Now, for Bilbo, this situation was indeed a desperate situation - it was pitch black all around, and the only glimmer of light came from the fluorescent grass on the cave walls.

Coupled with the unknown beasts or orcs that may be hiding in the dark, this situation is undoubtedly terrible!

Everyone should also know that when faced with this situation, Hobbits are not as desperate as you and me. Hobbits are different from ordinary people like us. Although the caves they live in are well-ventilated and cutely decorated, at least they are still better than us.

Adapting to these underground tunnels also allows you to better maintain your sense of direction underground.

Of course, after their swollen heads return to normal, they will no longer be able to move in the wrong direction. In addition, this group of stealth masters who have a strong talent for adapting to the underground world in their genes can also move quietly.

, can easily hide his whereabouts, and the speed of recovery after being injured is even more amazing.

As a dwarf intelligent creature with a long history, they also have enough ancient proverbs to fill a basket. Human beings have either never heard of them or have long forgotten them - after all, you can't let non-supernatural beings whose average life span is much shorter

It's not fair to compare humans with this group of immortal species that generally have long lifespans!

Even so, the danger Bilbo was in at the moment was not much better.

The tunnel seemed to never end. The only thing he was sure of was that the tunnel continued to extend steadily forward, with occasional turns or twists and turns in the middle.

Sometimes, through the light of the sword in his hand, or by touching the cave wall, he can be sure that there are forks leading to other directions. He doesn't pay much attention to these forks, and walks quickly every time he encounters them, hoping to

Avoid orcs or other horrific creatures of his imagination.

He kept walking at a constant speed and kept going down. Except for the occasional snapping sound of bats flying past his ears, he heard nothing.

At first, he will be surprised by these annoying wing sounds, but when he encounters similar situations more times later, he will not be surprised anymore.

He persisted like this for a long time, until his brain and body and mind were exhausted and he didn't even want to move forward, but he didn't dare to stop, so he kept moving forward.

By the end, he was indescribably tired, and his legs and feet seemed to be tired and sore and swollen as if he had been walking non-stop for several days.

Suddenly, without any warning, he stepped into the water! Wow! The water was bone-chilling, and he suddenly felt refreshed.

He didn't know whether this was a pool of water on the road, an underground river cutting through the tunnel, or the edge of an underground lake. At this point, the sword almost no longer gave off any light - perhaps, this was a good idea

News! He thought so.

When he stopped and concentrated, he could hear the sound of water drops falling from the cave roof into the water, but other than that there seemed to be no sound.

"It seems that this should be a pool or a lake." He thought. But he still did not dare to rush into the darkness rashly.

He couldn't swim. To be precise, Bilbo, who lived in the Shire area with only a few hills and small rivers, undoubtedly had little opportunity to come into contact with or learn anything related to swimming.

Moreover, the sight of those slimy creatures in the water and their protruding blind eyes exploring the water began to appear in his mind. Indeed, there are strange creatures in the pools or lakes under the mountains: those that have been around for countless ages.

The evolved weird fish, their ancestors accidentally swam into this dead end and could never leave.

Their eyes have evolved to become larger and larger in response to the need to see in low light. In addition, there are many slimier and disgusting creatures here than this underground fish. Even among the orcs

In the caves they dug, creatures unknown to them also sneaked in and lived.

Some of these caves existed before the orcs moved in. They just expanded and used them and opened them to each other.

In these caves, the natives are still sneaking around the corners quietly, waiting for opportunities to hunt unsuspecting prey. Beside this pool of black water lives Gollum, he is a short, slimy creature. I don’t know him.

Where he came from, I don’t know who he is or what kind of creature he is.

He is Gulu, as elusive as the darkness, with a pair of large, pale round eyes on his thin face. He owns a small boat that allows him to row silently on the lake; this water is indeed a lake and wide,

It was deep and ice-cold. He would stick his big webbed feet out of the side of the boat and beat the water forward without even a bubble popping up. This was his silent way of doing things.

He has always used his big, pale eyes like oil lamps to search for blind fish in the lake, and then used his slender fingers as fast as lightning to catch them. He also likes to eat meat, and as long as he can eat orcs, he will

He will seize the opportunity to enjoy it, but he acts cautiously and does not want the orcs to discover his existence.

As long as an orc comes to the water's edge when he is wandering around the lake, he will strangle the unlucky prey from behind. However, the orc also feels that there seems to be evil hidden in the dark lake deep underground.

Power, therefore, they do not often appear in this place. A long time ago, when they were digging tunnels, they came to this lake, when they found that the passage could not be continued.

Therefore, this road is interrupted. Under normal circumstances, the orcs have no reason to come here unless the king sends them here. Sometimes, the king will suddenly want to eat the fish in the lake, and in many experiences,

Both the fish and the messenger disappeared.

In fact, Gollum lives on a wet rock in the lake. He is now observing Bilbo from a distance with his big eyes like telescopes. Bilbo cannot see him, but he can see him clearly, and in his heart

He felt very curious, because he could clearly tell that the creature in front of him was not an orc.

