Volume 7 Chapter 26: Apocalypse

We had to stop and look around. This was a crossroads, and the Arab stone pile was in the middle, but I didn’t know what it meant.

I looked back, and the suffocating “buzzing” sound in the distance, and the chaotic sound of a sneer—I don’t know if it was their call or something else—still made my scalp numb.

Aning, who was panting and almost out of breath, asked me what was going on. She obviously knew the seriousness of the situation, but she hadn’t reacted yet.

I told her what had happened and the poison of the centipede king. When she heard that Old Wu had already been poisoned, her face turned pale.

As soon as I finished, I heard the buzzing sound getting closer. I looked up and saw that the centipede kings were spreading out in the distance. More of them had already taken off, and a large red mist-like swarm of insects appeared in the sky, like a swarm of hornets taking off in a group, all heading towards us.

I thought to myself, “Fuck, there’s no time to think about it. I picked up Ning and stood up, then started running.

I ran like crazy. I never thought I could run so fast. I didn’t care about the Arab stone piles. I rushed out in one go, running for more than a thousand meters, zigzagging between the rocks for more than ten times. I slowed down only when I couldn’t run anymore.

When I looked back, I saw that the air was full of insects. The red mist-like swarm of insects had actually followed us, covering the sky and coming at us at great speed, pressing down on us from behind.

Damn it, I cursed, and tried to suppress the dizziness and keep running. Ning had better stamina than me, and was running faster than me at this time. She called out, “Don’t just run, find a place to hide!”

As soon as she said that, a gentle slope appeared in front of us. I wasn’t prepared, and I kicked something, and I stumbled and rolled down.

I rolled all the way to the bottom, and Ning helped me up. I was already dizzy, and she dragged me on to continue running frantically. We rushed out for hundreds of meters, and suddenly a large section of mountain rock like a city wall appeared in front of us blocking the way. We immediately turned and ran along the rock, trying to go around it, but when we got halfway there, we saw that the other side of the rock was actually closed off.

I saw this and yelled out in anger, then looked back and saw the red mist swirling behind us, coming straight down from the top of the rock.

I knew I couldn’t escape, and seeing the behavior of these centipedes, it was as if they were hunting us!

But I didn’t want to sit and wait to die, so I looked around to see if there was anywhere to hide. However, there were only rocks here, and there was no way to hide.

Just as I was sighing, suddenly Aning yelled, “Come here!”

I looked back and saw that there was a depression in the rock, but there was no way to hide in it.

I immediately rushed over and crouched down with Aning in the depression. I took off my T-shirt and held it in front of me.

Then, through my clothes, I saw a large number of bugs falling down. The air suddenly exploded with a buzzing sound, and a spicy smell filled my nostrils. Soon, countless red trails surrounded us. Many bugs hit the rocks on the edge of the depression, making a squeaking sound, as if bullets were shooting at us.

I felt a sense of suffocation, and I couldn’t help but retreat into the depression. However, the depression was so small that there was no way to completely shrink my body.

I was almost waiting to die with my eyes closed. There were so many bugs, and if just one of them happened to crash in, the consequences would be unimaginable. Deep down, I didn’t think we would be so lucky, and I was almost waiting for that moment to arrive.

To my surprise, under that kind of tension, I didn’t feel the slightest bit of fear. My mind was almost blank.

However, what I didn’t expect was that slowly, the sound outside actually decreased. Little by little, the sound of the bugs crashing into the rock mountain also thinned out. Soon, it was quiet again.

I gritted my teeth for a long time, and it wasn’t until Aning patted me that I realized it. I peeked out and saw that the centipede king group had already flown away. The few centipedes that were still outside had hit the ground and fainted.

I looked at Aning and she looked at me, not knowing what was going on, but both of us were relieved. I leaned against the rock behind me and started laughing. This was too exciting, I couldn’t handle it.

After laughing a few times, I covered my mouth with my hand and whispered to Ning, “It seems that they weren’t chasing us. Maybe they wanted to fly out. We happened to be in the same direction as them. Don’t get carried away. We’ll lure them back later.”

I thought so too, and I nodded. Ning let go of my hand. I didn’t say anything else, and I stayed in the depression for a while before cautiously sticking my head out.

The Devil City outside was completely silent, as if the thrilling moment just now had never happened, just like our imagination.

I took a few deep breaths before finally calming down. At this time, the fatigue from the previous sprint appeared, and I suddenly felt a cramp in my leg. I stumbled a few times, straightened up and stopped.

