Chapter 25

Sand Sea Demon Nest 14

"Magnetic Mountain?" My mechanical watch has either stopped or been running fast and slow these past few days; I thought it was just a cheap watch breaking down in the desert, but could we be near those two magnetic mountains?

Anliman also recalled hearing people say that in the heart of the Black Desert, there are two sacred Zaghrama Mountains, one red and one white, said to be the burial sites of the ancient sages.

Shirley Yang then said: "If such two mountains truly exist in the desert, then the Zi Du Dark River might possibly be underground, dammed by the magnetic mountains, too deep beneath the surface for us to find. I think we shouldn't focus all our attention on searching for traces of the dark river. If the legend and what the British explorer said are correct, the magnetic mountains should be nearby. Mr. Hu, you'll need to use your Heavenly Star Feng Shui skills again tonight. Don't forget what we said earlier: if we find the Jingjue Ancient City, the reward will be doubled."

From the beginning, I had no confidence in finding Jingjue City. Hearing her say this, I can only try tonight. If I can find that Zaghrama Mountain, my reward will increase to twenty thousand American dollars; if not, we'll have to turn back.

To be honest, I'm not even sure whether I'm hoping to find Jingjue City. After hearing the story of the Jingjue Queen, a mysterious and alluring image has haunted my mind. In the depths of the desert, it feels as if some invisible magical force is drawing me in. I don't know if Professor Chen, Shirley Yang, and those exploration teams who never returned feel the same way I do.

This daytime felt extraordinarily long. I wished I could shoot the sun down with a gun, dig the sand pit deeper and deeper, yet feel not a trace of cool air.

Although a thick canvas was propped over the pit, with people hiding in the shade and bodies lying in sand hollows, we still felt as if we were being roasted in an oven. Ye Yixin, with her frail body, might have been baked into confusion; she fell asleep and then started talking nonsense.

Everyone worried she was running a high fever. We touched her forehead with our hands—it was as hot as the sand, making it impossible to tell if she really had a fever. No matter how we pushed her, she wouldn't wake up.

We still had some water left, enough for about five days, plus two bags of sour milk soup, reserved for the final moments. At this point, there was nothing left to be reluctant about. I took out one bag and had Shirley Yang feed her a few sips, then gave her some medicine.

After Ye Yixin took the medicine, she gradually calmed down, but remained unconscious. She likely suffered from acute dehydration—this is troublesome. I informed Professor Chen and the others of the archaeological team's current situation.

There are essentially only two options: one is to turn back tonight and head home. On the return journey, we'd have to eat camel meat and drink salty sand pit water for the last few days, even opening Hole 11. Even so, we couldn't guarantee Ye Yixin's safety.

The other option is to grit our teeth and continue searching for Jingjue City. If there's a water source inside the city, her life might just be saved.

Professor Chen said our difficulties are great. Although archaeology requires a spirit of sacrifice, Ye Yixin is so young that we must bear responsibility for her life. The first option is safe, but without sufficient clean water supplies, the return journey will be extremely arduous. The second option is more adventurous, but we've already arrived near Zaghrama, and we have...

Pangzi spoke first: "My waist has shrunk by two full circles. If we keep going deeper into the desert, you might as well call me Skinny from now on. I suggest we don't stop a moment longer—once the sun sets, we head back. Maybe we'll still have half a life left when we return."

Hao Aiguo and Sa Ditepeng were more steady and also agreed to turn back.

In contrast, more people believed that seeking Jingjue City, though adventurous, was worth a try. After all, we've endured such hardship and sacrifice to get this far—it would be a waste to give up now. We also hope to find clean water in the ancient city's ruins to save Ye Yixin's life. Drinking salty sand pit water on the way back is hard enough even for healthy people, let alone her, who is so seriously ill. Turning back would be tantamount to sentencing her to death.

Shirley Yang, Chu Jian, Professor Chen, and I hold this view. Aside from Ye Yixin's unconscious state, only Old Man Anliman has not expressed his opinion, and everyone's eyes are now fixed on his face.

If his opinion is to turn back, then we'd be evenly split four to four. But Anliman is the guide, and in this matter, his decision carries significant weight.

