Sand Sea Devil's Nest 8

Since we encountered a violent black sandstorm at noon, we chased the white camel and broke into the ruins of the nameless small town in the sand sea. I felt that the broken city was covered with a mysterious veil from the inside to the outside. I couldn't see whether there was danger hidden under the veil, so I kept a high level of vigilance. Everyone was resting, and I didn't dare to slack off.

Suddenly, when I saw the stone statue, my eyes moved. Although it was a little far away and the lights in the house were dim, I still believed that my eyes would not be wrong, so I stood up and walked to the huge stone statue by the wall to check it.

The steam light hanging on the beam of the house was shaking by the strong wind pouring into the broken house. The light flashed, making the broken house light and dark. The black stone man looked like a dead man buried alive, only showing his head, and was buried in yellow sand below.

When I walked closer, I saw that there was a big ant lying on the stone man's eyes, as big as a knuckle, black body, and blood-red tail. When the light of the gas lamp shook, a faint light flashed. From a distance, it was like the eyes of the stone man's eyes were flashing.

When I saw it was just an ant, I bounced it and hit it on the ground. I stepped on it. There was a slight sound in my ears, and I stepped on it. What was a little strange was that the body of this big ant was much harder than that of an ordinary ant.

I looked around and the broken house was airtight. I didn't know where the ant crawled in. Shirley Yang came over and asked me what was going on. I said nothing, but there was an ant that made me step to death.

I woke up the sleeping fat man and asked him to stay guard. Then I added some solid fuel to the fire to make it more intense. I turned off the steam light and went into the sleeping bag to sleep.

I was tired and fell asleep soon. When I woke up, it was already past nine o'clock the next morning. The sand storm outside stormed for a whole night and continued to stop, but it was much smaller than the previous wind. This devilish sand storm was finally over.

There is another large part of the ruins of the ancient city that has been trapped in yellow sand, and there are not many parts exposed on the ground. Two more times with such heavy wind and sand, I am afraid that this nameless ancient city will disappear in the desert. However, even if it is buried all by yellow sand, it does not mean that it will be buried forever. Most of the Takramagan is a liquid desert. It moves with the wind. It will see the light of day again in many years.

Hao Aiguo was directing the students to dig out the stone man in the corner. He had already dug up the stone man's thighs. Everyone was watching. Only An Liman took advantage of the wind to weaken and went out to take care of the camel hiding under the city wall.

I took out some dry food from my bag and went to see them dig the soil while eating. This time I followed the archaeological team into the desert. In addition to seeing if there are any large ancient tombs, I also wanted to learn some archaeological experience from these experts.

They were afraid of damaging the carvings of the stone man, so they only used engineer shovels to dig out the outer sand, and then used flat shovels and brushes to clean up part of it, digging out part of it, cleaning up part of it, and also making various records.

When Professor Chen saw that I woke up, he nodded and said hello. It seemed that his health was fine. He told me that this time, he was to let the students practice their hands and add some internship experience. Although the learning of theoretical knowledge is important, on-site internship is also very important for archaeology. Only by watching, contacting and doing more can he have an intuitive feeling. Combining the theory will make it much faster.

After a while, the student cleared the base of the stone statue. This was the first time I saw this giant-eyed stone statue. The stone statue was wearing a Hu robe, with its arms drooping, and had many patterns carved on its body, which seemed to be some kind of Tantric scripture. According to Professor Chen, these words have never been cracked. However, with the expansion of the field of archaeological research in recent years, experts believe that this should be some kind of symbol or code, which records some information about ancient religions. As for why these symbols were carved on the stone man, it may be related to the sacrificial behavior. However, there is no relevant documents, murals, historical records and other related materials at all. Until now, these are just speculations.

Sardin Peng listened to the professor's explanation and asked: "Professor, the shape of this kind of stone man is very different from that of ordinary people. I think it is possible. There was a religion that worshiped aliens in ancient times. After they met aliens, they thought they were gods, so they created some such stone man to worship. The symbols on these stone man were an alien language."

Hao Aiguo immediately criticized him: "Xiao Sa, you don't work hard when you study. How many times have you told you that you are a very smart child. Don't use your brain to make mistakes. Why do you even get out of aliens? Treat history and archaeology seriously."

