Chapter 27: The Black Tower

Sand Sea Devil’s Nest 17

Who knows An Liman old man but suddenly changed his mind, shook his head like a rattle drum, said what also refused to enter the ruins of the ancient city of Jingjie, he said that in the desert dead companions, is an ominous sign, not to mention that Hao Aiguo was bitten by the devil’s emissary viper, appeared on the head of the black sarcoma of the serpent, indicating that Hu Da abandoned this desert to the devil of the legend, is true.

An Liman religious consciousness is very strong, no Hu Da sheltered place, is to slaughter him, he will not go, we have no choice but to rearranged, so that he set up camp in the mountain pass, watch over the camels and capital weight.

I wanted to let the fat man also stay to keep an eye on him, in case this old man escaped from the battlefield, and left us out to dry here ……, it doesn t matter if he ran away, without a camel, we will have to drive all the way back to the 11th, and it is really hard to say how far this 11th can drive in the desert.

And on second thought, An Liman should not escape alone, after all, all the way to now, not to mention that he did the guide’s share of the wages have not yet gotten their hands, that is not a small amount, enough to feed and clothe him for the rest of his life.

But I have suffered many times because I was too careless, I must be more careful at this time, so I took An Liman old man’s hand and asked, “Master, how does Hu Da punish lying and backstabbing people?”

An Liman said: “This well, will let his family’s money well into the sand, even his salt well, but also together with the edge into the sand well, and finally starved to death well, to die in the black desert in the same well, after the death of the hot sand hell, suffered 1,800 kinds of torture well.”

I saw him say solemn, then put down the heart, religious beliefs solid people have an advantage, afraid of suffering after death, so do not dare to do too sorry for the conscience of God.

Now there are only seven people entering the ancient city, among them there is also an unconscious Ye Yixin, carried by Chu Jian, the remaining five people have to carry some equipment and weapons, plus food and water bottles, the load on each person is not small.

There was a famous saying in the army: a soldier is a soldier, not a soldier, with forty pounds on his body. That is to say that the officers and soldiers in the army, when marching, are carrying at least forty pounds of equipment on their bodies, and there are also some people who have to carry heavy infantry weapons such as machine guns, flamethrowers, or anti-tank equipment, and that is even heavier.

I have been in the field army for ten years, carrying a large amount of equipment, I do not feel anything, Professor Chen, they can not afford it, and finally had to try to lighten the load, into our final destination “Jingjie Ancient City”.

From the mountain pass to the ancient city distance is very close, a meal of effort to the city gate, the gate has long been collapsed beyond recognition, the city in front of the trench was also filled with yellow sand, we entered the city from the city wall broken chu, surrounded by the ruins of a dead silence.

This and I previously imagined the gap can be too big, can not help but be disappointed, the city’s streets and houses are either collapsed, or dilapidated, in the distance to see feel okay, quite some scale momentum, to follow into the inside to see what nothing, all the sand and rotten wood, broken stone, which has what gold and silver treasures.

Only a number of dilapidated, above the paint has long been peeled off the huge wooden pillars, beams, can still glimpse a few points of the city in the past luxury weather.

We want to enter the entrance to the city of a few broken house look, but found that although most of the broken house exposed in the desert outside, while the yellow sand in the house is piled up to the roof.

Legend has it that the city was once destroyed in battle, when the allied armies stormed the palace, and just as the battle was drawing to a close, a black sandstorm buried the kingdom of Jingjia, along with the city’s inhabitants and army, indiscriminately in the depths of the yellow sand. It was not until the nineteenth century that the movement of the desert brought it back to life.

In the scene seems, basically and that legend matches, just did not see the dry body, must be buried in the sand.

I was bored, but Prof. Chen and the others seemed to be interested in everything in the ancient city, even a broken wall could look at it for half a day.

I had to remind them, Ye Yixin this little girl is still sick, save people is the most important thing, it seems that the residential areas of the city are filled with yellow sand, even a well can not be found, we might as well take a look at the palace, there may be a water source.

Professor Chen slapped his head, “Hey, old fool, saving Xiaoye is important, let’s go to the royal palace, the kingdoms in this desert are all built on underground rivers close to the ground, some of the underground palaces have rivers passing through them, and the royal palace is usually in the middle of the city.”

