Chapter 25 – Zagrama Valley

Sand Sea Devil’s Nest 14

“Magnetic Mountain?” In the past two days, my mechanical watch either stopped or went fast and slow, I thought it was because the quality of the cheap watch was not good and broke down in the desert, could it be that we are near those two magnetic mountains?

An Liman also recalled hearing people say has been, the black desert hinterland, there is a red and a white two Zagrama sacred mountain, the legend is buried with the first saint of the two sacred mountain.

Shirley Yang added: “If there really are such two mountains in the desert, then it is possible that the Zidu Dark River is underground, intercepted by the Magnetic Mountain, and the distance from the ground is too deep, so we won’t be able to find it, and I don’t think we should use all our attention to find the traces of the Dark River, and if the legend and the British explorer are right, the Magnetic Mountain should be nearby, Mr. Hu. We’ll have to use your skills in the Heavenly Star Feng Shui Technique again tonight, and don’t forget, as we said earlier, if we find the Ancient City of Jingjie, we’ll pay twice as much for the honorarium.”

From the beginning, I had no confidence in finding the Jingjie Ancient City. Hearing her say that, I had to give it a try at night, and if I could find the Zagrama Mountain, my honorarium would be increased to 20,000 US dollars, and if I couldn’t find it, we would have to go back home.

To be honest, I can’t say whether I am looking forward to finding the Jingjie Ancient City, after listening to the story of the Queen of the Jingjie, a mysterious and bewitching image lingers in my mind, the depths of the desert, as if there is an invisible magic attracting me, I don’t know if Prof. Chen, Shirley Yang, as well as those who never returned to the expedition, they are not the same as I feel the same way.

This day, the daytime, extraordinarily long, I hate to use the gun to the sun in the sky, the sand pit dug deep, deep, but not a trace of cool air can not feel.

Although the pit is supported by a thick canvas, people hide in the shadows, the body lying in the sand nest, still feel like being placed in the oven, the body of the thin Ye Yixin may be confused by the sun, fall asleep and talk nonsense.

We were worried that she was running a high fever, so we touched her forehead with our hands, and it was as hot as the sand, so we couldn’t tell if she was running a high fever, and she wouldn’t wake up no matter how we pushed her.

We still have some water, enough for about five days, there are also two bags of yogurt soup left, that is left in the last minute, at this time there is nothing to give up, I took out a bag, let Shirley Yang fed her a few mouthfuls, and gave her some medicine.

Ye Yixin drank the medicine, gradually quieted down, but still unconscious, probably suffering from acute dehydration, which can be troublesome, I told Professor Chen and others about the situation facing the archaeological team.

There are only two ways, one way is to move back tonight, back to the road, the last few days to eat camel meat, drink salty sand nest water, open 11, even if this is done, can not guarantee that Ye Yixin’s life.

The other way is to be tough, continue to find the Jingjie City, if there is a water source in the city, this little life of hers is even picked up.

Prof. Chen said that we are facing a lot of difficulties, although the archaeological cause requires dedication, but Ye Yixin is so young, we have to be responsible for her life, the first road is safe, but not enough water supply, the road back will be very difficult. The second way is more risky, but we have already come to the vicinity of Zagrama, there is 60% certainty that we will find the Jingjie, these ancient cities should have underground water veins, but two thousand years later, the water veins have not dried up to reroute, it is not known. Now where to go, we all say their own views.

The fat man first said: “I’m this waistline has lost two whole circles, we if we go deeper into the desert, you simply call me thin afterward, I propose, not a moment more stop, the sun goes down, we go back, maybe back to the small half of the life left.”

Hao Aiguo Sa Dipeng two people are more stable, also in favor of going back.

In contrast, there were more people who thought that although it was risky to find the Jingjie City, it was worth a try, after all, everyone had paid such a great hardship and price, and it was hard to get to this point, they really didn’t want to give up on their previous efforts, and they also hoped that they could find clear water in the remains of the ancient city, and save Ye Yixin’s life, and it was also difficult for a healthy person to drink salty sandy nesting water on the way back, not to mention the fact that she was so sick, and walking backward, would be It is the same as pronouncing her death sentence.