When Bilbo was groping on the shore in despair and at a loss, Gollum jumped into the boat and used his big feet to push himself and the boat away from the shore. Gollum approached silently and began to whisper:

"My darling, wish us good luck! I think this is a big meal, at least it can be eaten as a delicious snack for us, Gulu!"

When he says Gollum, this twisted monster with an ugly face and deformed features will make a horrible swallowing sound from his throat. This is also the reason why he got this name, but he always calls himself "my baby"

”.

When the hobbit heard this sound, he was almost frightened out of his body, his legs trembled uncontrollably. Gollum's big pale eyes also appeared in front of him at the same time.

"Who are you?" Bilbo raised his dagger forward.

"Who is he hissing, my baby?" Gulu whispered. Since there was no one else to talk to, he always liked to talk to himself. Only then did he really confirm that he was not actually very hungry, but just curious.

; Otherwise, as usual, he will take action first and then talk.

"I am Mr. Bilbo Baggins. I have been separated from the dwarves and wizards, and I don't know where I am. As long as I can get out of here, I don't care where I am!"

"You...what's in your hand?" Gollum looked at the dagger that made him feel uncomfortable.

"A sword, the sword of Gondolin, the kingdom and city of the elves that has been destroyed!"

"Hiss," Gulu became quite polite: "Maybe you can sit here and chat with him, my baby. He likes to guess riddles, doesn't he?"

He was anxious to express his kindness in exchange for time to learn more about the hobbit and the sword: was he really alone? Did the food taste good? Was Gulu himself hungry?

Guessing riddles was the only thing he could think of at the time. When he lived in his cave a long time ago, guessing riddles with other interesting creatures was the only entertainment he was interested in; however, he was driven away later and could only

Drill down alone, go down, until you reach the deepest part of the mountains.

"Okay," Bilbo chose to agree to the other party's proposal in desperation, so as to gain time to understand this creature: to see whether he was alone and helpless, whether he was ferocious or hungry, and whether he was an ally of the orcs.

The two are in different positions, but they both made surprisingly consistent choices at this moment.

"You ask first," he said, because he couldn't think of any puzzle at the moment.

Guru hissed:

“What has legs that no one knows about, is taller than a tree, towers into the sky, but never grows taller?”

"Simple!" said Bilbo. "I think these must be mountains!"

"Does it think this is easy? My baby, it must compare with us! If the baby asks a question and it doesn't know the answer, we will eat it, my baby! If it asks us a question, we can't answer it.

Come out, then it can take whatever it wants, okay? We can take it out, right!"

"Okay!" Bilbo did not dare to disagree. In order to prevent himself from being eaten, he began to rack his brains to think of puzzles that would stump the other party.

"Thirty white horses stood on the red hill. They chewed hard, then stamped their feet, and finally stood still."

This is a riddle that he came up with at the time because he was still thinking about eating in his mind. This is actually a very old riddle. Perhaps every hobbit who listened to bedtime stories in his childhood knows the riddle.

Answer.

"Simple, simple," Gollum hissed: "Teeth! Teeth! My baby, but we only have six!" Then he asked a second riddle:

“It has no mouth but it can cry, it has no wings but it can fly, it has no teeth but it can sting, it has no voice but it can whisper.”

"Give me a moment!" Bilbo's mind was still full of food.

Fortunately, he had heard similar riddles before, and it took him a long time to regain his composure. After thinking about the wonderful riddles passed down by hobbits in the Shire in the past, he finally came up with the answer: "It's the wind, of course."

, the answer must be the wind!" At the same time, he was also proud that he could make up the second riddle on the fly. "This will make that ugly little monster want to break his head!"

Bilbo spoke slowly:

There is an eye on the blue face,

See an eye on a green face.

"That eye is like this eye,"

First Eye said:

"But it's on the ground,

Not in heaven."

"Hiss, hiss, hiss," Gollum has lived underground for a long, long time and has forgotten this kind of thing.

However, just when Bilbo began to think that this guy couldn't come up with the answer, Gollum awakened the memory of a long, long time ago in his mind. At that time, he was a happy and cheerful little hobbit living with his grandmother in a cave by the river.

Man, "Hiss, hiss, my baby," he said, "It means the sun is shining on the daisies, yes."

However, these memories of daily life on the ground made this ugly monster feel very tired from the bottom of his heart. Moreover, it also reminded him that he was not so sneaky and lived such a lonely life, which made his temper worse.

Things started to get bad, so this time he came up with another harder, more uncomfortable riddle:

"You can't see it, you can't touch it. It hides behind the stars and under the hills and can fill empty spaces.

It comes first and ends lives and kills laughter."

Gollum was quite unlucky, because Bilbo had also heard this kind of riddle, and he already knew the answer before the other person finished speaking. "It's darkness!" He solved it without even scratching his head or turning his head much.

The puzzle opened.

"The box has no lid, keyhole and noose,
To be continued...