Professor Chen was not angry, but instead showed a kind smile: "It is not a bad thing to have imagination. Young people have active thinking, which is good. Unity, tension, seriousness and liveliness are not contradictory at all. However, when we study history, we must follow a principle, bold assumptions, and cautious verification. Imagination must be based on the basis of reality, and imagination without basis is not reliable. Let's take this giant-eyed stone statue as an example. Ancient people like to judge good and bad luck through astronomical phenomena. Whenever they look at the stars at night, will they hope that their eyes will look farther? When making stone statues, will they add this wish? This possibility is very high. Some statues have also been unearthed in Sanxingdui in Sichuan, and their eyes extend out long. Conservatively speaking, this is very likely to be a kind of expression of the ancients' desire to explore."

When I heard this, I couldn't help but admire the professor's ability and did not use great principles to suppress others. Compared with Professor Chen's level, Hao Aiguo is much worse.

Professor Chen continued: "The aliens you mentioned are not impossible. It is not that when you mention aliens, it means that the fictional science fiction in foreign novels. In fact, the earliest records of aliens appeared in the notes and murals of ancient China. As early as 7,500 years ago, the image of astronauts in space suits appeared in the primitive tribal murals of Helan Mountain. They walked out of a large disc, and the surrounding animals and residents fled in scattered. These are probably not something that humans could imagine by their imagination. They should be a mural that records major disasters and events. Similar situations are recorded in the tripods of the Zhouxia period and some ancient books..."

At this time, An Liman jumped back from the hole in the roof in the wind and sand, telling everyone that the sandstorm was about to pass, and it would be clear in less than half an hour. It was all thanks to the blessing of Allah. The sand was almost swallowing up the city wall outside. If we scraped for two more hours, we would be buried here alive today.

Everyone was still a little worried, but they saw that the wind was getting weaker, but they didn't know when it would stop. With An Liman's words, they completely let go of their hearts. The students listened attentively to Professor Chen's lecture. I cooked a pot of tea on the fire, preparing to let everyone go after drinking it.

The tea was just boiling, and several people surrounding the giant-eyed stone figure suddenly screamed in unison, jumping backwards. Some shouted: "Ah... why are there so many big ants?" Some shouted: "Oh! There are also here!"

I hurried to see that a large bag of sand at the foot of the stone man raised, like a fountain, countless large ants were raised. Some people used shovels to pat them, and hundreds of them were killed in one go, but at the same time, thousands of them emerged from the sand. They were dense and made people's scalp tight.

At first I thought they were digging sand and digging an ant nest, but immediately found that this was not the case. More and more large holes appeared on the ground, and more and more ants crawled out of them. Each of them had a dark body, red tail, red and black, and countless tides were like the tide of the dike.

An Liman only glanced at it, turned his head and ran out. Fatty and others wanted to use engineer shovels to shoot. At this moment, there were too many ants to start.

Shirley Yang is a photographer at National Geographic magazine. She has been to many places and has a wide range of experiences. She only heard her shouting anxiously to everyone: "Everyone should climb out of the roof, these are desert marching ants. If you walk slowly, you will be gnawed into bones."

Tens of thousands of desert marching ants have filled half of the room, and more are still crawling out from the ground, not only on the ground, but also on the beams and walls, everywhere. Professor Chen, Ye Yixin and others were so shocked by this horrifying situation that their feet were weak, and they could not even take a step.

Sand Sea Devil's Nest 9

Not to mention those intellectuals, even those like Fatty and I felt trembling all over. These desert marching ants were so terrible. Maybe the human bone in the house was their masterpiece, no wonder there was no flesh left.

I tried to calm myself down. When I looked at the people around me, I found that An Liman, the old guy, had escaped first. Damn, this old fried dough ran away when he saw the danger. Yesterday I vowed to share the joys and sorrows with us.

Before I could curse An Liman, the stinky old man, seeing that the engineer shovel could no longer stop the desert marching ants like a tide, I kicked over the fire that was cooking tea, poured out half of the iron cans of solid fuel, and formed a fire wall in the house. The ant colony that touched the fire wall was immediately burned, slightly blocking the momentum of the desert marching ants.

