In the middle of Mountain Red Cliff about 7 km from Huangguoshu Waterfall, there is a huge light red cliff that is 100 meters long and over 30 meters high. The red cliff is especially dazzling among the surrounding green peaks as a ruby embedded on a green carpet. On the cliff there are 21 dark red symbols that are shaped like ancient characters. They look like seal characters or in the Lishu style, but under closer scrutiny they are neither. They are not like the engraved characters and the array is rather disheveled. The largest character is as big as a dipper, and the smallest as big as a sheng. All the characters are full of simple, classic charms. Since Emperor Jiajing's reign in the Ming Dynasty, many scholars and writers have visited this place and composed poems about it and investigated into it. Rubbings, copies, and reduced inscriptions of the characters have been issued and included in national inscription collections. As for the symbolic meaning of the characters, there have been a lot of controversies without a solution. There are 3 representative postulates about the origin of the characters. The first is that they are the relics when Zhuge Liang marched southward during the Period of the Three Kingdoms, and the inscription was given the name “Zhuge Inscription”; the second is that they are the monument commemorating the military success of Emperor Gaozong of Yin over Guifang; the last is that they are the monument commemorating Jihuo's contributions in the ancient Cuan characters, as the leader of the Cuan tribe Jihuo helped Zhuge Liang in the southward march in the Chu Kingdom.

The inscription on the red cliff is magnificent and puzzling. It poses a riddle still awaiting the posterity to solve.

The Water Curtain Cave is located 40 to 47 meters high in the waterfall and is 134 meters long with 6 “windows”, 5 “halls”, 3 springs, and 6 passages. To be near the waterfall is striking already, and to walk in the waterfall is most thrilling and awe-inspiring. No trip to Huangguoshu Waterfall will be complete without a visit to the Water Curtain Cave, as the tourists will not be able to appreciate the magnificence of the waterfall to the full.

There is another wonderful sight when crossing the cave as tourists can watch the rainbows on the Xiniu Pond from different cave “windows”. These rainbows are not only colorful but also change positions. As long as it is sunny, traveler can see them from 9 am to 5 pm, which will change position as he move about. As the ancients say, “the rainbow in the sky is set off by the blue welkin, whereas the rainbow in Xiniu Pond is set off by the snow-white waterfall”, and hence the name “rosy glow on the snow-white waterfall”.