Volume 7 Chapter 27, The First Rain

At that moment, I was confused and thought that I was going to die. My mind had already accepted my fate, and I thought to myself that this was what death felt like, and it wasn’t bad.

I was in a state of confusion, and I don’t know how long this state of confusion lasted. Slowly, I felt something beating against my face.

Then my senses began to return, and I gradually regained consciousness. At first, I only felt a vague sensation that my body had returned, and then my consciousness began to clear, and I gradually became aware of my surroundings.

The first thing I felt was cold, very cold. Walking all the way through the Devil’s City, the mental oppression and low-lying clouds made me very stuffy, and the coldness around me was particularly comfortable, as if I had been immersed in an ice-cold bathtub.

Then I noticed that the feeling of my lips being chapped was gone. My lips were cool, as if there was a cold thing drilling into my mouth. I licked a little, then a little more, then a little more, and then I discovered that it was water!

Could it be that someone was saving me! I was overjoyed, and my body had already reacted. I sucked desperately, moving my lips with all my might. Little by little, I felt a cold sensation begin to enter my body.

After drinking the water, I fell into a deep sleep. In the moment of losing consciousness, I seemed to hear several familiar voices talking, but I couldn’t make them out clearly, and I didn’t have the strength to pay attention.

When I woke up again, I felt as if I had been asleep for a long time. All kinds of senses came back at once: hearing, touch, and my strength began to return. My consciousness became clearer and clearer, and finally I opened my eyes.

The first thing I saw was a rough, big face, very familiar, smiling at me foolishly.

When I saw this face, I immediately felt that something was wrong, but I couldn’t think of why I felt that way. Who was this? I closed my eyes and thought for a moment, searching for the face of the Tibetan driver. Was it the one who drove the 876? No. The one who drove the water truck? No.

I couldn’t think of which one of the team this person was, and then I had a sudden realization. No, this isn’t someone from the team, this is… Huh? Isn’t this Wang Fatso’s face?

My mind snapped. Ah? Wang Fatso? How could he be here? It’s impossible. He’s already back in Beijing.

Am I dreaming? Am I hallucinating?

I opened my eyes again, and there was that familiar fat face, with a full beard, a little older than when I saw him in Beijing, staring at me, and coming closer.

I closed my eyes again, feeling that something was not right. No, it couldn’t be Wang Fatso. I wouldn’t dream of him.

I gritted my teeth and opened my eyes for the third time. By now, my mind was very clear. I looked, and it was indeed Wang Fatso. He had lit a cigarette and was turning his head to say something behind him. My ears were still unclear, and I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then I saw another person’s head poking over, which was also very familiar. It turned out to be Pan Zi.

What’s going on? I frowned and thought to myself, “Did I not enter the Gobi at all, or am I still in Hangzhou? Was everything before a dream?

Recalling the events that had happened, a flood of memories came back to me. We encountered a sandstorm, the car broke down, people went missing, and the shipwreck was embedded in the mound… everything was very real. It was definitely not a dream.

At this time, my ears recovered their hearing, and I heard Pan Zi say, “Little Master, how do you feel?”

I bent my back hard and tried to sit up, and Pan Zi came to help me. I sat up and let out a sigh, and then I saw the situation around me. It seemed to be a cave, with a campfire burning inside. I saw several sleeping bags and equipment scattered around, and it was dark outside the cave. It was obviously night.

At the same time, I saw that Mian Youbing was sitting by the campfire, cooking something, and A Ning was lying in a sleeping bag on the other side, still not awake.

I gradually realized that I wasn’t dreaming. “What’s going on?” I massaged my temples and asked Pan Zi, “Why are you here? Am I not dreaming? Am I not dead?”

“Not dead, but almost dead,” the fat man said. “If it weren’t for your sharp eyesight, I wouldn’t have seen this. At that time, you were already starting to stink.”

I looked at the fat man playing with a few coins and knew that they were Ning’s marks, but I still couldn’t figure it out.

“Then how did you get here?” I asked in surprise.

“We’ve been following your team,” said Pan Zi, pointing to the fat man. “You don’t know, but after you entered the Gobi Desert, San Ye’s team immediately followed you. At each of your campsites, this guy left marks to guide us, and we kept a distance of one station from you, always following behind.”

“What?” I didn’t understand Pan Zi’s words at first. “Marks? Behind us… he…”

Pan Zi said, “This is Master San’s plan. This young man and Black Blindness were both arranged by Master San to cooperate with the foreigner, in order to infiltrate the team. Because Master San said that at this point, it was impossible to figure out Jude’s true intentions on his own, so he could only do it this way, just like Jude did back then, to infiltrate the inside and understand the situation. I really didn’t expect you to be in on it. If I had known, I would have asked you directly.

