with the rescue workers after the guide rope was laid, that would be the limit of their imagination.

But now from what Lin Yuan said, he was not going to shout the slogan "Charge for me" or "Charge with me", but rather, "You guys wait for me to charge by myself?"

Old Peter's first reaction was: "Nonsense! How ignorant of the immensity of heaven and earth!"

As a veteran cave diver, he has been active in this field for 25 years. His biggest reliance is not his skills, but his caution.

He had seen too many divers who were better than him in both skills and physical fitness, but died in front of him due to various accidents, but he was powerless to do anything.

Diving is dangerous enough, but cave diving is even more so.

In this field, no matter how good the technology and equipment are, or how strong the physical fitness is, they are vulnerable to accidents.

Old Peter then said, "Mr. Lin, I'm a longtime fan of yours, and I'm quite aware of your exceptional physical fitness. However, given the dangers of going in the water here, I'm afraid your physical fitness won't be of much help."

Lin Yuan did not feel slighted by Old Peter's dissuasion. He knew that Old Peter was genuinely worried about him, so he replied sincerely:
"Old Peter, I'm not blindly arrogant. I'm a very good swimmer. I can confidently say that if my swimming ability is second to none in the world, no one would dare to claim to be number one. You've seen my movies."

At Lin Yuan's reminder, Old Peter remembered that during the filming of the first "Pirates of the Caribbean", Lin Yuan had saved Depp from drowning, and as Depp's stand-in, he completed the diving scene in the icy water.

In "Pirates of the Caribbean 2", Lin Yuan even went into the sea with a spear and fought sharks.

In "The Heroes of Tang Dynasty", he even jumped into the rapids under the surging Hukou Waterfall and experienced the test of underwater undercurrent whirlpools.

During cave diving, the most feared thing is encountering various accidents. When it comes to dealing with underwater accidents and keeping a calm mind, I guess no one in the world can be better than Lin Yuan.

After hesitating for a few seconds, Old Peter said, "Okay, Mr. Lin, I agree that you can go in the water and try it. Let me first introduce you to the underwater environment."

Lin Yuan nodded and said, "You go ahead."

A member of the rescue team brought a small writing board in time, and old Peter drew a U shape on it, but it was not symmetrical, with the left end higher and the right end lower.

Old Peter said: "The tunnel from the water hole where we are to Camp 5 is a U-shape. Although the drop at both ends is only 15 meters, the drop between the bottom and the starting point is 35 meters.

The underwater guide rope was previously laid to the second half of the U-shaped channel, a straight-line distance of 100 meters. Do you know what this means?

"I know that this means that it may take three decompressions to go back and forth on this section of the journey. It can be said to be the most difficult part of laying the guide rope," said Lin Yuan.

As soon as Old Peter opened his mouth, Lin Yuan knew what he wanted to express.

He entered the water pit and dived to the U-shaped tunnel, which had a drop of 35 meters. He then swam straight along the bottom of the U for 100 meters, then began to float up 20 meters, and then laid a guide rope from that point to the original Camp 5.

From diving 35 meters to surfacing 20 meters, at least one decompression is required.

When returning, dive 20 meters and then ascend 35 meters, and two decompressions may be required.

A total of three decompressions will take up a lot of time and may easily lead to accidents due to unreasonable oxygen planning.

Decompression is very troublesome, but it has to be done. As long as the diving distance exceeds 10 meters, you have to worry about the occurrence of decompression sickness.

The principle is that when a person dives underwater, the pressure caused by the water pressure increases, and more inert gases will dissolve in the body. Decompression sickness will not occur during the dive, as long as the body can withstand the pressure, there will be no problem, but more inert gases will begin to dissolve in the body.

Decompression sickness occurs during the ascent process. When a diver begins to ascend, the inert gases dissolved in the body's tissues or blood cannot be expelled from the body with breathing due to decompression, and form bubbles in the tissues and blood, which will cause a series of diseases.

When bubbles are blocked and accumulated in the subcutaneous tissue, muscles or joints, it will cause severe joint pain, triggering various symptoms such as skin itching, tingling, crawling sensation, rashes, marble-like markings, joint and muscle pain, etc.