I said to Old Man Anliman: "Old sir, you'd better think carefully before speaking—your words concern Ye Yixin's life. What do you think we should do now?"

Anliman took a puff from his pipe, squinted his eyes at the sun in the sky, and said: "Well, I naturally follow the will of Hu Da. There is only one sun in the heavens, and only one omnipotent true god in the world. Hu Da will guide us."

I pointed at the sky: "Then why don't you hurry up and ask him what he says?"

Anliman tapped his old pipe, slipped it back to his waist, removed that torn blanket, and began to pray with a solemn expression, palms turned inward toward his face, reciting verses from the Quran. His face showed devotion and solemnity, utterly unlike his usual sly, market-trader demeanor.

He muttered words under his breath, which we couldn't understand. The longer we waited, the longer he went on. Pangzi grew impatient and asked: "Hey, old man, is it done yet?"

Anliman opened his eyes, smiled, and said: "Hu Da has already given us a revelation." He then took out a five-fen coin, showed it to everyone—one side bore the characters for "continue forward," the other the image for "return by the original route." He asked Professor Chen, the eldest among us, to toss it into the air. The result when it landed would be Hu Da's will.

Everyone laughed through tears—was Hu Da really going to convey his will this way? Professor Chen caught the coin, tossed it high into the air, and all of us looked up as it fell. The sunlight was blinding, but we saw the coin land upright, embedded in the sand.

Even if we tossed it a hundred thousand times, we might not get such a coincidence. Anliman shook his head repeatedly, his face full of dejection, forgetting that we were in the Black Desert abandoned by Hu Da. How could Hu Da possibly guide our path?

As we scratched our heads in bewilderment, Shirley Yang suddenly pointed into the distance and cried: "Oh God, is that Lagazama Mountain over there?"

The desert was vast beyond compare, stretching for thousands of miles. In the direction she pointed, aligned with where Professor Chen's coin had fallen, at the horizon, a faint black line could be seen—too distant to make out clearly without close inspection.

We hastily took out our binoculars, adjusted the focus, and saw a black mountain range stretching across the endless yellow sands like a motionless black dragon. The range was broken in the middle, with a pass between the peaks—these features matched exactly what the British explorer's notes had recorded.

Last year, Shirley Yang's father had led an expedition team, relying on these very clues to search for Jingjue Ancient City. I don't know if they ever saw this sacred mountain. If they had been here, what did they encounter? What caused them to vanish without a trace?

Thinking of this, under the blazing sun, I actually felt a chill. But this feeling was quickly dispelled by the rising excitement. We had endured a nine-deaths-one-life journey across thousands of miles, and at last, in the final moments, we found the great gate into the Jingjue Ancient Kingdom.

However, Anliman had once said that in the Black Desert, there is a place of illusion where mirages often appear—those strange visions lure people toward the depths of death. Are the two sacred mountains we saw real?

Upon reflection, they probably are. First, desert mirages are caused by light refraction and usually show scenes that don't actually exist in the desert. But this black mountain range has been mentioned more than once—it should be absolutely real.

Since we're not far from Jingjue Ancient City, we can set out after dark. However, our information is extremely limited—much of it is speculation and collected legends. The only somewhat reliable evidence is a blurry black-and-white photo. Whether we can find Jingjue Ancient City, or even whether such a city exists in the world, is hard to say. Perhaps it's all just people spreading rumors, and legends often arise this way.

During the Korean War, MacArthur once said: "At first, we thought we knew everything, but later we discovered that in fact, we knew nothing." Now I feel exactly that way.

Are the ruins of the royal city still not buried under the yellow sands? Can we find a water source inside the city? Is the tomb burying the Jingjue Queen located within the city, or elsewhere? Does the city truly contain mountains of treasure? What exactly is that demon queen? Will she still pose a threat to outsiders after her death? Did Shirley Yang's father and his companions really die in Jingjue Ancient City? Can we find their remains? What did those foreign explorers encounter inside the city? For us, all of this remains unknown.

Sand Sea Demon Nest 15

At dusk, the archaeological team set out toward Zaghrama.

