Chapter 221: Snake Swamp Ghost City (Part 2): Departure

The jeep convoy sped across the boundless, desolate Gobi. The climate was dry, and the vehicles kept far apart to avoid the clouds of yellow dust kicked up by the car ahead.

I sat in the car, looking out the window, thinking about my earlier decision. I wasn't sure if it was right; right now it felt a bit too reckless. But since I was already on this pirate ship, I had no face to back out.

A Ning's plan, which she told me before departure, was exactly following the route that Wenjin had taken back then: starting from Dunhuang, passing through Da Qaidam into the Qarhan Lake area, then leaving the highway there to enter the uninhabited region of the Qaidam Basin. After that, Dingzhu Zhuoma would lead the team to the place where she had parted ways with that expedition team years ago.

This route was almost exactly the same as what Wenjin had written in her notebook. I was very puzzled—where did she get this information? Clearly, she knew about Tamutuo, about Dingzhu Zhuoma, about the route. It seemed as if she had read the notebook, but the notebook was in my pocket.

The convoy replenished supplies along the way and soon arrived at Dunhuang as planned. Someone told me that the route before reaching the Qarhan area was still equivalent to a self-driving tour route, relatively safe.

Along the way, the yardang landforms on both sides let me experience the desolation of the Gobi. This feeling of endlessness, as if at the edge of the world, gave a strong sense of abandonment. At first, it was somewhat alleviated by the many ruined settlements along the roadside, but after we left Dunhuang and drove onto the Qarhan highway, heading straight into the Gobi, it became impossible to shake off. Because after driving for over ten hours straight with almost no change in the scenery, the feeling was suffocating. Luckily, A Ning's team was large; the noise when setting up camp made us feel a bit more comfortable.

I was in the same car as the Caucasian. He and another Tibetan driver took turns driving. On the road, I asked him these questions to see if he could answer them.

The Caucasian answered very easily. Listening to him, I realized I had been overthinking it. I had always assumed that someone must have read the notebook to know about Tamutuo, Dingzhu Zhuoma, and the route. But it wasn't like that at all. A Ning's first move after receiving the videotape was to investigate the courier company that had sent it. Through the courier company employees' recollections, they found the sender of the package—that person was Dingzhu Zhuoma.

After that, they paid a visit, showed the package, and asked questions—and everything about Tamutuo, the guide, and the route came out. The current plan was all based on Dingzhu Zhuoma's information.

After hearing that, I felt relieved. That being the case, the first half of the third part of Wenjin's notebook was unimportant. What mattered was the part from when they parted with Dingzhu Zhuoma to when they entered Tamutuo. Unfortunately, I hadn't read that part carefully. I had to find a chance to sneak another look.

Then, the Caucasian told me what he knew about Tamutuo.

The Caucasian told me that they only learned about the concept of Tamutuo after finding Dingzhu Zhuoma. According to Dingzhu Zhuoma's memory of hearing the conversations between Wenjin and the others back then, it seemed to be Wang Zanghai's last stop. As for what kind of place it was, even Wenjin's group didn't know; they were just searching.

However, based on what she had seen and experienced during the journey, Dingzhu Zhuoma later formed her own judgment. She realized that the Tamutuo Wenjin's group was searching for was none other than the legendary Queen Mother of the West Kingdom in their local folklore. In the locals' language, it was called "Taermusiduo," meaning "ghost city in the rain." After she discovered this, she got very scared, so she pretended she couldn't find the way and parted ways with them.

"Queen Mother of the West Kingdom?" I was shocked. "Isn't that something from mythology?"

"Actually, no. The Queen Mother of the West Kingdom really existed; it was an ancient kingdom with a long history. Legends date back to the Yellow Emperor's time. The Queen Mother of the West was the kingdom's queen. Qinghai Lake is called 'Chixue Jiamu' in the Qiang language, where 'Jiamu' means Queen Mother. We believe it is the Queen Mother's Jade Pool. And Taermusiduo is the capital of the Queen Mother's kingdom. In Western Region legends, the Queen Mother of the West represents sacred power. In the stories Dingzhu Zhuoma heard as a child, this city would only appear during heavy rain. If you saw it, your eyes would be taken and you'd go blind, so she was very terrified."

"So you mean that what we're looking for now is actually the ancient capital of the Queen Mother of the West Kingdom?"

"You could say that. According to current archaeological data analysis, especially in recent years, the existence of the Queen Mother of the West has been confirmed," said the Caucasian. "In fact, if Tamutuo is in the Qaidam Basin, then it must be part of the Queen Mother of the West Kingdom. This time, they say we're searching for Tamutuo, but really we're searching for the remnants of the Queen Mother of the West Kingdom. What you need to understand is that it's not that we are looking for the Queen Mother of the West Kingdom; rather, whatever we find will automatically become the Queen Mother of the West Kingdom. That's archaeological exploration."

I listened and gave a bitter smile. Queen Mother of the West? I remembered that thing wasn't something to be trifled with. Wang Zanghai's final diplomatic mission was to the Queen Mother of the West? Did that even make sense?

After thinking it over, I recalled the legend of Hou Yi seeking the elixir of immortality. I thought to myself, could it be that Wang Zanghai was also seeking the elixir that time? It felt extremely far-fetched, so I shook my head to dismiss the thought and stopped pondering.

