Chapter 22 – The Ruins of the Ancient City of the Western Nights

Sand Sea Devil’s Nest 8

Ever since we encountered the violent black sandstorm at noon, we chased the white camel and broke into the ruins of this nameless small city in the sea of sand, I felt that this broken city from the inside to the outside, are shrouded in a layer of mysterious veil, can’t see that under the veil is not hidden dangers, so I’ve always maintained a high degree of vigilance, everyone has rested, and I do not dare to be a little lax.

Suddenly saw the eyes of the stone statue moved, although a little far away, the house lights and dark, I still believe that their eyes will not be wrong, so I stood up, walked to the wall next to the giant pupil of the stone statue to check.

Hanging on the beam of the vapor lamp, was poured into the broken house of the wind blowing shaky, flickering light, reflecting the broken house in the light and dark, the dark stone statue looks like a buried alive dead, only reveal the head, the following all buried in the yellow sand.

Walked close to see, it turned out in the eyes of the stone man, lying on a large ant, there is a knuckle so big, the body black, tail is blood red, by the vapor lamp light a shake, there is a faint flash of light, from a distance, as the stone man’s eyes in the flash.

I saw that it was just an ant, so I flicked it to the ground with my hand, stepped on it, and heard only a crunching sound in my ears, stepped on it, and felt slightly odd that the body of this big ant could be much harder than that of an ordinary ant.

I looked around, the broken house everywhere through the wind, I do not know where this ant crawled in, Shirley Yang came over and asked me what happened, I said nothing, just an ant, let me step on the dead.

I woke up Fatty, who was sleeping, and told him to keep watch, then added some solid fuel to the fire to make it burn a little brighter, put out the vapor lamp, and got into my sleeping bag to sleep.

Body tired, soon fell asleep, when I woke up, is already the next day’s nine o’clock in the morning, outside the sandstorm blowing the whole night, not stop, just compared to the previous wind is a lot smaller, this devilish sandstorm is finally coming to an end.

The ruins of the ancient city and a large section into the yellow sand, revealing the ground part has not much, and then two such a big sandstorm, I’m afraid that the nameless ancient city, will disappear in the desert, but even if all buried by the yellow sand, does not mean that is buried forever, more than half of the Taklamakan is a mobile desert, with the gusts of wind moving desert, I do not know how many years after it will also be back to see the light of day.

Hao Aiguo is directing the students to excavate the stone man in the corner of the wall, has dug up to the thigh of the stone man, the group are gathered around to watch, only An Liman take advantage of the wind to weaken, go out to take care of the camel hiding under the wall.

I took out some dry food from the bag, eat while watching them digging, this time to follow the archaeological team into the desert, in addition to wanting to see if there are any large ancient tombs, but also want to learn some of the experience of archaeology with these experts.

They are afraid of damaging the carvings on the stone man, only use the engineer shovel to dig up the sand on the periphery, and then use the flat shovel and brush to clean up a little bit, digging up a part of it, cleaning up a part of it, and at the same time, they have to make all kinds of records.

Professor Chen saw me wake up, just nodded to me to say hello, it seems that he has no problem with the body, he told me now this time is to let the students practice, increase some internship experience, the theoretical knowledge of the study is important, but for archaeology in this line, the field internship is also very important, in the field of more to see more contact with more hands, in order to have an intuitive feeling, combined with the theory will be much faster.

Not much later, the students cleaned up to the base of the stone statue, I was the first time to see this giant pupil stone statue, this stone statue dressed in hu clothing, arms down, the body carved a lot of patterns, seems to be some kind of tantric scripture, according to Prof. Chen said, these words have never been deciphered, but with the last few years, the expansion of the field of archaeological research, the experts believe that this should be a kind of symbols or code words, recorded some ancient religious information. As for why these symbols, carved on the stone people, perhaps it is related to the act of sacrifice. But related documents, murals, historical records and other related information, there is absolutely no, so far these are only speculation.

Satipeng in the side listened to the professor’s explanation, asked for advice: “Professor, this kind of stone man’s shape and normal people are very different, I think there is this possibility, there is a kind of ancient religion to worship aliens, after they have seen the aliens, they think that they are the god of the sky, and so made some of these stone people out of the worship, these symbols on the body of the stone man, is a kind of extraterrestrial language. ”

Hao Aiguo immediately criticized him: “Little Sa you usually study up very little effort, told you how many times, you are a very smart child, do not use your brain to the crooked, how even aliens are made out? Treat history, treat archaeology, be serious.”

Professor Chen did not get angry, instead he revealed a kind smile, “Having imagination is not a bad thing, young people, active thinking, is very good. Unity and tension, serious and lively, this is not a contradiction at all, however, we archaeology, the study of history, that is, we must follow a principle, bold assumptions, cautious evidence. Imagination should be built on the basis of reality, the lack of basis for imagination is not reliable. Let’s take this giant pupil stone statue, ancient people like to judge good luck or bad luck through astronomical phenomena, whenever the night, they look at the starry sky, would not want their eyes to see farther? Would they have wished their eyes could see farther? Would they have included this wish in the making of the stone statues? This possibility is very high, sanshingdui in sichuan also unearthed some statues, the eyes long extended out, conservatively speaking, this is very likely to send a kind of ancient people on the exploration of yu hope expression.”