The desert marching ants were too many and rushed towards the fire wall without hesitation, trying to use the number to suppress the flames. Thanks to the strong combustion of solid fuel, it was only a matter of time before being destroyed by an ant colony.

Taking advantage of this time, we took the luggage and equipment we could carry, and even pulled and pulled out of the broken house. The wind and sand outside were already very small. Hundreds of yellow sheep, wild camels, sand wolves, gerbils, and ericles were flying around in the ruins of the ancient city. Not only the big house we were in, but also the desert marching ants emerged in many places. Some animals ran a little slower and were immediately covered by desert marching ants.

The mouths of desert marching ants contain a lot of formic acid, and thousands bite them together, even the elephants can't bear it. Some sand wolves and yellow sheep fell to the ground one after another. After the desert marching ants, they only had a pile of bones left.

There are more than tens of millions of desert ants in this city, as if the entire ancient city is a huge ant nest. We are trapped on the roof and can only swing the engineer shovels to sweep the ants that have climbed up.

Under the city wall in the distance, An Liman was busy untiing the rope that tied the camel. I threw the rifle to the fat man: "Put him the hat."

The fat man raised his rifle and pointed it at An Liman without hesitation. With a "bang", An Liman's leather hat was knocked away by a bullet, which scared him to shrink his neck and turned to look at the people on the roof.

I shouted to him: "Old man, if you dare to run, you will hit you in the second shot. Hu Da must have no objection."

An Liman waved his hands repeatedly and signaled not to run away. However, the house was covered with desert marching ants. We couldn't get down for the time being, and it was not a solution to the roof. Just when we ignored it, a broken wall collapsed and a big ant like a calf crawled out of it.

This is a queen with six pairs of transparent wings on her body. Perhaps due to the attack of a sandstorm, it alarmed the queen ants hiding deep in the nest, and they were preparing to migrate.

Seeing the queen of the ant, all the archaeological team members changed their faces. Shirley Yang shouted: "Capture the king first, capture the king, and shoot it quickly."

The fat man patted the sports car rifle in his hand and stomped his feet in a hurry: "The gun is too small to be able to hit it." Even though he said that, he still fired the gun and shot all the remaining bullets in the bullet cabin at the queen of the ant.

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

This trick actually achieved a miraculous effect. The fire took advantage of the wind to surround the huge ant's body. The ant was in pain and struggled to roll on the sand. The more it rolled, the bigger the fire. This compressed fuel could burn for only a little more than ten minutes. Moreover, most of the barrels were about one kilogram. The fire became bigger and bigger. The desert marching ants around the surrounding area exploded and rushed towards the ant without hesitation, hoping to extinguish the flames with the number.

Seeing that the opportunity came, I waved to everyone, took the engineer shovel and jumped out of the broken house first, and drove the scattered desert marching ants away. The big man Chu Jian carried Professor Chen, Hao Aiguo, Ye Yixin and others to support each other. The fat man broke the back and the group rushed out from the breakthrough.

At this time, An Liman had already controlled the frightened camels. Everyone climbed up the camels and urged the camels to run out of the city. Various beasts rushed by their side from time to time. They usually happened to live to the death. At this time, no one cared about anyone and all ran away desperately.

The camel caravan ran hundreds of meters. When I looked back, I could no longer see the ruins of the ancient city. Countless desert marching ants rolled out like the red and black sea water that had been boiling, and rushed out from the ground. However, as long as they were not surrounded by this gang of ant colonies, there would be no danger.

An Liman explained that he wanted to go out first and untie the rope that tied the camels, and that if the ant colony would make the camels bite into bones, we wouldn't be able to escape even if we wanted to. We wouldn't be running away first.

The fat man didn't believe it, so he pointed at the rifle on his back with a big hue: "Don't tell me, you have to explain it in the future, and explain it to my gun."

An Liman seemed to have a very sufficient reason, and he could not be determined by just that he left everyone behind and ran away alone. There are still many places in the desert that cannot be separated from him. I don’t want to have a quarrel with him, so I stopped the fat man and stopped him from continuing 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 Hu Da's will. He thinks we are brothers and are all devout believers, so we all believe in you. Those who betray friends and brothers will punish him."

An Limanlian claimed: "Praise Allah, Hu Da is the only true God. We are all good friends and brothers. Allah will definitely bless us."