Crippled, we found a few stones, checked for bugs and sat down. I touched the leather bag around my waist and wanted to drink water, but I found that I had not brought anything out.

I immediately remembered that I had just gotten up when the accident happened, and I hadn’t even brought my jacket.

I looked back at Ning and saw that she was even worse off than me. She was wearing a short vest, had just gotten out of her sleeping bag, and her hair was messy.

I was a little embarrassed and thought that I had been too hasty in pulling her away from danger.

“What exactly are these bugs? How much do you know about them?” Ning asked me.

I thought to myself, how can I tell you? Although I have heard about it many times, this is actually the second time I have seen it. The first time was in the palace of the King of Lu, where the bugs crawled out of the blood-filled corpse. There was only one at the time, and it almost killed us all there. Today, there are so many of them, appearing all at once, and this is the first time I have seen it.

I told Aning what I knew, and she obviously couldn’t understand it. It all happened so suddenly. She was skeptical of what I said.

I myself also felt that this was a bit hard to accept, and I didn’t have the heart to explain it to her in detail. I felt in my heart that this should be related to the ancient kingdom of Xiwangmu that we were looking for, and that these human head jars might have been the containers in which the centipede king was cultivated at the time. My third uncle also said that he had seen such human heads in the underwater tombs. It seems that this kind of centipede must have been bred in the cranial cavity of humans, and it can retain its vitality for a long time, which is very terrifying. I wonder what the ancient kingdom of Xiwangmu wanted this terrible insect for? Were they used as weapons?

If the Queen Mother of the West was really able to use such terrifying biological weapons, then this barbaric and backward ancient country could have ruled the Western Regions for so long.

While thinking about this, I looked around to see where we had escaped to. After looking around, I realized that the area within the enclosed city walls was completely unfamiliar and I had no impression of it at all.

We ran all the way to the northeast, according to Tashi, this area is more than 80 square kilometers wide, we don’t know where we are now, but it can’t be the edge of the Devil City, and we still can’t see the vast Gobi Desert in front of us.

The “streets” in the Devil City, that is, the wind-eroded rocky mountains, are very wide. Although these rocky mountains are in different shapes, as long as the angle changes, the things you see are completely different. I can’t remember these in such a short time, and with the wide field of vision, the visual depth is very deep, which interferes with people’s sense of direction. I don’t think it’s possible to walk back, so we can only look in one direction and walk to the Gobi Desert, then follow the edge of the Devil City, go around in a circle, and return to the place where the car broke down to meet up with the others.

I don’t know how well those bugs can survive. There are now overcast clouds in the sky, and it’s cloudy with no sun. If they fly up onto the road on the wind, the consequences would be unimaginable. However, we are already quite far from the road, and there is no water source. I think that as long as the sun comes out and shines, these bugs should not live for long.

After I explained my plan, Aning also thought it was feasible. Now we have nothing on us, and we must get there before dark. However, it is only noon, and there is still plenty of time. Moreover, there is no sun, which is a blessing for us.

After deciding on the way to go, we rested for a while and then started on our way. I looked around and memorized the appearance of the surrounding rocky mountains, which all looked like castle towers. If we were unlucky and took a wrong turn, we could detect it if we returned to this place.

At the time, I thought it would be a pain in the neck at most. No one expected that this walk would be so painful, almost to the netherworld.

We got lost.

We didn’t let down our guard as we walked through the Devil’s City. The poisonous insects were flying around somewhere, and if we ran into them again, our narrow escape would be a joke.

So we kept our ears open as we walked, not knowing when the wind would pick up again and the Devil’s City would be filled with strange noises. Fortunately, the wind wasn’t very strong, and it was soft and faint, not disturbing our nerves.

I had nothing to say to Ning, and she was not dressed properly. Walking side by side with her, my eyes could not help but keep looking at her, so I simply walked in front of her. The two of us did not speak, except for the occasional stop to exchange a few words.

She also had no expression, obviously exhausted, and had no mind to think about more things.

To be honest, if we were on a trip, walking with a beautiful woman in this strange city of the devil, looking at the unpredictable wind-eroded rock mountains and listening to the devil’s cries, it would be a beautiful thing, even if it wasn’t a reliable thing. But the world is so strange. Watching the two of us simply walking here, in fact, just now we experienced a near-death experience. In this situation, even if I had the time, I wouldn’t think this scene was beautiful.

Walking like this, the first three and a half hours really did feel like a tour. Looking at the strange-shaped rocks, I sometimes had the illusion that I wanted to touch the camera.