I heard here, also can not help but sigh, or professor level, do not take the axiom pressure, compared to the realm of Professor Chen, Hao Aiguo is too poor.

Professor Chen continued: “You said the aliens, is not impossible, and not a mention of aliens, means that foreign fiction in the fictional science fiction, in fact, the earliest records of aliens, or appeared in our ancient Chinese notes and murals, as early as 7,500 years ago, Helan Mountain primitive tribal murals, appeared in space suits astronauts image! In the frescoes of the primitive tribes in the Helan Mountains as early as 7,500 years ago, the image of astronauts in space suits appeared, and they came out of a large disk, and the animals and inhabitants around them fled in all directions. Similar situation in the Zhou and Xia period tripod, as well as some ancient books have records ……”

At this time An Li Man braved the wind and sand from the roof of the broken hole jumped back, told the crowd sandstorm will soon pass, not half an hour, the sky will clear, all by Allah bless, the sand has been fast engulfed outside the city wall, if more than two hours to scrape, we will be buried alive in this today.

Originally, the people were still a little worried, although the wind is small, but do not know when it can stop, with the words of An Liman, completely put down the suspended heart, students concentrate on listening to Professor Chen’s lectures, I boiled a pot of tea on the fire, ready to let everyone drink it on the road.

Tea has just boiled, a few people surrounding the giant pupil stone statue suddenly screamed in unison, all jumped backward, some people shouted, “Ah …… how so many big ants?” Some people shouted, “Aigoo! This side also have!”

I rushed to see, only to see the sand under the feet of the stone man rises a big bag, like a fountain like crowded out countless big ants, someone with a shovel to shoot, a shot dead hundreds, but at the same time from the sand out of the thousands. It was so dense that it made people’s scalp tighten.

At first thought that they were digging sand, digging open the ants nest, immediately found that not so, the ground appeared a dozen big hole, more and more ants climbed out from it, each one is pitch black body, red tail, red and black, dike tide as countless.

An Liman only looked at it, twisted his head and ran out of the room, Fatty and the others still wanted to use the engineer’s shovel to shoot it, just in this instant, the ants were already so many that there was no way to get rid of them.

Shirley Yang is a photographer of National Geographic magazine, she has been to many places and has seen a wide range of things, only to hear her anxiously shouting to the crowd, “Everyone quickly climb out from the roof, this is the desert marching ants, go a little slower will be gnawed into a skeleton.”

Tens of thousands of desert marching ants had already piled up half of the house, and more were constantly crawling out from the ground, not only from the ground, but also from the beams of the room, from the walls, and everywhere was crawling out. Prof. Chen and Ye Yixin were so shocked by this appalling situation that their feet went soft, where they could still take half a step.

Sand Sea Devil’s Nest 9

Not to mention the intellectuals, even the fat man and I felt shivering all over, these desert marching ants are too scary, maybe the original human bone in the house is their masterpiece, no wonder there is no skin and flesh left.

I try to calm myself down, a look around the people, found that An Liman this old guy again is the first to escape, heck, this old oil, see the danger on the run, yesterday also swore to share the pain with us.

I didn’t have time to curse this old man An Liman, seeing that the tidal wave of desert marching ants couldn’t be stopped by the beating of the sapper shovel, I kicked over the fire where the tea was being cooked, and poured half of the tin cans of solid fuel out, forming a fire wall in the house, and the ants that touched the fire wall were burnt immediately, which slightly blocked the advancing momentum of the desert marching ants.

Those desert marching ants were too many in number, and they rushed towards the fire wall without hesitation, trying to use their numbers to suppress the flame, thanks to the solid fuel’s strong combustibility, but it was only a matter of time before they were suppressed by the ant colony.

Utilizing this little bit of time, we grabbed what luggage and equipment we could, and even pulled and dragged them all out of the broken house, the wind and sand outside was already very small, only to see hundreds of yellow sheep, wild camels, gerbils, gerbils, hyenas and hyenas scurrying around in the ruins of the ancient city, not only the big house where we were just now, but also a piece of desert marching ants emerged from a lot of places, and some of the animals ran a little bit slower, and were instantly covered by the desert marching ants.

The mouths of the desert marching ants contain a lot of ant acid, and even elephants can’t withstand the bite of thousands of ants. Some sand wolves and yellow goats fell to the ground one after another, and after the desert marching ants had passed through them, they were just a pile of white bones.

The number of desert marching ants in this city is more than ten million, as if the whole ancient city is a huge ant nest, we are trapped on the roof, we can only wave the engineer shovel to sweep down the marching ants climbing up.