As the saying goes, chasing a mirage will exhaust even a horse. Having confirmed the direction, we marched straight on until deep into the night before reaching the mountain pass. At that time, the moonlight flowed like water, and the desert seemed like a silent sea. Amidst this ocean of sand, the Zaghrama Mountains rose and fell, their entire bodies black stone, growing more striking the closer we got.

Calling them mountains is less accurate than saying they are two enormous black stones. Each has a diameter of several tens of kilometers, exposing only a shallow ridge in the sand sea, while the bulk lies buried underground. Perhaps beneath, the two stones are actually fused into one, and the pass might merely be a fissure in the stone.

This black stone contains iron ore; though the average content is not high, it is enough to affect precision instruments used for determining direction. We also felt that the metal objects on our persons were gradually growing heavier.

Moonlight shone on the black stone with no reflection at all. Inside the pass, it was dark and muffled. Besides the unconscious Ye Yixin, everyone dismounted from their camels and proceeded on foot. I reminded everyone to keep their wits sharp—walking through the devil's mouth, we must not be careless.

I and Anliman led the way, Pangzi and Chu Jian brought up the rear, Shirley Yang and the others stayed in the middle to attend to Ye Yixin. The team formed a single-file column and slowly entered the valley.

This mountain was regarded as sacred by ancient people, said to bury these two sages—likely mythological. But from a feng shui perspective, this place truly does command the terrain and swallow the cosmos. The black mountain mass is like two black dragons guarding the gate. Burying sages on the mountain may be fictional, but if the Jingjue Queen's tomb truly lies behind the mountain, it would come as no surprise.

Taklamakan is the world's second-largest shifting desert. After complete desertification, the desert as a whole has been gradually shifting southward, which has re-exposed the sacred mountains once buried deep in the yellow sands.

After midnight, the north-south valley grew so dark that one could not see five fingers ahead. We stepped forward, one deep step, one shallow, our hearts growing more anxious with each pace. Having left the valley, can we really find Jingjue Ancient City? If we find the city, will its water source still exist? My greatest worry is Ye Yixin's condition—her acute dehydration requires large amounts of clean saline solution. If we still haven't found water within three days, her life will be forfeit in the desert.

Our watches had long stopped; we didn't know exactly how long we'd walked. By instinct, we estimated that dawn should be approaching soon. At this moment, the camels' breathing suddenly grew heavy, their emotions clearly agitated and restless.

Anliman quickly whistled and made noises, using all his skills to calm the herd. His nineteen camels are all strong, vigorous specimens—selected one in a hundred from the desert. They've walked these many days without incident.

With everything already dark, the camels' commotion only heightened the team's fear. Shirley Yang worried Ye Yixin might be shaken off the camel, so she and Hao Aiguo hurried to lift her off its back.

I called Pangzi over, told him to endure the hardship, and take Ye Yixin on his back first. This valley is eerie—no place to linger. We must not delay; we must get out quickly.

Pangzi was quite willing. First, Ye Yixin is light—after entering the desert, sun exposure and dehydration have reduced her to skin and bones. Second, carrying a beautiful woman isn't such a bad thing. He hoisted her onto his back as if carrying a child, and kept urging Anliman ahead to hurry.

However, no matter how Anliman urged, the camels refused to take even half a step forward. Anliman himself began to suspect supernatural forces, muttering again, afraid that Hu Da would not let us go forward, and that we should hurry back.

As we neared the valley exit, the others were unwilling to retreat the same way. For a moment, the team descended into chaos. Shirley Yang said to me: "Perhaps something ahead is frightening the camels, making them refuse to move. Let's toss a cold firework forward to illuminate it, then decide what to do."

I agreed, took out a signal flare for illumination, lit it, and threw it forward. It lit up a small stretch of the valley ahead: black stone on both sides, thick yellow sand beneath, empty mountains, silent—no grass, nothing out of the ordinary.

I then walked forward a few steps, threw a second illumination flare—suddenly bright ahead. On the distant ground sat a person. We approached and saw: the person wore a white robe, head wrapped in a sand-proof headscarf, a pack on the back, completely still. It was a corpse.