What is even more dangerous is that bubble embolism in the respiratory system or circulatory system will cause serious obstruction of body functions and even cause shock and death.

Therefore, when floating up, you must float a certain distance, then stay for a while to allow the body to adapt to the change in pressure, expel the inert gas in the body, and then continue to float up.

The deeper you are underwater and the longer you stay, the more decompression steps you will need, and each decompression step will take longer.

Assuming the diving depth exceeds 100 meters, 4 to 5 decompressions may be required during the ascent, which means that the distribution of oxygen becomes extremely important. Even the slightest accident may lead to insufficient oxygen and cause an accident.

Old Peter was so worried not because he was being too cautious, but because cave diving was really too dangerous.

If an accident occurs, it may be impossible to save Lin Yuan.

Lin Yuan said, "It's okay. I know the dangers and I will strictly follow the rule of thirds."

The so-called rule of thirds means that divers divide the oxygen they carry into three parts when they go underwater.

One is for moving forward, the second is for returning, and the last is for unexpected situations.

If this guideline can be strictly followed, many underwater accidents can indeed be effectively avoided.

Seeing Lin Yuan's persistence, Old Peter stopped trying to persuade him. He said to a team member, "Go get Mr. Lin a diving suit."

Soon, a diving suit was brought to Lin Yuan.

When Lin Yuan saw the diving suit, he immediately said, "Let's change into a new one. I want a wet diving suit."

This once again stunned Old Peter, Henry, and the two team members:

Why a wetsuit?

Obviously, it cannot be said that Lin Yuan is unprofessional, otherwise he would not have realized at a glance that this was a dry diving suit and suggested changing into a wet diving suit.

Old Peter asked uncertainly, "Mr. Lin, the temperature underwater might only be 4-5 degrees Celsius. I'm worried you won't be able to stand wearing a wetsuit for a long time."

"No problem, I can handle it! For me, a wet diving suit is actually safer." Lin Yuan replied.

According to their function and design, diving suits can be divided into dry diving suits and wet diving suits.

Under normal circumstances, a wet diving suit is used when the water temperature is above 10 degrees, and a dry diving suit is used when the water temperature is below 10 degrees.

A dry suit keeps the body dry underwater, so warm clothing can be worn underneath to enhance the warmth.

Needless to say, a wetsuit doesn't have this effect.

But wet diving suits can exist because, after sacrificing thermal insulation, they also have two major advantages: greater flexibility and simple operation.

Flexibility means that Lin Yuan can move faster underwater and navigate more flexibly through winding caves. The remaining time is equivalent to carrying more oxygen.

Simple operation means that the dry diving suit needs to carry an additional gas cylinder to adjust the amount of gas in the diving suit according to the diving depth. This operation also takes a certain amount of time.

For Lin Yuan, who has excellent physical fitness, there is no need to worry about the water temperature of 4 to 5 degrees causing him to suffer from hypothermia, so there is no need to give up the convenience of a wet diving suit for the sake of warmth.

Seeing Lin Yuan was so insistent, Old Peter had no choice but to ask the staff to send him a wet diving suit.

In addition to the diving suit, there are two standard oxygen cylinders, an emergency small cylinder, a respirator, a pressure gauge, a buoyancy vest, a diving helmet...

All kinds of equipment are available, except for the underwater propulsion device. If the entrance road was not too narrow, I'm afraid this would also be equipped.

After experiencing the difficult journey yesterday and today, Lin Yuan knew how difficult it was to bring so much equipment here.

In order to get these equipment so that he could get into the water safely, the rescue team members worked day and night to deliver them, and their contribution was truly invaluable.

"There are three oxygen cylinder supply points underwater. Remember to get oxygen cylinders to decompress at the three locations I marked." said Old Peter.

"I understand." Lin Yuan nodded.

"The whole journey will take about four hours. I will go into the water three hours after you depart and pick you up at the decompression point 4 meters underwater." Old Peter added.

"Okay!" Lin Yuan nodded again.

It seemed quite nagging, but Lin Yuan didn't mind it at all.

He felt the love of old Peter.

In order to keep him safer, Old Peter went into the water to help him, so that if Lin Yuan discovered an accident, he could discover it earlier and take rescue action.