In the distance, under the city wall, An Liman was busy untangling the ropes holding the camels, I threw my rifle to Fatty, “Hit him in the hat.”

The fat man raised his rifle and without hesitation aimed at An Liman and pulled the trigger, “pop” sound, An Liman’s leather hat was shot off, scared him to shrink his neck, looking back at the people on the roof.

I shouted to him, “Old man, if you dare to run, the second shot will hit your ass, Hu Da will be fine.”

An Liman waved his hands back and forth, signaling that he wasn’t going to run. But under the house is already covered with desert marching ants, we can’t get down for the time being, on the roof is not a solution, is not paying attention to the place, but see a broken wall collapsed, a small calf-like big ants crawled out from inside.

This is a queen ant, with six pairs of large transparent wings on its body, probably due to the attack of the sandstorm, startling the queen ants hidden in the depths of the nest, they are preparing to migrate.

Seeing this noise of the ant queen, everyone’s face of the archaeologists changed color, Shirley Yang called out, “Capture the thief first, shoot to finish it off.”

Fatty patted the sports steam rifle in his hand and stomped his feet anxiously, “The caliber of this gun is too small, it can’t fucking hit it.” Despite saying so, he still fired the gun, shooting all the remaining bullets in the magazine at the ant queen.

I took off the scarf used to block the wind and sand, wrapped all the remaining solid fuel in the scarf, took out a lighter and lit a corner of the scarf, used it as an incendiary bomb, and smashed it from the roof to the ant queen below.

This move even received a miraculous effect, the fire by the wind, the huge body of the queen ants surrounded, the queen ants ate pain, struggling to roll on the sand, the more rolling the fire burned bigger, this compressed fuel, only a little bit of it will be able to burn for ten minutes, not to mention that this is more than half a barrel, a full kilogram or so, the fire burned bigger and bigger, around the desert army ants are exploding the camp, defiantly rushed to the queen ants, hoping that by virtue of the number of people, the flames will be extinguished.

I saw the opportunity, to the group a wave, carrying a shovel first jumped off the broken house, the scattered desert marching ants dispersed, the big Chu Jian back Professor Chen, Hao Aiguo Ye Yixin and others to help each other, the fat man break the back, a line of people from the breakthrough rushed out.

At this time An Li Man has been frightened camel herd control, everyone climbed on the camel, urging the camel fleet to run out of the city, around from time to time there are all kinds of beasts leaped over, usually touch are you dead or alive, at this time no one cares about who, all desperately run away.

Hundreds of meters away from the camel caravan, I looked back, the old city’s dilapidated ruins have been invisible, countless desert marching ants, rolling like a pot of red and black seawater, boiling from the ground swarming out. But as long as they weren’t surrounded by this horde of ants, there was no danger.

An Liman explained that he wanted to go out first, to untie the rope of the camels, if the ants do not gnaw the camels into bones, we can not even run away, not to escape first.

The fat man did not believe it, pointing to the rifle on his back with his thumb: “You don’t need to tell me, if you want to explain it later, explain it to me with this rifle.”

An Liman’s reason seems to be very sufficient, also can not be based on the assumption that he is leaving the crowd to escape alone, later in the desert there are many places can not do without him, I do not want to fall out with him on this, so stop the fat man, do not allow him to continue to say.

I said to An Liman: “We saw the auspicious white camel together in the desert, and escaped the siege of the desert marching ants, this is all because of Hu Da’s will, his old man thinks that we are all brothers, all pious believers, so we all believe in you, and the one who betrays his friends and brothers, Hu Da will punish him.”