Shirley Yang, Chu Jian, the professor and I are all of this opinion, in addition to Ye Yixin is unconscious, the only one left is old man An Liman did not take a position, the crowd’s eyes are focused on his face.

If his point of view is to go back, then we are just four against four, but An Liman is a guide, his decision in this matter carries a lot of weight.

I said to An Liman old man, “Old man you have to think before you speak, your words are related to Ye Yixin’s life, what do you think we should do now?”

An Liman old man holding a tobacco pouch, squinted his eyes and looked at the sun in the sky, said: “I, of course, is to listen to the will of Hu Da, there is only one sun in the sky, there is only one almighty God in the world, Hu will guide us.”

I pointed to the sky: “Then you should quickly ask ah, Hu Da his old man how to say?”

An Li Man knocked the old tobacco bag, inserted back to the waist, remove the piece of broken blanket, a pious face began to pray, the palms of his hands inward, to his face, reciting Quranic verses, the expression on his face is pious and solemn, not like the usual mercenary and cunning look.

His mouth recited words, we do not understand what he read, the more we waited, the more he read not finished, fat man waited impatiently, then asked: “I said the old man, still have finished ah?”

An Li Man opened his eyes, laughed: “Hu Da Lama, has given us a revelation.” Said took out a five-cent coin, to the group looked, the word side is to continue to move forward, the side of the painting is to return in the same way, please here the oldest Professor Chen threw to the sky, the result of the fall, is the will of Hu Da.

The crowd cried and laughed, dare Hu Da just convey the will? Prof. Chen took the coin and threw it high into the air, all the people looked up to see the coin, the sunlight is dazzling, but see the coin fell from the air, standing and inserted into the sand.

Even if it is thrown 100,000 times may not be so coincidental, An Liman shook his head repeatedly, full of frustration, forgetting that this is the black desert abandoned by Hu Da, how can Hu Da show us the way.

We are scratching our heads in wonder, but we heard Shirley Yang pointing to the distance and called out, “God, that’s Lagzama Mountain?”

The desert is empty, thousands of miles in the eye, only to see the direction of her finger, right in the direction of Prof. Chen tossed the coin fell, the end of the world, there is a vague black line, just far away, do not look closely at all see clearly.

We hurriedly took out the binoculars, adjusted the focus to watch, a black mountain range, in the miles of yellow sand as if a stationary black dragon, the mountain range cut off from the middle, there is a mountain pass in the middle of the mountain, some of the features are consistent with the British explorer’s notes recorded in the same.

Last year, Shirley Yang’s father, with a team of explorers, went to look for the Jingjie Ancient City with these clues, and I wonder if they have ever seen this sacred mountain, and if they have been here, then what did they encounter? What made them not return?

Thinking of this, I in the hot sun actually dared to a touch of coldness, but this feeling, quickly washed away by the atmosphere of jubilation, our long-distance trek nine deaths, finally at the last moment to find the door to enter the Jingjie Ancient Kingdom.

However, An Liman once said, there is a dream land in the Black Desert, where mirages often appear, and those wonders are all illusions that lead people to the abyss of death, the two sacred mountains we saw, is it real?

Then thought, should not, first of all, the illusion in the desert are the refraction of light and produced, those landscapes are strange, most of them do not exist in the desert scenery, and that black mountain range, more than once someone mentioned, should be absolutely real.

Since the ancient city is not far from the Jingjie, wait until dark, you can set off to, but we have very limited information, most of them are inferred and collected some of the relevant legends, the only reliable evidence, is a vague black and white photographs, in the end, whether we can find the Jingjie Ancient City, or even say that there is no such an ancient city in the world are difficult to say, perhaps everything is some people to blackmail, the legends are often It’s hard to say whether we can find the ancient city of Jingjie or even whether there is such a city in the world.

On the Korean battlefield, MacArthur once said this sentence: “At the beginning, we thought we knew everything, but then realized that the truth is that we know nothing.” That seems to be how I feel right now.

Are the remains of that king’s city not buried in yellow sand again? Can water be found in the city? Is the ancient tomb where the Queen of the Essence is buried in the city? Or is it somewhere else? Are there really mountains of treasures in the city? What is the Queen of Monsters? Will she still pose a threat to the outsiders after her death, and is it true that Shirley Yang’s father and the others died in the ancient city of Jingjie? Will their remains be found? What did the foreign explorers encounter in the city? For us, all this is still unknown.

