Volume 8 Chapter 5 Stone Statue

As we pondered, we had already reached the base of the statue. The water was getting faster and faster, and we could see the swamp water flowing chaotically under the roots of the trees. Pan Zi told us to be careful, saying that there might be gaps in the remains under the silt that led to the ground. It was like a manhole.

The fat man didn’t listen at all. All his attention was drawn to the stone statue on one side, and the miner’s lamp was sliding back and forth on it.

Under the focused light, I saw more details. The stone sculpture seemed to have been carved from a single huge rock. In many places, it was broken and cracked, and because of the large amount of moss covering it, it looked even more eerie and ugly.

After a few glances, the fat man turned the light underwater. The stone statue was almost wrapped in the middle of two giant dragon brain trees. The part inside the swamp was completely wrapped in roots. I could also see that in the deeper parts of the water, there were also some strange shadows wrapped at the same time, with irregular shapes, curled up in the roots. I didn’t know if it was part of the stone statue.

The fat guy looked at it for a long time, but couldn’t see what it was. I also found it strange that the roots around it were so clearly visible with the miner’s lamp, but the thing was always a shadow.

And looking at the direction the attached crops on the roots were floating, it looked like the water here was flowing down into this black hole. Sure enough, as Pan Zi said, there was a gap under the statue leading to the ground.

I was disappointed that I didn’t see anything strange or unusual. Pan Zi then urged us to continue.

Fatty was not very willing, and while shining the miner’s lamp back and forth, he said to himself, “Where does the water flow to? Could it be that the ancient city is hollow underneath?”

I said no, this could be part of the city’s previous waterworks.

Fatty said, “Then where does this water channel lead to? This is a low-lying area, and there is nowhere else for the water to go.

I thought about it. In general, the drainage system of a city has an outlet to a nearby large river or lake, and the water eventually flows into the sea. In this ancient city in the western region, there are no large lakes or rivers nearby, but there must be underground rivers running through the area. So, according to reason, this drainage system should be connected to nearby underground rivers. However, in fact, the rainfall in the western region is extremely low, and the water here is extremely precious. It is impossible to have such a luxurious system of “drainage.” During the general investigation of the ruins of Loulan and nearby sites, the so-called drainage is all above-ground drainage, which is then introduced into the wells.

So I feel that the drainage system here either leads to the underground river, or there are wells or pools of water stored underground in the ancient city. This water is all flowing into those deep wells, where it is stored. These wells may be connected underground like the karez in Turpan, where one well fills up and automatically sends water to another well until all the wells are full.

The hollow space under this statue may have been the mouth of a well at the time, which is quite possible. The stone tower we saw earlier, the fat man said there was a sound of water below, which may also be the sound of an underground water tunnel.

“This is fucking digging deep holes and stockpiling food. It seems that Chairman Mao’s thinking also comes from the ancients, and our Xiwangmu is really not ambiguous.” The fat man said.

Pan Zidao said, “But the rainfall here is so low, it only rains heavily once every few years. A project of this scale could take hundreds of years to complete. Will it work?”

“If you look at it from a short-term perspective, it may not be worth the effort, but in the Western Regions, a country can be called a king if it has water. Loulan, which was known as a great power in the Western Regions, only had a few thousand soldiers. The terrain here is strange. If there is a large amount of water, even a small country can hold out. Look at the situation here. This oasis must have been formed because of this. Trees can also hold water, and water can also nourish trees. The Queen Mother of the West was obviously a far-sighted person at the time.

The location of the ancient city of Xiwangmu was extremely low-lying, and this setup could even introduce limited underground water from the Gobi. However, if I am right, then we have been here for several days, and for such a long time, these wells are still draining water, indicating that they are not full yet. How deep are the wells and thoroughfares underneath?

Pan Zi thought for a moment and nodded: “That makes sense, but everything has its pros and cons. If there is a war, and someone sneaks into the city and puts a disease-causing poison in the well, won’t the whole city be in trouble?”

I said, “There can’t be many wellheads. I think there might be wellheads in the palace of the Queen Mother of the West and the homes of the powerful officials, but the people probably use the kind of public wellheads we saw earlier. These places are definitely heavily guarded. We’ve seen costume dramas, and poisoning seems easy, but it’s actually quite difficult. After all, the wellheads are deep, and even the most poisonous poison will be diluted, and I’m afraid even E. coli won’t be killed.

The fat man paused for a moment, not sure what he was thinking. Then he said, “I see. So these wellheads must all be connected. Then we can go from the wellheads to the Xiwangmu Palace.”

I said, “That’s true, but we’re not fish, and the well shafts below are bound to be crisscrossing, like a maze. Even if you have the best diving equipment, you may not be able to come out alive. Maybe the wellheads below are only as thick as a bowl, which would be even more troublesome.”

The fat guy scolded, “Are you being sarcastic again? What’s wrong with me being a bit fat?”

I said, “Damn, I’m not being sarcastic at all. I’m not even thin enough to be the width of a bowl.”

“I don’t think so,” said the fat guy. “When we were on the border, we learned basic courses, digging ridges and canals. The width had to be determined according to the amount of water. If it’s raining so heavily, will a thoroughfare the width of a bowl be enough? Can’t you calculate these things, Xiao Wu?”

When I was studying architecture, I talked about these problems, but now I need to use them on a temporary basis, and they are completely useless. I thought about it for a few seconds and had to give up. I said to him, “I can’t think of it now, so wait until I rest and think about it carefully.”

Pan Zi said, “Okay, Little Master San, you two don’t have to think about these things. Hurry up. Even if we can’t get down if the subway is this wide, the most important thing for us now is to get to Master San as soon as possible.”

I thought so too, and immediately nodded, and then I stopped thinking about these things. At this time, I suddenly heard a sound of a branch breaking in the forest behind us, and at the same time, it seemed that the canopy was shaking, and the sound of leaves shaking was endless. I didn’t know what was moving in the dense bushes.

We had come all the way here, and there was almost no sound in the forest. Suddenly, there was this kind of movement, which startled us all, and we all stopped and turned to look back.

The canopy was so dense that we couldn’t see anything except the huge stone statue of a bird with a human face. The sound then gradually stopped. The woods quickly returned to the suffocating silence.

We looked at each other and knew that the sound must have come from something big. It seemed that there was something in the woods.

Pan Zi picked up his gun and signaled us to prepare our weapons, not to speak, and to leave quickly. We nodded, not daring to be negligent, and began to observe the movements around us with our spirits raised. We quickened our pace.

After walking for a few steps, suddenly Fatso let out a “huh?” and said, “Wait!”

We asked him what he was doing, and he turned his head and pointed behind us at the stone statue of the bird with a human face, asking us, “Which way was its face facing just now?”

We looked at the stone sculpture and found that the face of the stone sculpture had turned around at some point, and the expressionless, moss-covered, hideous face was facing us. Because it was half-hidden by the trees, it looked like an unknown creature peeking out from behind the trees.