This is not small, no danger of a frightening interlude is over, who knows after the ancient city of the Western Nights of the depths of the sea of sand, there are still what trouble waiting for us, I still have to find a way to persuade Prof. Chen them to go back.
We are away from the remains of the ancient city of the Western Nights, there are less than half a day’s journey, the wind has stopped, fireballs like the sun hanging in the sky, traveling in the desert, the most important thing is to maintain their own enough water, daytime rush is a taboo, but our water is still very sufficient, to the Western Nights can be supplemented with water, so the top of the blazing sun in the desert forward.
The desert in the daytime, another view, in ancient times, the Himalayas mountain building movement formed the Tarim Basin, the entire Xinjiang terrain, like a big bowl, the bowl is filled with a bowl of golden yellow sand, and our nine people nineteen camels composed of camel caravan is really too small, and its proportion is not as good as the bowl of golden sand in a grain of sand one ten thousandth of a grain of sand.
The desert is vast, there is no edge, if not behind the long footprints, and even do not feel that they are constantly moving forward, really admire those who enter the desert alone Gobi Beach explorers, perhaps only that lonely walk between heaven and earth, they will experience the true meaning of life, admire to admire, I do not intend to do so in this life, or the collective life is suitable for me.
Satipeng and other people are very curious, while walking, let Shirley Yang said desert marching ants things, Shirley Yang has not seen with their own eyes, just seen the desert marching ants ransacked villages, people and animals were gnawed to the bones, miserable.
The reason why this kind of ant colony is called marching ants is because they are highly organized and disciplined, mainly soldier ants, if compared with human army, except for mobility and firepower, the coordinated and organized ability of the well-trained human army can not be compared with desert marching ants at all.
As they walked and talked, the dunes under their feet rose and fell, undulating to an unprecedented degree. An Liman said that under these dense dunes were ancient cities engulfed by yellow sand, and he led the crowd up to the tallest large sand hill, pointing to the south and telling them that there was our intermediate station, the ruins of the ancient city of the Western Nights.
I raised my binoculars and looked to the south, an oasis in the hinterland of the Sand Sea, as far as the eye could see.
Sand Sea Devil’s Nest 10
The oasis in the desert was like emeralds on a golden plate, and from afar, the ruins of a black city stood within it.
The ruins of the City of Western Nights are quite well-preserved, and the city dates from a relatively late period, until the end of the Tang Dynasty when it was destroyed in a war, and since then it has been abandoned to this day. In the early nineteenth century, German explorers discovered the place, and plundered the ruins of most of the artistically valuable artifacts, such as murals and statues.
The only thing left in the desert is this empty city, the oldest ancient channel of the Peacock River, to this point, as the city from ancient times, all year round, there are underground water veins through, this has become an important supply point for travelers in the desert.
Camel caravan down the big sandy mountains, slowly toward the oasis forward, An Liman and I discussed, to the west night city more rest two days before entering the black desert, into it will not be easy to turn back, these days the camels were frightened, and pack a large number of supplies, must be well nourished to the feet to set off again.
This is exactly what I want, I can’t wait to stop for a few more days, so as to find an excuse to persuade the archaeological team to return home, and do not look for what the ancient city of Jingjie, in the vicinity of the two dug pits, wandering around, recently, I feel more and more overwhelmed, and then deeper into the desert, sooner or later, something big is going to happen, and then I am afraid that will not be as fortunate as the previous few times.
I slowed down the camel’s pace, and Professor Chen and ride side by side, I said to him: “Professor, we entered the West Night City, rest for three or five days, five or six days and then set off how? An Liman said that the camels are exhausted, and if we don’t let them rest enough, we’ll have to start 11 instead.”
Prof. Chen listened to the confusion and asked, “What ……11 is it? How to open?”
I said, “Professor how you even do not know the number 11, is to take two legs to walk ah.” Said I used two fingers to imitate the two legs walking, “Isn’t this the number 11?”