Even if this episode is not big or small, and there is no danger, it will be over. Who knows that after passing through the depths of the sandy sea in Xiye Ancient City, there is still something waiting for us. I still have to find a way to persuade Professor Chen and the others to go back.

We are less than half a day away from the ruins of Xiye Ancient City. The wind has stopped. The fireball-like sun hanging in the air. When walking in the desert, the most important thing is to keep yourself in water. It is a taboo to rush through the day, but our water is still sufficient. When we arrive at Xiye City, we can replenish clear water, so we are moving forward in the desert with the scorching sun that looks like fire.

The desert during the day has a different view. In ancient times, the orogenic movement of the West Malayas formed the Tarim Basin. The terrain of the entire Xinjiang was like a big bowl, with a bowl of golden yellow sand in it. The camel cavalry composed of nineteen camels was too small, and its proportion was not as good as one ten thousandth of a grain of sand in this bowl of golden sand.

The desert is vast and has no boundaries. If it weren't for the long footprints behind me, I wouldn't even feel that I was moving forward continuously. I really admire those explorers who entered the desert and Gobi Desert alone. Perhaps only by walking alone between heaven and earth alone can they experience the true meaning of life. I admire you, do I not plan to do that in my life, or is it suitable for me to live collectively?

Sadi Peng and others were very curious. While walking, they asked Shirley Yang to talk about the desert marching ants. Shirley Yang had never seen them with his own eyes before. They had only seen the villages where desert marching ants were looted. The people and animals were gnawed to the point of only bones left, which was terrible.

The reason why this ant colony is called marching ants is because they have a high degree of organizational discipline and are mainly military ants. Compared with human army, in addition to mobile and firepower, the coordinated and organized ability of the well-trained human army cannot be compared with desert marching ants.

As they walked, they said that the sand dunes under their feet were rising and falling, and the degree of ups and downs was unprecedented. An Liman said that these dense sand dunes were ancient cities engulfed by yellow sand. He led everyone to the highest sand mountain and pointed to the south to tell everyone that there was our middle station, the ruins of Xiye Ancient City.

I raised my telescope and looked south, and there was an oasis in the heart of the sand sea, and I could see it.

Sand Sea Devil's Nest 10

The oasis in the desert is like emeralds decorated on a golden plate. From a distance, a black ruin of the city stands among them.

The ruins of Xiye City are well preserved. The city was relatively late and was destroyed by war until the end of the Tang Dynasty. Since then, they have been abandoned to this day. At the beginning of the 19th century, German explorers discovered this place and looted most of the murals and statues in the remains with artistic value.

Only this empty city is left in the desert, the oldest ancient Peacock River channel. So far, since groundwater veins pass through all year round, it has become an important supply point for travelers in the desert.

The camels went down the Dasha Mountain and slowly moved towards the oasis. An Liman discussed with me that he would rest for two more days in Xiye City and then enter the Black Desert. It would be difficult to turn back after entering. These days, the camels were frightened and carried a large amount of supplies. They had to maintain their feet and set off again.

This is exactly what I want. I wish I could stop for a few more days, so as to find excuses to persuade the archaeological team to fall back to the mansion, and not to find any Jingjue Ancient City. I dug two holes nearby and wander around. Recently, I feel increasingly unable to do anything. I will walk deeper into the desert sooner or later. At that time, I am afraid I will not be as lucky as before.

I slowed down the camel and rode along with Professor Chen. I said to him: "Professor, let's go to Xiye City and rest for three or five days, and how about setting out again for five or six days? An Liman said that the camels were exhausted. If they were not allowed to rest, we would have to change the No. 11."

Professor Chen was puzzled and asked, "What...No. 11? How to open it?"

I said, "Professor, why don't you even know No. 11, just walk with two legs." After that, I used two fingers to imitate the way I walked with two legs: "Isn't this No. 11?"

Professor Chen laughed: "Brother Hu, you, where did you come from so many new words? It's really interesting, okay, let's just repair it for a few days, and I'm just about to take a good look at the remains of this famous city."