Everyone was startled. Encountering corpses or dried bodies in the desert is not strange, but this one was different: a male, face covered by a headscarf, only two eyes exposed, staring fixedly at the sky, eyes open in death—perhaps he died too quickly to close them.

His time of death couldn't have been long—perhaps just a few days. The skin exposed to the air was only slightly dried, but the strangest thing was that his flesh had turned bluish, and under the flare's light, it emitted faint blue glimmers.

Several people wanted to gather around, but I stopped them—this manner of death is too bizarre; under no circumstances should anyone approach. Chu Jian suddenly shouted: "Brother Hu, look—there's another corpse over here!"

My scalp tingled slightly; two corpses in a row—could there be more? I tossed a few cold fireworks casually, lighting up the surroundings, and indeed there were more than two bodies: four male corpses lay sprawled across the ground at the edge.

These dead wore identical clothing and died the same way—eyes wide open in terror, twisted expressions. A few Soviet-style AK47s and some backpacks lay scattered on the ground.

I drew my entrenching shovel as a weapon for self-defense, walked over, picked up one of the rifles, and saw the chamber was loaded—damn it, how strange! Who are these people? In Xinjiang, poachers usually use foreign Remingtons or the Type 56/57 smuggled from troops—how could there be Soviet AKs? Could they be the tomb-robbing gang that stole the stone tomb?

I opened another backpack and found plenty of military yellow explosives marked in Russian; likely these arms flowed from Afghanistan into Xinjiang, bought by these tomb robbers to blast desert tombs—nothing surprising. But why did these heavily armed men die so mysteriously in this valley?

I used the gun barrel to lift the headscarf off the face of the male corpse sitting on the ground—he had a big mouth, as if he'd been shouting desperately before death. I didn't want to look longer; no matter what, getting out of this burial mound valley quickly was the wisest move. Those explosives might come in handy later—I picked up the backpack with the explosives, preparing to get the group out.

At that moment, Ha Aiguo stepped out from the ranks: "Whether these people are tomb robbers or not doesn't matter—we can't let their corpses lie exposed here; let's carry them outside the valley and bury them. Whenever I see corpses abandoned in the wilderness, I think of those comrades who were exiled with me to the earth kilns for labor reform—how pitifully they died, without even a rotten straw mat to wrap them in… sigh, I can't bear to see this…" As he spoke, he went to move the male corpse sitting on the ground.

I was truly furious then, shouting as I rushed over to stop him: "You damn bookworm, truly you don't know good from bad—don't touch these corpses under any circumstances!"

But it was too late—suddenly, a strange snake shot out from the mouth of that male corpse, its scales gleaming, a black fleshy crest on its head, about thirty centimeters long; it coiled and lunged straight at Ha Aiguo's face.

Ha Aiguo's eyesight was poor, and even if it were good, his reflexes couldn't dodge in time. In that flash of lightning and fire, my heart leapt to save him—I didn't think, swung my entrenching shovel round, and chopped the snake in two.

Ha Aiguo fell flat on his butt, trembling all over, managed a weak smile at me: "Too……too dangerous……thanks……to……."

He'd barely spoken half the sentence when the severed half of the snake's head on the ground sprang up like an arrow loosed from a bow, its jaws locking tight onto Ha Aiguo's neck. I'd seen the snake cut in two and relaxed—never expecting this turn of events, I was utterly unprepared and couldn't reach out to save him in time.

Ha Aiguo's face froze; his throat gurgled a few times, he tried to speak but couldn't; his skin instantly turned dark blue, he sat motionless where he was—and died.

Everyone was stunned into silence—Professor Chen's vision blacked out and he fainted to the ground. I hadn't even had time to mourn Ha Aiguo when I felt a chill at the back of my neck; I turned my head and saw an identical strange snake had somehow climbed onto my shoulder, flicking its tongue, muscles tensing slightly as it drew back, jaws open, front body arched, ready to bite me—the snake's movement was too fast; at this close range, dodging was impossible.

Only Pangzi in the group could shoot, but he was carrying Ye Yixin and had no gun in hand—this sudden turn of events left everyone unprepared. My heart felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured over it—damn it, I never thought Lao Hu would die here today, never to see the morning sun again.