Prof. Chen laughed, “You, Hu, where did you get so many new words? It’s really interesting, well, let’s just repair inside for a few days, I’m also looking forward to examining the remains of this famous city.”
In the sandy mountains from the oasis is not far, but a full three hours to go to, the city wall is made of black stone, some places have collapsed weathering, damage is very serious, only among the main city built quite strong, still vaguely visible when the weather of the glory, some oil well workers, exploration teams, geological exploration team, passing through here, are in the main city to stay overnight, with the stone to the door to block the door, do not have to worry about the attack of the wolves. The wolves were not afraid of attacking them.
Since the mid-seventies, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet have carried out a vigorous campaign to fight wolves, large-scale wolves have been completely extinct, only some groups of three to five, or alone, lone wolves, are not enough to worry about.
Besides, there are many of us, and we carry guns, naturally we don’t need to worry about wolves, it is the windy season, there is no one else here except us, so we find a spacious house in the main city, light a campfire, eat and cook tea.
I and An Liman two people found the city’s ancient well, it is said that thousands of years, this well has not dried up, An Liman said that this is the miracle of Hu Da, I do not dispute this, with a leather bucket to play up a bucket of well water, the well is very deep, put dozens of meters of long rope before you hear the sound of falling water, carry out after I first drank a mouthful of cold, cold, cold, refreshing straight into the heart and spleen, in the desert by the poisonous sun in the heat of the sun disappeared, the heart of the unspeakably comfortable! I couldn’t tell you how comfortable I felt.
The nineteen camels are placed in the well, one by one drink full, and take out the salt and bean cakes to them to eat, and then picked up two large buckets of well water back to the archaeologists to rest in the house.
These people are exhausted, fell to the ground hooting and hollering, some people are still biting half a piece of cake in their mouths, eating half of them fell asleep, I didn’t startle them, these days are enough for them to suffer.
Boiled a large pot of water, which woke up Professor Chen and others one by one, forcing them to use hot water to scald their feet, and then the blisters on their feet, all picked.
This is all busy, I went to bed, drowsy sleep for a whole day and night, fatigue body, finally recovered, the evening group sat around listening to the fat man bragging.
Fatty mouth like a river, tell the crowd how rich in the Northeast old forest, mountain treasures and wild food how delicious, which is like the desert ah, in addition to the sand is sand, wind and big, hit a yellow goat to eat a mouth, eat a mouth of sand particles, especially the size of the Hinggan Ridge, what is good to eat, since ancient times there has been such a saying, the stick hit the roe deer ladybird scooping fish, chickens flying into the rice pot. Can you imagine the free life of the hunters?
A few students with shallow experience, all let the fat man Kan silly, Sa Di Peng pushed the glasses on the bridge of the nose, curiously asked: “Brother Wang, what is the stick to beat the roe deer? Hit with a stick?”
The fat man said, “glasses ah, see you quite good at learning, just tell tell you, it means that you walk in the mountains, take a stick, casually swing, smashed a dead roe deer, in the river with a ladle, blindly fishing can get a big fat fish, which means that the abundance of goods ah.”
Shirley Yang grunted, to the fat man said disdain: “the desert also has the benefits of the desert, the desert in the species of plants and animals is not less than the forest, and the Taklamakan Desert is in the lowest part of the basin, but in a sense, this is a peak of the ancient civilization, the forest in addition to the wild deer dogs and bears and what else? ”
I was afraid that the two of them would fight, and hurriedly said that there was a lady in the house, and we brothers went out to smoke a cigarette. Said while pulling the fat man outside.
The moon in the sky like a picture, stars like brocade, illuminating the earth a silver light, I gave the fat man a cigarette, advised him to let a little more Shirley Yang, the fat man said that of course I can not talk to her general understanding, they do not understand the Americans, we can not understand ah, not to mention that it is a woman of the people, if a man, early to his head screwed down when the ball kicked.
I laughed: “yes yes, you are what people ah, piss can be the ash floor breeding out a big pit, you can be sure to be generous, don’t pull Shirley Yang head down, or we have that money to find who want to go, 20,000 U.S. dollars, that’s not a small amount of money.”