It was not far from the oasis on the sandy mountain, but it took me three hours to get there. The city wall was made of black stones, and some places had been weathered and damaged. It was very severely damaged. Only the main city was built quite solidly, and the glorious weather of the past could be vaguely seen. Some oil well workers, expedition teams, geological exploration teams, passing by, stayed in the main city and blocked the door with stones, so there was no need to worry about the attack of the wolf pack.

Since the mid-1970s, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Tibet have launched a vigorous wolf-beating campaign. Large-scale wolves have completely disappeared, leaving only a group of three or five, or lonely wolves acting alone, which is not a problem.

Besides, we have a lot of people and we carry guns, so we don’t have to worry about wolves. It’s the wind season, and no one else comes here except us, so we found a spacious house in the main city, lit campfires, and had a meal and a tea.

An Liman and I found the ancient well in the city. It is said that the well has never dried up for thousands of years. An Liman said that this was a miracle of Hu. I didn't argue about it. I dug a bucket of well water with a leather bucket. The well was very deep. I put a rope of dozens of meters before I heard the sound of falling into the water. After I took it out, I took a sip first. It was cold and it penetrated into my heart. The anger of the poisoned sun in the desert disappeared, and I felt indescribable comfort.

He placed all the nineteen camels next to the well, drank them one by one, took out salt croton cakes for them to eat, and then picked up two large buckets of well water and returned to the room where the archaeological team members rested.

These people were exhausted and fell to the ground and fell asleep. Some people were still biting half a piece of cake in their mouths and fell asleep after eating half of it. I didn't disturb them, as they had enough for the past few days.

He boiled a large pot of water, and then woke Professor Chen and others up one by one, forcing them to scald their feet with hot water, and then picked all the soaks on their feet.

After all this, I went to bed. I slept in a drowsy day and night. My tired body finally recovered. At night, everyone sat together and listened to the fat man bragging.

The fat man was polite and told everyone how rich the products in the old forests in the Northeast are and how delicious the mountain delicacies are. It doesn’t look like a desert. Apart from the sand, there is sand, and the wind is strong. When you take a bite of a yellow sheep, you will eat a mouthful of sand. Especially in the Xing'anling, there are all kinds of delicious foods. There has been such a saying since ancient times: beat a roe deer and scoop fish, and the pheasant flies into the rice pot. Can you imagine the free life of hunters?

Several students had a little experience, and all the fat man was foolish. Sardipeng pushed the glasses on his nose and asked curiously: "Brother Wang, what is a stick to beat a roe deer? Do you hit a stick?"

The fat man said, "Glasses, you see that you are very easy to learn, so I will tell you, that is, you will walk in the mountains, take a stick, and swing it casually, and kill a roe deer. You can catch a big fat fish with a scoop in the river. This means that you have abundant resources."

Shirley Yang snorted and looked down upon what the fat man said: "The desert also has the benefits of deserts. The species of animals and plants in the desert are not less than those in the forest. Moreover, although the Taklamakan Desert is at the lowest point of the basin, in a sense, it is a peak of ancient civilization. What else is there in the forest besides wild deer and bear?"

I was afraid that the two of them would fight, so I quickly said there was a lady in the house, so my brothers went out to smoke and smoke. While talking, he pulled the fat man outside.

The moon in the sky is like a painting, the stars are like silver light, and I lit a cigarette for the fat man and advised him to give in to Shirley Yang. The fat man said that of course I can't be as knowledgeable as her. Americans are ignorant, so we must understand, let alone a woman. If she were a man, she would have twisted his head off as a ball and kicked him.

I smiled and said, "Yes, yes, who are you? You can make a big hole in the dusty ground even if you urinate. You must have a lot of adults. Don't pull Shirley Yang's head off. Otherwise, who will pay for us? 20,000 Miko, that's not a small amount."

After a few jokes, I raised my head and vomited a smoke ring. I saw the Jumen Star, Zuo Fu Star, You Bi Star, and Three Stars in the sky shining, arranged into a regular triangle, the center Sun Star and the moon Star appear together, and a group of Qianjia Stars and Jinjia Stars.

I had never carefully studied Tianxing Feng Shui before, but I just gritted my teeth and read it several times in order to make some money with the archaeological team. At this time, I saw that the content of the Tianzi Scroll in the Feng Shui secret technique immediately emerged in my mind.
To be continued...