If he wasn't really worried about him, Old Peter could have just stood on the shore and waited. Why would he have put on an inconvenient diving suit and gone into the water an hour earlier to meet him?
"Good luck to you." In old Peter's opinion, this is the best blessing.

"Come on, Yuanshen, we are your solid backing." said a team member.

"If things aren't going well, don't get too hung up on it and come back safely," said another team member.

Lin Yuan nodded one by one to express his gratitude.

"My idol, come on! I'm looking forward to your good news." Henry stepped forward and punched Lin Yuan's shoulder hard.

"Ouch~ What are you doing?" Lin Yuan covered his shoulder and screamed exaggeratedly.

Henry: ? ?

Old Peter: (a`a;)
Two team members: (`⊙)
Lin Yuan: (_)
So sad that you guys can't pick up on my jokes.

Lin Yuan waved his hand: "I'm leaving. See you later."

After saying that, he jumped into the water without looking back.

"Pfft!"

Accompanied by the sound of water splashing, Lin Yuan quickly sank into the water.

The first feeling after entering the water was cold. The water temperature of four or five degrees was quite uncomfortable for Lin Yuan.

It feels like I'm standing in the cold wind of late autumn wearing only a single piece of clothing.

The freezing water is no less cold than the sea water that froze Johnny Depp stiff during the filming of Pirates of the Caribbean.

However, Lin Yuan is now much stronger than he was then. Although he feels very cold, it does not affect his movements underwater at all.

The second feeling after entering the water was that the vision was very poor. It was pitch dark underwater, and the mud and sand stirred up in this stagnant water environment further blocked the light from his headlamp, and the visibility was even less than 50 centimeters.

Now Lin Yuan fully understands why it is necessary to lay a guide rope, otherwise he would not be able to find the direction to move forward.

For him, the first thing at this moment was to find the guide rope laid by the previous rescue team and then follow the guide rope.

Lin Yuan entered the water next to the guide rope, so he just looked around briefly and found the orange-red guide rope hanging on the hook on the rock wall on the right.

Even in the dim water, the orange-red guide rope is still very eye-catching and can be seen at a glance.

Groping for the guide rope, Lin Yuan began to swim downstream quickly.

At this moment, his master-level water sports skills were fully utilized. He did not just rely on paddling with his hands and kicking with his feet, but every muscle in his body provided forward thrust while twisting.

Lin Yuan's figure moved quickly underwater with an unimaginable sense of coordination, as if it was not a land creature, but an aquatic creature born and raised in water.

As the depth continued to increase, Lin Yuan also felt the water pressure gradually increasing, as if there was a dense, seamless, invisible hand from all directions, tightly wrapping him up and squeezing him inward.

But the water pressure at this depth was obviously not enough to cause any real hindrance to him, and Lin Yuan's body movements were still agile and relaxed.

Soon he passed the decompression point 20 meters underwater and saw 10 oxygen cylinders hanging on the rock wall.

Before Lin Yuan went into the water, Old Peter said that he would be here to meet Lin Yuan when he returned.

But Lin Yuan knew that he would not give Old Peter the chance to go into the water to help him. He believed that he could complete the entire trip within 2 hours!
He was confident not only in exploring the route but also in laying the guide rope. Lin Yuan decisively passed the decompression point and continued to swim rapidly towards the bottom of the water.

In just 3 minutes, Lin Yuan followed the guide rope, passed through the winding passage, and arrived at the bottom of the U-shaped waterway.

The depth at this time is 35 meters underwater, and in front is a 100-meter-long winding passage like an intestine.

Before the groundwater rose, this was a dry road and it was quite difficult to move forward on foot.

When the water floods here, it becomes more difficult to swim across this 100-meter area.

The mud and sand rising from the bottom of the water further reduced visibility to 30 centimeters.

In such an environment, normal divers dare not swim too fast, otherwise they will accidentally hit the rock wall. They can only grope for the rope and swim forward slowly.

According to the diving plan given by Old Peter, it takes 10 minutes to reach the bottom of the pit from the entrance, 35 minutes to pass through the tunnel in front of you, then 8 minutes of simple ascent time, and the remaining 5 minutes of horizontal swimming to Camp 20.

The one-way trip takes only about 75 minutes, and the round trip takes 150 minutes in total.