Never before carefully studied the sky star feng shui, only in order to go to the archaeological team to mix some money only hard to read a number of times, at this time, a look, feng shui secret art in the volume of the word of the sky, and immediately in the mind came to mind.
I quickly ran back to the house, took the compass, stomped up to the top of the city building, against the sky’s stars, this auspicious star shrouded place, in the city of ancient wells, this is my first practice of Tianxing feng shui, the heart has no bottom, but most likely will not be wrong, my family this “sixteen characters of yin and yang feng shui secret art” is not a mundane, then that is to say that in the vicinity of the underground water veins, there must be ancient tombs? The tombs do hold water so to speak, but is this also too close.
No matter what, this is a major discovery, I have to tell the archaeological team about this, it’s best if they find something here and gain something, so they probably won’t have to go into the Black Desert.
Sand Sea Devil’s Nest 11
Professor Chen rejoiced, with his students rushed to the well, open to go down to see, this well’s well bar and winch are later re-installed, the previous long ago at some point destroyed.
An Liman stopped the crowd and said: “This is a holy well, Hu Da is not allowed to go down the mortal well.”
Hao Aiguo pulled An Liman to the side, to give him a big talk about the policy of archaeology, the excavation of ancient tombs is for better protection, so that this cultural wealth to leave the people, and now the Xinjiang grave robbers are common, even foreigners have come to steal digging, if the government does not intervene to protect, these valuable things are to be lost.
Shirley Yang and I discussed, the well is very deep, you can make a double buckle safety lock, hang people down to see what is really there.
That can only be I go down, although there is a vein of water below, or dare not be careless, wearing a gas mask, flashlight, whistle, sapper shovel, dagger, secretly hide the black donkey hooves and touching the gold talisman, reached out to try the rope’s sturdiness, negotiated a good liaison, if the flashlight shook three times upwards, the upper side of the person saw it will stop no longer let go of the rope, the second time upwards to shake the flashlight, that is, to let the pull upwards, in order to prevent In order to prevent accidents, but also with a whistle, if you can not see the light of the flashlight, use the whistle to contact.
At this time, An Liman has been Hao Aiguo do through the ideological work, Chu Jian fat man plus him, three people to me down the rope, I little by little from the mouth of the well down.
At this time is the night, in addition to the light of the flashlight, all around is a dark, look up can not see clearly where the mouth of the well, the deeper the drop, the night temperature in the desert is very low, coupled with the humidity in the well, let a person feel from the bones out of the cold.
The wall of the well is slippery, it is difficult to land, it is said that the age of this ancient well is much older than last year’s Western Nights City, it is the first to have this well, and later the Western Nights City, suddenly a cool wind blew, I hurriedly use the flashlight to shine, see that the wall of the well has a stone door.
I aimed at the top of my head, and whistle and shake the flashlight, this is not far from the mouth of the well, only fifteen or sixteen meters deep, as long as you speak loudly, the people above will be able to hear, they receive the signal, immediately stop releasing the rope again, I just hung in the stone door against the lower part of the place.
Cold wind is from the gap in the stone door blowing out, I use my hands to push, I feel the stone door is very thick, no stone locks and locks, although the gap is large, but can not be pushed, need to use a crowbar to open.
I saw that I could not get in, I sent out a second signal, let them pull me up, I put the situation under the well in detail, Professor Chen called it strange: “Strange, this may not be a mausoleum, it is a dark passage or something like that, where in the world is there a mausoleum repaired in the side of the well, and also leave a channel that is so secretive?”
Fatty volunteered: “Whatever he is, it’s no fun to guess, let’s go in and take a look, you guys get me down, I’ll go pry open the stone door.”
I said: “Forget it, to go down or I take the crowbar to go down, fat boy you are too heavy, in case the rope falls off, we still have to go down the well to fish you out.”
This time we made a rope ladder, so that after the stone door opened, whoever wanted to go down could climb down from the rope ladder, and finally decided to go down including Prof. Chen, Shirley Yang, Sa Dipeng and I four people, Fatty and others stayed on top.
Still I went down first, prying the stone door with a crowbar, it seems that this door used to open and close often, otherwise there would not be such a large gap, but the last few hundred years may not have been opened, in the rope ladder can not make the force, in order to open this door really took a lot of effort.
After the stone door is a masonry tunnel, spacious and neat, inside the dark unfathomable, I greeted Shirley Yang above them down, one by one to pull the three people into the tunnel.
Shirley Yang distributed a kind of pill to all the people, saying that it can prevent the lack of oxygen, and then put on the gas mask, walking inside will be foolproof.
Four people walked inside about fifty meters, a series of two stone door, the last door sealed very tight, stone door carved with unknown beasts, door cracks with dead animal skin, with a flat shovel to the animal skin piece by piece cut off, only to be able to open the door.
Walked to the end, it entered a spacious and dry stone room, length and width are almost sixty or seventy meters, three meters high, four people standing in it does not appear to be confined and crowded.
Although this space is spacious, the atmosphere is by no means easy, the ground tired of white bones, can not find a place to put their feet, look at those bones are some animals, extremely loose, a step on the broken, around dozens of wooden columns, tied to a set of air-dried human bones, look at the body type are all men in their prime.
I and Professor Chen Shirley Yang three people have long experienced refining, just think this place is secretive, did not feel afraid, only Sa Dipeng see so many dry corpses, so scared that he could not even speak, the professor went to where he followed to where, a step did not dare to stay away.
Shirley Yang looked at those dry corpses and sighed, “How tragic, all of them are martyred slaves or prisoners or something like that, right, it’s just too barbaric.”
Professor Chen said to the crowd, “It seems that this place is between where sacrifices are held for the important dead, this is an ancient custom of Pumo, these individuals are criminals, tied up in the desert to die of thirst alive, and after being completely dried up, they are laid out here, and then the blood of the slaughtered animals is poured onto these dry corpses, let’s look around, there should be a burial chamber here.”
We turned around and looked around, all sides are stone walls, knocked a few times, the back is obviously solid, there will not be any other space.