The Devil’s Nest in the Sand Sea 15

In the evening, the archaeological team set off towards Zagrama.

As the saying goes, looking at the mountains run dead horse, see the direction, straight until the middle of the night to come to the mountain pass, when the moonlight is like water, the desert is like a silent sea, in the middle of this sea of sand, the Zagrama mountain rolling terrain, all black stone, the closer you look at the more eye-catching.

Said mountain, rather than two oversized black stone more appropriate, these two boulders are in the diameter of dozens of kilometers or so, only in the sea of sand reveals a shallow spine, the larger part of the buried in the ground, perhaps underneath, the two boulders itself is one, and the mountain pass may be nothing more than a crack on the boulders only.

This black stone contains magnets, the average content of which, though not high, is sufficient to affect precision instruments for determining bearings, and we also felt that the metal articles we carried with us, gradually became heavy.

The moonlight shines on the black stone with no reflection at all, the inside of the mountain pass is dark and rumbling, except for the unconscious Ye Yixin, all of us got down from the camel’s back to walk, and I reminded everyone to put their strokes on brightly, and to not be careless when traveling in this devil’s mouth.

An Liman and I in the front, the fat man Chu Jian break the back, Shirley Yang and others in the center to take care of Ye Yixin, the team formed a column, slowly entered the valley.

This mountain is regarded as a sacred mountain by the ancient people, the legend buried these two saints, this is mostly myths and legends, but from the feng shui point of view, this place is also really accounted for all the situation, the gas swallowed all the elephants, the black mountain, is the two black dragons of the gatekeeper, the mountain can be buried saints is false, if the mountain is really that the Queen of the Jingjie’s mausoleum, but is not at all surprising.

Taklamakan is the world’s second largest mobile desert, completely sandy, the desert as a whole is gradually moving south, which was originally buried in the depths of the yellow sand of the sacred mountain re-exposed.

Moon over the sky, north-south valley is dark to the depths of the fingers, we deep a foot shallow a foot forward, the more forward, the more apprehensive, out of the valley, can really find the ancient city of Jingjie? After finding the ancient city, is there any water in the city? The most worried about is Ye Yixin’s condition, her acute dehydration, must be treated with a large number of clean cold salt water, if within three days can not find water, her life is to be thrown in the desert.

Our watch has long stopped, I do not know how much time we have walked, intuitively estimated that after a while the sky should be about to dawn, and this time the camels suddenly became heavy breathing, the mood of the obvious restlessness.

An Li Manchu old man quickly whistled and yell, make every effort to let the group of camels calm down, his nineteen camels, are strong and sturdy one in a hundred male camels, walking in the desert for so many days, there has not been such a situation.

Around the original black, plus these camels a mess, but also increased the fear of the team members, Shirley Yang worried about Ye Yixin camel thrown down, busy and Hao Aiguo with her from the camel’s back to carry down.

I greeted the fat man over, let him work harder, first back Ye Yixin, this valley is weird, not a place to stay, we can not delay, as soon as possible out is.

Fatty is quite happy, one is Ye Yixin is not much weight, since the desert, sun and water shortage, is skinny bones, in addition to the back of a big girl, is not a bad thing, he is like a child on the back of the Ye Yixin on the back, and urged the front of the Animan quickly go.

However, no matter how An Liman drive, those camels refuse to go forward half a step, An Liman old man also began to be suspicious, and began to chant, I’m afraid that Hu Da won’t let us go forward again, hurry back to be.

Look out of the valley, the rest of the people how to return to the original way, a team in disarray, Shirley Yang said to me: “is not something in front, scared camels refused to move forward, first threw a cold fireworks over the past to shine a light, see clearly and then deal with it.”

I promised in the front, took out a branch of lighting with cold fireworks, shot brightly thrown forward, illuminated a small section of the valley in front, both sides are dark rocks, the ground is thick yellow sand, empty mountain silence even grass, which has what unusual things.

At that moment, I walked forward a few steps, cast the second lighting fireworks, a bright light in front of my eyes, a person sitting on the ground in the distance, we walked over to see, only to see that the person dressed in white robes, head tied with a head scarf to prevent the sand, the back of the backpack on the back, motionless, so it is a dead person.