But old Peter estimated that the whole journey would take 4 hours. Of the remaining 90 minutes, 60 minutes were for three decompression times, and the remaining 3 minutes were for Lin Yuan to lay the guide rope underwater.

It can be said that the time arrangement is quite tight.

But Lin Yuan did not move according to old Peter's expectations at all. It only took him 3 minutes to reach the bottom of the water, saving 7 minutes.

When passing through the bottom, Lin Yuan did not show any timidity or caution in moving forward. Instead, he went full throttle and rushed forward at full speed.

The narrow waterway and dim vision were not a problem at all for Lin Yuan.

His nerve reaction speed is not limited underwater, so things like hitting the rock wall are possible for him.

Even though the visibility was low, it was still enough for him to react in time and adjust the angle.

At this time, Lin Yuan's posture underwater was as agile as a dolphin. He kept rolling and adjusting his posture, and passed through this tortuous waterway like a small intestine in a very silky way.

However, as the speed increased, it inevitably stirred up more mud and sand, making the water turbid. The place where Lin Yuan swam was like the place where mud and sand were swept away by a mountain torrent.

This 100-meter straight section of waterway may actually be more than 230 meters long after many twists and turns, but Lin Yuan only took 6 minutes to complete the journey that old Peter thought would take 35 minutes.

Old Peter and others on the shore saw this speed, otherwise they would be shocked.

It took a total of 9 minutes from the time he got into the water to now, and Lin Yuan has already reached a position that a normal diver would take 45 minutes to reach.

Normally, he should decompress during the ascent before reaching the second half of the passage.

But Lin Yuan had no intention of relieving stress at all.

On the one hand, this small gap is not enough for his physical fitness to require any relief for the time being.

On the other hand, it was because he completed the first half of the race so quickly, in only 9 minutes, and the amount of inert gas dissolved in his body was far lower than that of others.

With these two factors combined, Lin Yuan decided not to waste the precious 20 minutes and float up directly.

So he began to swim upstream quickly.

It only took him 2 minutes to surface.

Although his body felt a little uncomfortable due to the sudden drop in water pressure, this discomfort was quickly swept away due to his extraordinary physique.

Lin Yuan began to swim towards the last section of the journey.

He was still moving very fast, and the orange-red guide rope was constantly thrown behind him.

As I was swimming, the guide rope suddenly reached the end.

Lin Yuan knew that this was the farthest location he had reached by using a submersible drill and laying a guide rope.

At this moment, he has two main tasks:
The first is to try to drill a hole in the rock wall and extend the guide rope forward.

The second step is to connect the guide rope that extends forward to the original guide rope at Camp 5, thus opening the way to the "deep pool" originally located 1735 meters underground.

Lin Yuan tied a piece of orange-red guide rope he carried with him to the hook, and then swam forward while pulling the other end.

After swimming about 2 meters away, he stopped and felt around the rock wall with his fingers, looking for a suitable place to nail.

Soon, his hand touched several small bumpy holes.

Lin Yuan came closer and saw several small holes that were obviously artificially drilled. However, the depth of the holes was less than 2 centimeters, which obviously made it impossible to insert a nail hook.

This should be the place where Old Peter tried to dig a hole before but failed.

Without mechanical power like a submersible drill, it is indeed difficult to drill a hole underwater relying only on manpower and unable to swing a hammer.

These few small holes were also made by Old Peter using an underwater drilling gun, but it was obviously not powerful enough.

The principle of this underwater drilling gun is actually similar to that of a spear gun. It relies on the strength of the hand to pull the high-strength polymer rubber band, and then releases kinetic energy when firing, shooting out the specially treated punch needle, thereby achieving the effect of drilling a hole.

This kind of punching needle can create a "cavitation effect" underwater. Lin Yuan once killed a tiger shark with a spear underwater, which was also based on this principle.

However, the power of the underwater drilling gun seemed to be insufficient, and it could only leave a hole about 2 centimeters deep, which was far from achieving the target.

Lin Yuan groped the rock wall. It was not the hard granite, marble, or slate conglomerate, but a relatively brittle sandstone, the kind that if an ordinary person poked it hard with a sharp cone, a pile of sand-like debris would fall off. Otherwise, there would be no way to dig a hole.