Or Shirley Yang is meticulous, found that there is a problem with the floor of the stone chamber, I set aside all the broken bones on the ground, the ground reveals a large stone slab also with relief carvings, and there are two pull rings at both ends.
I greeted Sa Dipeng to help me pull up the stone plate, see his whole body shaking into a ball, can not help but laugh, then let him go back the way he came, so as not to pee his pants here, and change Hao Aiguo, who must be interested in this bizarre tomb.
Satipeng like got amnesty, hurriedly ran back, Professor Chen and angry and funny: “Alas, this child, too timid, not do archaeology material ah.”
Shirley Yang and I pull open the stone plate on the ground, and then threw in a cold fireworks, the following illumination, only to see the ground is a and above the almost large chamber, the center of a four-square coffins, said coffins and the mainland of the difference is too big a little, there is no decorative pattern, not rectangular, square, like a big box.
This kind of tomb and coffin form not to mention I have not seen, to Professor Chen’s knowledge, are not see a really, I am afraid that this is a long lost ancient minority burial form, to a large extent by the influence of the Han culture, but make it plausible, adding a lot of their own things, is really rare to the extreme.
At this time Hao Aiguo with Chu Jian rushed to, he saw the scene here, excited two eyes light, put on gas mask, the first jumped down, here to see, there to see, the back of the head are happy bloom, I have always thought that he is a serious and old-fashioned people, I can not imagine that at this time he was like a child, he is now close to the hands and feet and scratching the ears.
We also went down to the bottom of the chamber, a look around, can not help but “ah” a sound, the four walls of the chamber, all the exquisite color murals.
Professor Chen saw one of them, also excited enough: “This …… thing recorded in this painting, and the Jingjie country related ah.”
The thing I want to see most is the valuable compensation burial goods, this coffin is not small, maybe there is something good inside, although in front of the professor they can not take away, but also can open the eyes, I now feel that it is an aristocrat’s tomb is more luxurious than that black wind mouth of that general’s tomb.
But Professor Chen is looking at the murals of the tomb, and did not pay attention to the middle of the coffin, I had to wait patiently, only to listen to Professor Chen to Hao Aiguo them to comment on these murals.
The first few paintings show that the owner of the tomb was the prince of Gumo, Gumo is a vassal state of the Jingjie, oppressed, every year offered a large number of treasures and cattle and sheep slaves, he once went to the Queen of the Jingjie to request the freedom of his subjects, three times in a row, but did not see the Queen’s face.
The painting probably says that he was not willing to do so. The brave prince, who was the embodiment of the sun god of war, sneaked into the Jingjie alone to try to assassinate the evil queen, only to discover a big secret.
As I listened I was also intrigued by the professor’s words, I was curious as to what that secret was. Walking over to join Shirley Yang and the others to listen to the professor’s explanation.
Professor Chen walked over to the next mural and looked carefully for a long time, “The meaning of this can be very odd, you see on this painting the prince is hiding in the corner and peeping, the face of the Queen of the Essence, in all the murals, is veiled, this painting the queen only has her back, she uncovered the face of the sand with one hand, and a person across the street, as if it was a slave or something like that, turned into a mass of shadows …… disappeared?”
I listened to the confusion, was about to ask in detail, but heard Shirley Yang said, “This queen is a …… demon.”
Sand Sea Devil’s Nest 12
“Demon?” Prof. Chen froze a little after hearing this, then said to Shirley, “Interesting, tell us what you think.”
Shirley Yang pointed to this mural and said, “The painter who painted this mural has very high painting skills, the composition is gorgeous and evocative, the narrative is about the major events in the life of the prince of the Po Mo Kingdom, although there is no textual annotation, but the features are very distinctive, and we can get a visualization of the mural, and get a clear understanding of the events and characters in the painting.”
I listened to her analysis of the murals while watching carefully, indeed as she said, the characters, costumes, architecture, and demeanor in the murals are all exquisite, if you know something about the culture of the Western Regions, you can get a rough grasp of the background of the events recorded in the paintings through this information in the paintings.
Only to hear Shirley Yang continue: “Professor you just said this mural, is all murals in the most difficult to understand a painting, the painting of the Queen unveiled the veil that always covers the face, a character opposite her, it becomes a dotted line, this all murals in the characters are realistic, only to see the Queen of the Essence of the positive face of the person becomes a dotted line, only a vague outline is drawn outline, from this only outline, we can not see the identity of this character ……, can only speculate that this dotted line character, is a slave or assassin or something like that, is the queen wants to get rid of an enemy.”
I couldn’t help but interject a question when I heard this, “Miss Yang, do you mean that …… this person in the painting saw the queen’s face and disappeared on that?”
Shirley Yang said, “Mr. Hu said pretty much the same thing, if I were to explain it in my words, I would say that it was the Queen’s eyes that looked at this person, and this person disappeared.”
I shook my head and laughed bitterly, “A big living person? One look and it’s gone? Disappeared? This …… this is too …… unbelievable, truthfully I have some difficulty understanding it.”
Professor Chen seemed to be able to understand what Shirley Yang meant and signaled for her to continue.
Shirley Yang said, “Although I just speculate, but not out of thin air, my father was born like to read a book called the “Great Tang Western Regions” book, is the Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang, I have read several times, the book recorded a lot of legends of the ancient Western Regions, some of which are myths and legends, there are also many real events, which has a legend of the Queen of the Desert, in the depths of the desert There is a city, the city inhabited by an ethnic minority from the underground, they ruled and conquered the other surrounding small countries, after hundreds of years, the throne passed to the last queen, legend has it that the queen’s eyes, is connected to the channel of the underworld, she only need to look at her enemies, the other will disappear without a trace in thin air, and never come back, disappeared where, I’m afraid that as long as those who disappeared They only know themselves. The queen to take high-pressure rule, she wants all the neighboring countries, all the people, she as a true god tribute, all the people who resisted all alive skinned to death, perhaps her move angered God, the queen did not toss a few years on the body of a strange disease, a death.”