As the crowd sought their way through the ruins to the middle of the ancient city, Fatty said to me, “Old Hu, do you know what I want to eat the most right now? I want to eat honeydew melon and horse milk grapes the most, there is a piece of watermelon is also okay ah, alas …… not to say, the more I say the more thirsty, my throat is fucking smoke, find the underground river I have to jump down first to take a bath.”

I said to the fat man: “This Jingjie Queen’s life is very luxurious, sure often enjoy the cold underground river water, soaked out of the chilled watermelon, but that watermelon even if preserved to the present, more than half of the watermelon stone, grapes may also become raisins.”

Fatty complained: “This fucking bird shit place, really can’t imagine that there are people living before, next time don’t say give 20,000 US dollars, gold mountain silver mountain piled up in front of my eyes, I won’t go into the desert, the world’s death, the most unbearable is definitely the death of living thirst.”

A mention of death, I think of Hao Aiguo, was bitten by that strange snake, although the death of fast, but I do not know how much pain in dying, the snake’s appearance is also strange, there is a black sarcoma on the head, which is full of black water, chopped into two sections can also fly up to hurt, this kind of snake even Shirley Yang has not seen, I do not know if there is no such thing as this city.

Seven of us in the ruins of the road forward, encountered the collapse of the fall of the place on the detour, walked for a long time to the middle of the ancient city, the streets here are quite wide, although the yellow sand all over the streets of the pattern of veins can still be seen.

However, in addition to the tilted black tower, there are no other large buildings, not to mention the royal palace, even a decent house does not exist, a wall of weathered earth.

Prof. Chen said that the palace here may be built in the ground, too much sand in the city, let’s go to the black tower, watch from a high place, see if we can find the entrance to the underground palace.

That tower under the base and more than half of the arched stone door are buried in the sand, the black tower is carved with Zagrama mountain boulders, a total of six layers high, slightly tilted, still very strong. In addition to the very rare construction materials, there was a black olive-shaped stone ball at the top of the tower at the highest point.

Professor Chen put on his presbyopes, tilted his head up to look at it for half a day, and then looked at it with binoculars, muttering to himself as he looked at it, “Right, why didn’t I think of it before.”

I wanted to ask him what he didn’t think of, but Prof. Chen shortened his body and drilled into the door of the tower, he seemed to be in a hurry to confirm something, we hurriedly followed at the back.

The walls of the tower are densely carved with strange ghost cave text, each layer has a black stone statue, the first layer is a stone sheep, that is nothing special.

The second layer is a stone human elephant, the size of a normal person, high nose and deep eyes, half kneeling in the tower. The third layer is the “giant pupil stone statue” that we saw in the unnamed town when we were hiding from the sandstorm.

Prof. Chen stopped at the third floor of the black tower and said to us, “It seems that I was right in my assumption that the source of those giant-pupil stone statues unearthed all over the world is the Jingjie Kingdom, and the material is the black stone of Zagrama.”

Satipeng asked, “Professor, then what is this tower used for? How come there’s a statue on every floor?”

Prof. Chen said, “I speculate that this black tower is used to show the status of the Ghost Cave Clan, and the stone statues on each level represent different levels, the first level is livestock, and if I’m not wrong, there should be another level underground, which houses the hungry ghosts from hell. The second layer is ordinary people, including all the Hu people in the western region, their status is only higher than cattle and sheep, equivalent to slaves. The third layer is this giant pupil’s statue, just now I saw, the stone ball at the top of the tower, is an eye shape, giant pupil’s stone man and eye shape totem, represents this nation’s worship of the eye, let’s go up and see what’s the higher status in the Jingjie country.”

Fatty said, “This is even my level can guess, I bet the top is definitely the queen’s statue.” Saying that, he grabbed the first to go up to the fourth floor.

I followed closely behind, went up to see, but unexpectedly, the stone statue in this layer, snake body human head, long and stout limbs, hind limbs are beast-shaped, front limbs in human form, holding a sharp sword and shield, the head is a male face, grimace, staring at the eyes, as if it is the angry eyes of the golden steel in the mainland temple, the statue of the back of the head also has a black ball, and the same as the strange serpent in the mountain of Zagrama.

This kung fu Professor Chen and others also came up one after another, saw this strange shape of the stone statue, tsked: “This seems to be the kingdom’s guardian god ah, there is also a black ball in the shape of an eye on the head, it seems that the ghost cave people really believe that the eye is the source of all the power, the guardian god’s status is still under the queen, it seems that the queen of the Jingjie is indeed deified, go, let’s go to the fifth floor to see if it’s the Queen’s statue.”