All of us were taken aback, it is not strange at all to meet a dead person or a dried corpse in the desert, but this corpse was different, the deceased was a man, with a turban covering his mouth, only two eyes were exposed, staring at the sky, dead in the dark, maybe he died too fast, and had not had time to close his eyes.

The time of death would not be too long, probably within a few days, his exposed skin was only slightly dry, the most odd thing was that his flesh was greenish, and under the light of the smoke and fire, it glowed with a slight blue light.

There were a few people who wanted to gather around and look, but I blocked them, this man’s death was too weird, don’t get close, Chu Jian suddenly called out, “Brother Hu, look, there’s another dead body here.”

My scalp was slightly numb, two dead bodies in a row, could there be more? Casually threw out a few cold fireworks, illuminating the surrounding area, there are more than two corpses, surrounding the ground, four male corpses lying horizontally and vertically.

These dead people have the same attire, the death method is also the same, are terrified staring at the eyes, died in a strange way. There were also a few Soviet AK47s and some backpacks scattered on the ground.

I drew out the engineer’s shovel as a weapon for self-defense, walked over and picked up one of them to see, the bullet is loaded, fucking strange, what are these people? In Xinjiang, some poachers are using foreign Remington, or from the army to get out of the five-six type, how can there be Soviet AK, is it that they are the group of grave robbers?

I opened one of the backpacks, there are a lot of marked with the Russian military *, it is estimated that these arms are flowing from Afghanistan into the territory of Xinjiang, was acquired by these grave robbers to bomb the tomb in the desert is not surprising, just these armed to the teeth of the guy how unexplained death in this valley?

I used the barrel of the gun to pick up the hood on the face of the man sitting on the ground, only to see that he has a big mouth, seems to be desperately shouting before death, I don’t want to see more, no matter what, quickly leave the valley of this tomb mountain is the best policy. Those zha medicine may be useful later, I put the zha medicine backpack carried up, ready to let the group leave.

At this time, Hao Aiguo came out from the team: “Whether these people are grave robbers or not is irrelevant, we can not let them die here, carry them to the valley to bury it. I saw a body of people in the wilderness, I remembered with me sent to the soil kiln labor reform of those people, those comrades died pitiful ah, not even a rolled corpse of the broken straw mat, alas, I can not see these ……” he nagged at the same time while going to move that sitting on the ground of the male body.

I really anxious at this time, cursed the past to stop him: “you this stinking nerd, really fucking do not know good, never move these dead people!”

But it was too late, from the mouth of the male corpse, suddenly sprang out a strange snake, the snake body scales glittering, head on top of a black crown of flesh, about thirty centimeters long and short, the snake body a pop, will pounce on Hao Aiguo face.

Hao Aiguo eyes are not good, even if the eyes are good, to his reaction also dodge, in this flash of lightning, I save people eager, can not think too much, the hands of the engineering shovel swung up a chop, cut the snake into two.

Hao Aiguo scared ass sitting on the ground, the whole body trembling, barely rushed to me smiled: “Too …… too dangerous, thanks to ……”

Words just said half, the ground was cut off half of the snake head violently popped up, its speed is just like a fast arrow off the string, a mouthful of dead bite Hao Aiguo’s neck, I would have seen the snake has been chopped into two, will relax, which thought this to be caught off guard, not as much as to save him.

Hao Aiguo’s face froze, his throat gurgled a few times, wanted to speak and could not speak, his skin instantly turned a dark green color, sat motionless, and died.

Now all the people are stunned, Professor Chen black fainted on the ground, I have not yet had time to feel sorry for Hao Aiguo, suddenly feel the back of the neck a cold, a sideways glance, an equally strange snake I do not know when to swim up to my shoulder, silk spitting letters, the whole body muscles slightly contracted backward, open the mouth of the snake bowed up the front body, ready to move the mouth to bite me, the movement of this snake is too fast, so close to avoid the distance to hide is not to avoid it.

Only fat man in the team will shoot, but he is carrying Ye Yixin, the hands did not take the gun, this change is really sudden, the rest of the people are unprepared, my heart such as being poured a pot of icy water, heck, can not imagine that my old Hu died here today, and will never see the sun in the morning.