After half an hour, thirst began to torment us. The moisture had been lost in the sweat, and my lips and her lips were dry and swollen. I had a cup of butter tea in the morning, and Aning didn’t drink anything, but in fact, we both felt the same.

The thirst was very uncomfortable. We licked our lips and tried not to think about it in order to continue walking. Fortunately, there was no sun, otherwise I might have already had heatstroke at this time.

After walking for another hour, in my initial concept, we should have reached the edge of the Devil City at this time.

We stopped to catch our breath, but looked around and saw the same scenery, all of which were tall, wind-eroded rock mountains, with no trace of the Gobi.

I was a little bit strange. This distance was a bit too long. Assuming that Aning and I could only walk five kilometers per hour, this would be 15 kilometers. This Devil City was definitely not this long. Obviously, we were taking a detour.

However, along the way, I had carefully memorized many distinctive rock mountains in case we were going back, but I didn’t see any. Obviously, we were still moving forward and not going in circles.

This somewhat reassured me, and I comforted myself that perhaps our pace had unconsciously slowed down, or that the route we were taking was more winding than I had realized.

We couldn’t afford to rest at this point, because it was getting dark, and I guessed that although we weren’t in the Gobi Desert, we weren’t far from it either.

So we continued to hurry, and even deliberately quickened our pace. However, the more we walked, the more I felt that something was wrong. As the hours passed, the scenery around us remained the same, as if the Devil City was following us.

We kept going until it was dark, but we still didn’t see the Gobi Desert. I realized the seriousness of the situation. This was definitely not something that could be explained by slow walking. If we kept walking at this pace, we should have reached the edge of the desert, even if it was twice as large as 80 square kilometers.

A chill ran down my spine. It seemed that the situation in the Devil City was much more complicated than I had imagined. Not only were there many rocky mountains, but we were completely lost.

It was getting dark and night was approaching. At this moment, I felt the same way as the Caucasian and the other two victims who had lost their way here. I was wondering what to do when Aning, who was behind me, called out to me.

When we stopped, both of us were exhausted and couldn’t walk anymore. The temperature in the air suddenly dropped, and our sweat began to freeze. The temperature difference between day and night here was too great.

“We can’t go any further,” Aning sat down on the ground and said to me, “We won’t be able to get out before dark. We don’t have a flashlight, it’s full of rocks, and there’s no way to make a fire. We have to find a place to spend the night before it gets completely dark. There won’t even be a moon tonight, it’s definitely going to be pitch black.”

I also fell to the ground, and when I looked up at the sky, I saw a dark cloud. The cloud was even lower, and the golden rays of the setting sun pierced through the gaps in the cloud like swords, forming a huge golden cross. It was very spectacular. With such thick clouds, if the wind didn’t pick up, it wouldn’t blow away.

That night, we used stones to build a stone trough, and we spent the night in it. Ning and I had only our thin clothes on, and I was a little embarrassed, but Ning just huddled into my arms, and the two of us held each other to keep warm. There was not a single ray of light in the Devil City at night, and you can’t imagine the fear. You couldn’t see anything in the entire space, and you could only hear all kinds of sounds coming from all around, and you could even hear some sounds passing by you, as if something was walking through the Devil City.

In this situation, it was almost impossible to sleep, so we had to chat to pass the time.

During this time, we discussed why we couldn’t get out, thinking of many possibilities, that maybe the information Zaxi gave us was wrong, and that maybe the Devil City here was much larger than 80 square kilometers. Aning said that if we couldn’t get out tomorrow, we would find a high cliff and climb up to take a look.

It’s strange to think that Aning and I weren’t familiar with each other. If this kind of intimate behavior was normal, I would probably feel very embarrassed, but at this time I felt completely natural.

This is also a soft and fragrant jade, but I don’t have any thoughts about it. I suddenly remembered Liu Xiaohui, and suddenly I understood him. He was also hugging a woman on a cold night, and there was nothing wrong with it. I think about it. If a man walks in the desert for a day and then hugs a woman in the middle of the night in temperatures close to freezing, even if she is a peerless beauty, I’m afraid there won’t be any transgressions, because there is really no strength.

I almost didn’t sleep at all that night, only closing my eyes for a few minutes at a time, and I woke up every ten minutes or so. I thought about all kinds of things that night, but mostly I thought about sleeping bags and tents, and the snoring of the Tibetans. I couldn’t sleep at all, and I even complained that sleeping in a tent was bad for my cervical spine. Now, obviously, thinking about that sleeping bag makes me feel like I want to sleep all over again.