I still didn’t quite understand, and it took me a long time to understand what Pan Zi was saying: “Wait, wait, wait. What, my uncle? You mean my uncle planned all this? Then… you guys?”

“We were already in Golmud, and our people in Dunhuang had been preparing for nearly half a month. As soon as your team set off, we set off behind them. At that time, this young man left a message telling us that you were in the team, and Third Uncle was shocked. Little Third Uncle, you really are something. Didn’t Third Uncle tell you to stay out of this mess? Why are you here?”

I took a deep breath and suddenly felt very powerless. I said to myself, ‘I really didn’t expect this. That… that black-glasses guy took care of me all the way here… it seems that it was still my uncle’s face…

Pan Zi continued, ’You were inside, so Third Uncle had to worry about your safety, so he asked Black Blind to keep an eye on you. This time the show was very grand, and Jude Kao was still one step behind. He thought he had gotten rid of Master San this time, but he didn’t expect that we had already planned it.“

”What about my uncle?“ I looked around, but I didn’t see my uncle’s shadow.

”Master San is behind us, a little bit off the road. This time we came with a lot of people, and it’s hard to follow them. Wang Fatso and I were the pioneers, opening the way in front, following you all the way, and then leaving signs along the way for Master San.

At this point, my thoughts became clear, and I immediately remembered that when I had a long talk with Mian Youping that night, he said that he was on my side and that I didn’t have to worry. It turned out that this was Uncle San’s plan.

I really didn’t think of this level. It seems that the old fox is really an old fox, and I’m really not qualified to fight with Uncle San.

“You’re lucky. We’ve been following you, or you would have been dried out by now.” The fat guy next to him said, “You’re in such bad shape, and you still want to do this job? I think you should really go back and take care of your small business.”

I asked Pan Zi, “Why is he here?”

Pan Zi said that all the good workers in Changsha had gone to work for someone else, and now Uncle San had brought in a new batch of people, who didn’t have enough experience, so he had asked him to help out, and he was still paying the old price.

The fat guy said, “What? You still don’t think I’m good enough? I’ll tell you, I carried you on my back.”

I waved my hand, and suddenly my heart felt at ease. Uncle San’s people are like family, they are my own people, I don’t need to be on guard all the time. And I’m used to working with these people, I know their abilities, and the happiest thing is that the bottle is really on our side, then everything will be fine.

It was the fat man who was feeding me water, I gradually regained my strength, and I drank a few sips myself. They didn’t let me drink more, saying that I needed to replenish my water slowly.

I looked at Ah Ning and saw that she was not responding. I didn’t know what was going on, so I asked Pan Zi if she was okay.

Pan Zi said, “Don’t worry, your girlfriend is in better shape than you. She’s already woken up once, and now she’s eaten something and gone back to sleep. This isn’t a desert. You just passed out from dehydration, not from sunburn. Just drink some salt water and get some sleep.”

Pan Zi was teasing me. I guess he saw that Ah Ning and I were both disheveled, and I didn’t have the energy to refute him, so I just ignored him. Although I was a little weak at the time, my spirit was already quite good. I got up and ate something, and asked what kind of cave this was and how they had found us.

Pan Zi told me that we were still in the Devil’s City, in a cave in a rocky mountain. After the accident, Zaxi and the others fled to the place where the car broke down. After waiting for a long time, Zaxi thought that neither I nor Ning could read Arabic stone piles, and now they didn’t know if we had been in an accident or if we were lost.

At once, Mung Yubing used the mirror to signal them, and they came up. Black glasses stayed behind to take care of the rest, and Mung Yubing came in with Pan Zi to find us.

I asked how they found us in such a large place. Pan Zi said that this place was a bit strange, and the order of these stone mountains seemed to be designed. They just followed their feelings, and in fact, they took the same route as us. In the end, they saw A Ning’s mark and found us on the sand.

I was still scared when I mentioned this, and I nodded hurriedly: “It’s true, this damned place seems to have no end, but it’s not a dead end either. I don’t know what’s going on.” I was nervous again, thinking to myself, “Now we’re still in the Devil’s City, can’t we get out?”

“We’re not as stupid as you are. We left marks along the way, so don’t worry,” said Pan Zi.

The fat guy also said, “The marks I left are all big rocks, visible from a kilometer away, and I’ve figured out why we can’t get out.”

“Oh,” I said, relieved, “why is that?”