Those slaves are most afraid of the queen, she died, the slaves and the surrounding by the queen oppression of a few countries, formed a coalition army, blood washed the queen’s royal city, the coalition army is ready to destroy the queen’s mausoleum, just at this time the sky and the earth change color, the terrible sand will be swallowed up by the royal city and the coalition army, the queen’s tomb and the countless treasures she searched for are buried under the yellow sand, after a few hundred years, the flow of the desert, make the royal city again to see the light of day. After hundreds of years, the desert flowed, making the royal city see the light of day again. Some travelers passed by there, and as long as they took any bit of the city’s treasures, they would trigger a desert storm, with clouds of smoke rising up and the road getting lost, and those who took the queen’s treasures would never be able to leave.
But the legend of the mysterious royal city, the evil queen, as well as the age of the background and so on information, the book has no clear records, today here to see the tomb murals, against the ancient legend, both surprisingly have a lot of similarities, so that not only is a legend, perhaps in the dusty history, really once happened such a number of things.
Shirley Yang asked the crowd to look at the next few murals, “The reason why we are sure that the queen in the painting is the queen of the Jingjie is because of the special clothing of the Jingjie people, as well as the unique buildings and decorations of the Jingjie, all of these are the strongest evidence. Professor, Mr. Hu, you look at the back of a few murals, more proof of the reliability of my inference, these murals express the meaning is very clear, the prince failed to assassinate, he returned to his country to continue to plan how to get rid of the queen, then the prince met a distant country to the soothsayer, the soothsayer let the prince will be made of chronic poison hidden in the meat of the golden lamb, and then paid tribute to the queen. The news of the queen’s sudden death came soon afterward. At the same time, the prince died prematurely from overwork and was buried with his beloved wife. The soothsayer designed a mausoleum to bury them under the altar of the sacred well.”
It turns out that there is first the altar above, and then this chamber was built, and the events recorded in this mural, and that book legend silk, Professor Chen see Shirley Yang although a photographer, but after all, came from a family of archaeologists, the family school, the old classmate has a daughter like this, very pleased, then remembered that the disappearance of the old friend in the depths of the desert, and can not help but old tears.
Shirley Yang said to the professor: “You take care of your body, do not be too sad, this time we harvested not small, the understanding of the Jingjie ruins of a breakthrough substantial progress, I believe that soon, we will be able to find the Jingjie Ancient City, the spirit of the late father in heaven, but also can rest in peace.”
I secretly complained bitterly in my heart, I wanted to find an ancient tomb, let them turn around and go back, I did not expect things to go against my wishes, look at this situation, and then persuade them is useless, if I had known that I pretended to be invisible.
I suddenly remembered that Shirley Yang said that the queen of the Jingjie Kingdom is a demon, so I asked: “Miss Yang, I remember listening to you guys talk about earlier, the queen is the first beauty in the Western Region, other women in front of her, just like the stars to see the sun like eclipsed, how to say that she is a demon? If she is really a demon, if we go to find her tomb, are we not sending her to death?”
Shirley Yang said: “These things are all legends, plus our inference, not necessarily sure is the truth, archaeology is like this, legends, records, unearthed artifacts, plus scholars speculation, the more of these elements, the closer to the truth of history, but what we can do is only infinitely close to the truth, any history can not be restored! . In ancient times, the human cognition of the world is very low, some phenomena that seem to be very common now will be exaggerated into demons or miracles in ancient times, even to the highly developed science today, there are still some phenomena that can not be explained by science, I believe that this is not because there really are gods and demons, but the field of exploration of science is not broad enough, and then later years, will be able to through the scientific pathway, to find out the answers to all the unsolved mysteries. find the answers to all the unsolved mysteries.”
I asked again, “Then the Queen of the Jingjie Kingdom can turn people out of existence with her eyes, how should we understand this matter in today’s advanced science and civilization?”
Shirley Yang said, “Mr. Hu I don’t know if you’ve heard of a sensational event in the United States, in the United States, Kansas state of special phenomena and pathology research center, once appeared a peculiar patient, this is a twelve-year-old boy, he grew up with a kind of supernormal capabilities, a long time to gaze at an object with a diameter of less than five centimeters, this object will disappear As if evaporating in the air. The neighbors regarded the boy as an aberration and said he was a demon. His parents are also deeply disturbed, so they hope that the relevant government authorities can help them cure their child.”
That’s odd, I’ve never heard of it, I don’t know much about us in China, let alone American anomalies, what’s going on with this disease? Sounds like the same thing as the demon queen. Was the kid cured in the end?
Shirley Yang said: “After scientists’ research, they found that this little boy’s brain waves are different from normal people, his brain and visual nerves produce a kind of transportation energy, this energy connects to an imaginary space (the space that can’t be explored), this kind of special ability is one in three billion in human beings, and finally a researcher found out a way! Finally a researcher figured out a way, they made a magnetic helmet and put it on a little boy’s head, after a year, his supernormal capabilities disappeared. At that time, the U.S. military had planned to send this child secretly to the military research institute, but this was exposed, in the public caused a big uproar, the military had to give up this plan.”
Listened to this matter, I still have some muttering in my heart, that the legendary evil queen, I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that American child, I’m not afraid of death, if we really find the queen’s tomb, in case she was changed to that unknown place, then how is it? Anyway, let’s take a step forward and see what happens. If there is danger, I’ll use strong-arm tactics to bring them back, who dares to disobey orders? Damn, I don’t believe it, these few intellectuals arm still twisted over my old Hu’s thigh is not, but also against them.
This a long talk, wasted a lot of time, around the murals are finished studying, I asked Professor Chen, inside the coffin, we still see?