When it was still dark in the morning, we got up. I was in a terrible state. I had never been so tired before. I felt like all the muscles in my body were out of control, and my eyes were all blurred. I was especially thirsty, and it had become unbearable. I didn’t even have any saliva in my mouth.

I knew my own body, and I was a little panicked. I rubbed my arms with Ning and started to hurry.

We continued walking, this time with Aning in the lead because she had slept a little during the night and was more energetic than me. Soon, another three hours had passed, and the endless Devil’s City was even more hopeless than the endless Gobi Desert. I looked at the endless black shadows of the mountains in the distance and couldn’t figure out what was going on. It felt like we were like ants trapped in a giant sandbox, toyed with by an inexplicable force.

After enduring hour after hour, it was soon noon. Only then did I start to feel hungry, but compared to the thirst, it was negligible. My throat was burning, and I felt like I would split if I coughed.

Later, we couldn’t help it anymore, and Aning started looking for a rocky mountain. But the rocky mountains along the way were not easy to climb. Finally, we found a relatively tall mound of earth, and we bit our teeth and climbed up.

However, it was useless. The rocky mountains here were all about the same height. Within our line of sight, there were large and small rocky mountains, and we couldn’t see the end. We couldn’t see beyond that, but one thing was certain: we were definitely not on the edge of the Devil’s City.

Ning and I stood there, wondering what was going on. Why did it seem that no matter how we walked, we were always in the center of the Devil’s City? Could it be that some force didn’t want us to get out of this place?

We climbed back down the hill and found a cool place to rest. I discussed with Ning what to do. It seemed that we had reached a dead end. We couldn’t get out, and we didn’t have any food or water. After a while, we wouldn’t even have the strength to walk. We might die here.

I thought to myself, and a chill ran down my spine. I was already thinking about how long a person could live without drinking water.

In a cool and comfortable environment, it is said that it is three days, but now we have been walking for a whole day and night, and the consumption of body fluids is very large. I estimate that it is already the limit to be able to last for three days. It is said that drinking urine can live for one more day, but where the hell do I get urine from?

Thinking about it for a while, I was desperate. That is to say, even if I don’t move here, I can only live for two days at most. If no one comes to save us and we can’t get out, then we will die.

A-ning was obviously thinking the same thing. She lowered her head.

What to do next is a simple choice. If we keep going, we might be able to get out. However, if we fail, tomorrow might be our last day. We will die of dehydration here. If we don’t go, and wait for someone to rescue us, the chances are slim. We might live for two days at most, and we will still die.

Aning is a very strong-willed person. Although I had the idea of giving up, I wasn’t confused at the critical moment of life and death. She and I finally decided to keep going until we die.

However, Aning was calmer than I was at this point. She began to make some marks on the rocks and took off the copper coins from her bracelet. She had a bracelet with copper coins strung on it, and she pressed it against the rocks as a mark. She said that if someone was looking for us, then this was a sign of hope. At the very least, they would find our bodies.

These copper coins were quite valuable. Placing them here as a mark was equivalent to placing a gold brick here. I thought that this might be the most expensive mark in the world, but unfortunately, it was pointing to our place of burial.

For the next two days, we continued to wander around this devil city. I don’t know how I got through this time.

I hadn’t drunk a drop of water for three days and three nights, and in the end, I even lost my willpower, like a walking corpse.

From the second night onwards, all my senses were no longer clear. All I could see was the Gobi desert and the towering mountains around me. Sometimes the scenery even seemed to be spinning. I didn’t know if I was spinning or if the sky was spinning. I couldn’t tell what was possible and what was impossible. Sometimes I felt like I was dead, flying through the air, and then the next second I saw Aning staggering in front of me, still suffering.

At this point, I was still hoping that I would suddenly see the vast Gobi Desert, or that after the rocky mountains in front of us, we would see the Gobi Desert. However, there were still only rocky mountains, as if there was no end to them.

Finally, Aning fell down first. I saw her disappear from my field of vision in an instant. At that moment, I had a moment of lucidity, and then I tripped over something and rolled to the ground.

I didn’t know what I had tripped over, or whether I had fallen on a rock or in the sand. In that instant, I saw the sky, not the blue sky, but a dark, black cloud.

I smiled bitterly to myself. If it weren’t for the lack of sunlight, I think I would have begun to rot by now.

Looking at the dark clouds, I wanted to stand up, but I had no strength. My eyelids were getting heavier and heavier, and at the moment when they were completely closed, I suddenly saw the sky flash, as if it were lightning. Then everything became quiet, and everything faded away. I slowly sank into the abyss.