Pan Zi said, “At first we didn’t know either, but the fat guy is really good. I’ll tell you the truth, we’re not in the original Devil City anymore. It’s at least 150 kilometers away. This is a huge group of Yadan landforms, consisting of more than a dozen small devil cities. In the middle is the Gobi Desert, and all the devil cities are connected by groups of rocky mountains, forming a huge chain of devil cities. You are walking along this chain, which is 3,600 square kilometers. Can you get out?

I shook my head: “Impossible, how could it be so coincidental? I just walked in any direction, and there was no deviation at all?

The fat guy said, “You’re so stubborn. You don’t admit it when people say you’re stupid. Which direction are you following? Someone else designed it. That’s because there are a lot of stones in this devil city, and the arrangement of these stones is very particular. Often, you have to go around a rock mountain, with more stones on one side and fewer on the other. But because the stones are so chaotic, you can’t tell which way is easier or harder to walk in an instant. It feels about the same, but subconsciously, you can tell which way has fewer stones, and your conditioned reflex is to choose that direction. As a result, you’ve been walking in the direction that others have designed for you in this devil city. Moreover, this is the case at almost every intersection. Even if you make a wrong judgment at one intersection, you still have countless opportunities to be corrected in the future. This trick was very common in ancient times. A very simple working people named it Qimen Dunjia. “As he said, he looked at the Mian Youping and said, ‘Young man, am I right?’

Mian Youping looked up at us, ignored him, and looked at the fire, as if he had something on his mind.

I laughed and said, ”When did you learn Qimen Dunjia?”

The fat guy said, “You don’t know much, do you? I thought he was just showing off. I thought to myself, ‘This guy is just learning as he goes along.’ I changed the subject and asked the fat guy, ‘Are you saying that someone in this city of demons used these broken stones to create a diversion?’

The fat guy nodded and said, ”That’s what happened, but it’s not a very sophisticated formation. If you meet someone who is not very observant or someone who is very observant, they will definitely be able to find it. These stones have been here for years. I think this was a battlefield at the time. The Queen Mother of the West must have been a master of the art of defense.

At this point, I heard the voice of Ning from the sleeping bag. She said softly, “You’re wrong. The Queen Mother of the West was the creator of the Qimen Dunjia. The divine book that the Yellow Emperor received from the heavens was given to him by the Queen Mother of the West. When it comes to the Qimen Dunjia, she is the ancestor.”

It turned out that the woman was not sleeping. We were all shocked. I immediately thought of the legend of the Nine Heavens Immortal Woman and was shocked. Indeed, the legend and some historical records at the time said that the Yellow Emperor’s unification of the Central Plains was greatly aided by the Xiwangmu Kingdom.

Then I thought about the ancient boat and said to myself that there must have been a shallow lake here at the time, with these rocky mountains exposed above the water. The rocks under the water would have stranded the boat, so the boatman would have chosen to travel in places with fewer reefs, making it easier to get lost. This may also be the reason why the country of the Queen Mother of the West has not been discovered for so many years.

Thinking of this, I suddenly had a start and said to Pan Zi, “Are you saying that the Devil City here is a ring?”

Pan Zi nodded and I asked, “How do you know?”

Pan Zi shook his head: “This is what our guide said. What’s wrong?”

I excitedly drew a circle in the sand: “You don’t know, I’ve read Wen Jin’s notes. She said that Xiwangmu was protected by an invisible city wall. Here, thousands of years ago, it should have been water, which means that there was a water belt here, similar to a moat, encircling it. If we assume that this protective belt is the ‘invisible wall’ that has protected the Xiwangmu ancient city for so many years, then the Xiwangmu Kingdom should be within this circle, that is, in the middle of this Devil City circle.

After I finished speaking, everyone looked at me indifferently, as if they were looking at a fool.

I was baffled by the looks, and I said, “Am I wrong?”

Pan Zi patted my shoulder and said, “Little Master, what you said, we can guess without reading Wen Jin’s notes. However, if the situation is really that simple, then the Xiwangmu Ancient City would have been discovered long ago. This is the Qaidam Basin, not the Taklimakan. Although it is rarely visited, it has been the subject of numerous geological surveys. Therefore, if the ghost city is here, the situation must be very special. It is likely that it has been buried under the Gobi Desert or is in a situation that is difficult for others to discover. You think you can see it there, very silly and naive.

I thought so too, so I asked them what their plan was.

Pan Zi said that they had originally planned to follow A Ning’s team to Tamu Tuo, but now they had encountered such a big accident. However, according to Ding Zhuo Ma, to the west of the Devil City, following the ancient riverbed for two more days would be the rocky mountain pass where she had parted from Wen Jin’s team. He was going to go there to rest after we recovered, and wait for Uncle San’s team. After that, he planned to follow the river downstream, because the ancient city must be near the river, and the team must have taken the same route, so we could try our luck.