He concluded that the underwater drilling gun was feasible, but one high-strength polymer rubber band was not enough. If three were used, the drilling depth would be sufficient.

For old Peter, it would be difficult to stretch a high-strength polymer rubber band, but in Lin Yuan's opinion, three of them could be done.

So, Lin Yuan took out two spare high-strength polymer rubber bands from his backpack, tied them to the drilling gun which already had rubber bands, and pulled with all his strength.

Three rubber bands are firmly attached to the trigger.

Thanks to the good quality of this underwater drilling gun, Lin Yuan was able to hold on even after tripling its strength.

If the main structure collapsed directly, Lin Yuan would be helpless.

"puff!"

As he pulled the trigger, the punch shot out at high speed with a series of bubbles.

Gravel flew from the sandstone wall, and the small flying stones rolled around underwater, as if they were being shot in slow motion.

The drilling needle was firmly embedded in the rock wall, and judging from the depth of penetration, it had obviously achieved its target.

Lin Yuan walked forward with great satisfaction, pulled out the punch needle with special pliers, then took out a nail button and inserted it into the hole.

Then take out the wrench, turn the expansion screw to lock it, and complete a buckle for hooking the guide rope.

All things are difficult at the beginning. After completing the first button, all that remains is to proceed step by step.

Lin Yuan nails a button every two meters, and it takes only about two minutes.

After hammering 20 nails in a row, Lin Yuan saw an orange-yellow tent immersed in the waterway ahead.

He knew that this was the original Camp No. 5.

This means that the guide rope to the "deep pool" is not far away.

Lin Yuan groped forward according to his memory, and soon found the guide rope of the "deep pool" after nailing 5 more buckles.

The moment the guide rope was reconnected, Lin Yuan felt much more relaxed.

He knew that he had completed a major step in the rescue work, which meant that the next step was to try to enter the "deep pool" and go to the previous Camp No. 6 to look for Meng Tao and others.

On the way back, Lin Yuan passed by the original Camp No. 5 again and checked the number of oxygen cylinders in the tent.

It was discovered that there were nearly 100 oxygen tanks inside.

So many oxygen tanks will further increase the progress of the rescue, which is undoubtedly good news.

Lin Yuan had perfectly completed the goal of this dive and he began to return.

About 63 minutes had passed since he entered the water, which was only a quarter of the time that old Peter had expected.

Most of these 63 minutes are spent on installing buttons.

When returning, Lin Yuan was as fast as ever, without any hesitation.

When he passed through the U-shaped bottom channel again, he was only 35 meters vertically away from the water surface.

According to the normal diving process, at this depth and stay time, at least one decompression is required. If the physical condition is a little worse or the stay time is longer, two times are required.

However, Lin Yuan returned too quickly, and it still only took him 11 minutes. There was not much inert gas dissolved in his body, and he felt that he could fully withstand the pressure difference of 35 meters.

So he floated to the surface in one breath without any decompression.

The entire journey took him about 75 minutes, less than half of what Peter had expected.

"Wow!"

Accompanied by the sound of water, Lin Yuan emerged from the water.

"Whoosh!"

"Whoosh!"

Lin Yuan was gasping for breath. Although the gas in the tunnel smelled bad, it was much more comfortable than biting a respirator.

Seeing Lin Yuan coming out of the water, the people waiting at the tunnel were quite surprised.

They didn't expect Lin Yuan to come out so soon.

Especially old Peter, who was originally scheduled to go into the water to pick up Lin Yuan in 3 hours, but now Lin Yuan came back on his own before he even set off.

Returning so quickly, there is only one answer:
That means failure.

I didn't expect that the Source God would also fail. It seems that cave diving is really difficult, even the Source God failed.

Judging from the time, he probably realized something was wrong and turned back before he even passed the bottom passage?

Will this hurt his self-esteem?

Several people began to worry about Lin Yuan. His face seemed a little pale and he didn't look very well.

Old Peter sighed, walked over, patted Lin Yuan on the shoulder, and comforted him, "It's okay. This is your first time cave diving. It's normal to fail. Don't take it to heart. Just come back safely!"

(End of this chapter)