I said to Pan Zi, “But the ancient riverbed has basically mixed with the Gobi Desert at this point, and it’s impossible to see clearly.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said the fat man, pointing to the pitch-black outside.

We were at the bottom of the cave, and not knowing what he meant, we went outside. As soon as we reached the entrance, a cold, damp breath suddenly hit us, and then I heard a very familiar sound.

It was dark outside, and I couldn’t see what was going on, but I was very familiar with the situation. However, for a moment, I couldn’t believe what I thought.

When I walked out of the cave, water droplets hit my face instantly, and I reacted. I thought to myself, “Fuck, it’s actually raining outside.”

But how is that possible? This is the Gobi Desert, where it may only rain once a year, and definitely not in this season.

I walked back and said, “What the hell is going on? Why is it raining?”

Pan Zidao said, “Little Master, you have to thank this rain, otherwise you won’t be able to wait for us to come and you’ll be a salted fish. When we found you, the rain had already started to fall. Now it’s all water outside, and we can’t get out. Otherwise, we’ll carry you out. It’s not comfortable to stay here. After the rain, the old river channel will definitely be full of water. If you go downstream, you won’t be able to see the river channel, but the water will. So don’t worry.”

At this time, I thought of what Dingzhu Zhuoma had told me: ”Time is almost up. If you miss it, you’ll have to wait another five years.

The more I thought about it, the less likely it seemed. But since Mian Youping didn’t say anything, it seemed like there was nothing to worry about.

After that, I went to rest. I didn’t sleep well this time. When I woke up the next day, I thought I was dreaming again.

We spent two days in this cave recovering. Both Aning and I were healed. Aning was familiar with Fatso. In the end, it was Pan Zi and the others who saved her, but she didn’t say anything. However, she suddenly became very cold to me. She probably thought that I was also arranged by Uncle San and lied to her.

I didn’t care. I thought to myself, I almost died, and I’m still worrying about this. On the third day, we set off. Following the signs, we waded through ankle-deep water and walked for two days in the rain, finally making it back outside and rejoining Black Glasses. The people outside had already given up hope, and when they saw us safely out, they couldn’t believe their eyes.

Outside, Pan Zi rested for another day. He suggested that I stay here and wait for Uncle San to arrive before deciding whether to go in.

However, at this time I felt that I had no face to see Uncle San, and the message from the goddess Zhuoma had already made me determined to find Wenjin.

Ning had also arranged her own team. Most people wanted to go back. The situation of the Caucasians was very bad. The team doctor said that when Uncle San’s team arrived, they would have to go back immediately after borrowing a car. After arranging things, she told Pan Zi that she would join us, saying that her team had already gone ahead.

There was no problem with Ning joining us, and Pan Zi couldn’t argue with me. We had a car for this part of the journey, and it wasn’t a dangerous road, so I agreed. I, Fatso, Pan Zi, Mian Youbing, and Ning were in the same car, and Black Glasses was waiting for Uncle San here.

Over the next two days, we followed the riverbed, which was gradually rising in water level, and we walked deeper and deeper into the Gobi Desert. Because of the rain, many tributaries had appeared in the riverbed, and we searched for them one by one. However, no matter how we looked, we still couldn’t see the rock mountain. My binoculars were so worn out that I began to suspect that the mountain had already changed beyond recognition.

The rain stopped before we set off, and we finally rested by the riverbed. The tires on the car were worn out very badly, and one of them was even punctured. We could only drive for a while before stopping to pump up the tires, and then continue driving.

Fatso said, “Could it be that the old woman was lying? Maybe there was never a mountain there? Maybe it was just a mound of earth that the wind blew away over the past ten years?”

I didn’t think so. Dingzhuoma didn’t seem like a liar, and maybe the course of the ancient river had changed.

“What should we do? If we keep going, we’ll run out of gas. It’ll be tough to walk back.”

“This place where the water converges is the lowest point of the entire plain. There should be a lake there. Why don’t we find that lake first? Then we can start looking for traces of the river from the lake. At least that way we can narrow down the search.”

Thinking about it, that was the only thing we could do. We continued on our way. When we reached a slope, suddenly Pan Zi yelled and slammed on the brakes.

We all slammed into the front seat cushion. Fat Man yelled, but before he finished, everyone froze.

On the other side of the slope, there was a sheer cliff. Our car had already gone over the edge, and both tires were in the air.

We got out of the car in a panic, walked to the edge of the cliff, and found a huge basin in front of us, surrounded by smoke, a huge oasis in the Gobi!