After that, I counted the equipment I had taken from A Ning. Their company had specially made clothes. My own clothes would have been deadly—sunstroke during the day and freezing at night in the Gobi—so I changed into a desert suit in the car. While putting it on, I was surprised to find that the belt of the suit also had the number 02200059.

I asked the Caucasian what this number was. He said it was their company's barcode number. Their boss was very obsessed with this number, which was supposedly also translated from a Warring States silk manuscript.

I was very surprised. I thought of the code on the Seven Stars Lu King Box and wondered if this number had some special meaning. Over the next two days, we penetrated deeper into the Gobi. The Land Rovers were very fast; in those two days, we entered the heart of the Qaidam Basin.

A Ning's people were quite friendly. During several camps, the few people who had been together with me in Jilin got along very well with me, and I became familiar with the others. With my personality, it was easy to get along with people. This had at least one advantage: I didn't have to face the expressionless Poker-face all day. And he didn't seem to want to pay me any attention at all.

This was actually a bit unusual, because in previous encounters, although Poker-face was still hard to get along with, he hadn't been this distant. I always felt he was avoiding something. Instead, that Black Blind seemed quite interested in me and kept coming to talk to me.

After the vehicles entered the Gobi, they soon left the highway, and Dingzhu Zhuoma began to guide. She was accompanied by her daughter-in-law and a grandson, and was in the same car as A Ning at the very front of the convoy. I didn't know what was going on with them, only that after the old woman started leading, the terrain became difficult—either gravel beaches or dry riverbeds of river gorges. Soon, the whole team was full of complaints.

Dingzhu Zhuoma explained that to find the mountain pass she had seen back then, they first had to find a village. Their journey that year had started from that village. Wenjin's horses and camels had all been bought in that village. The village might be abandoned by now, but the ruins should still be there. Only by finding it could they proceed to the next step. The old woman's memory was quite good; sure enough, by evening we arrived at a small village called "Lan Cuo." Surprisingly, there were still people living there—four households with over thirty people.

This discovery made us ecstatic. First, it proved the old woman's ability. Second, things were going smoothly. And after traveling through the Gobi for so long, seeing a place where people gathered was always especially joyful. Since it was already late, we decided to set up camp in the village.

Unfortunately, an accident happened when we entered the village. One car flipped into a wind-eroded gully. No one was hurt, but the car was totaled. By then we were quite far from the nearest highway, so there was no way to get any assistance. This meant that another car would have to stay behind to look after things.

After this happened, A Ning began to look worried. That night we rested near the wrecked car, and A Ning expressed her concerns. She was a bit apprehensive. Although they were equipped with top-notch off-road vehicles, the conditions around them were simply too harsh. If they couldn't find the mountain pass soon, the cars would definitely break down one by one here. Sometimes a problem that would be trivial in a repair shop could cripple a car out here.

And the deeper they went into the basin, the greater the danger that abandoned vehicles and their occupants might not get timely rescue and could encounter dangers in the Gobi.

Vehicles were ultimately different from camels and horses. Camels could heal themselves when injured; minor injuries didn't affect their travel. But high-tech vehicles were heartbreakingly fragile once something went wrong. After all, these were civilian vehicles, not as sturdy as military ones.

But this wasn't A Ning's miscalculation, because in this day and age, it was impossible to have this team of nearly 50 people ride camels into the Qaidam Basin. For one thing, they couldn't find that many camels at once—50 people, plus camels for baggage and spares, would require nearly 100 camels. Such a huge caravan would be far too conspicuous and would definitely attract government attention.

The team's mechanic told her not to worry too much. At the speed of Land Rovers, the Qaidam Basin wasn't that vast. Twenty years ago, the Qaidam might have been a dreaded "Sea of Death" like the Taklamakan Desert, but now you could cross half the developed area in just over ten hours, with plenty of exploration and industrial bases around. So there was no need to worry so much.

But this remark was immediately refuted by Dingzhu Zhuoma's grandson. This young man, named Zhaxi, said we trusted the power of machines too much. Although the Qaidam had been conquered, safe areas were limited to those within reach of the highway network, about only 2% of the entire basin. The other 98% was all desert, swamp, and salt crust. Our dozen or so vehicles and fewer than fifty people were insignificant to this land that had been devouring life for tens of millions of years.

He said that even along the most carefully designed, least dangerous tourist routes, people went missing or died in accidents every year, let alone now when we were about to venture deep into the uninhabited area.

He also said that the people he had met before were all travelers whose goal was to cross the basin. These people would not stay in the basin for more than two days, but our purpose was to search within the basin. That meant our journey had no end, and going in circles in the Gobi like this was the greatest taboo of the herdsmen here in the past. So, Miss Ning's concerns were not without reason. It's better to be careful in everything.

Zhaxi's words left us in silence. A Ning thought for a long time and asked Zhaxi, "Then what advice do you have for us?"

Zhaxi shook his head and said, "Since you are going to enter Qaidam, you must be prepared to risk your neck. It has always been like this since ancient times."

Zhaxi's statement felt somewhat alarmist. Earlier, I had heard that Zhaxi was very angry that his grandmother agreed to guide us. He thought this matter was too dangerous, and that A Ning and the others using money to persuade his grandmother was a kind of karma, bringing danger and sin upon his grandmother. But old lady Dingzhuo Zhuoma was very resolute. In Tibetan families, the grandmother's status is very high, so Zhaxi had no choice but to come along to take care of her. So along the way, he basically didn't give us any good looks or say anything nice.

Even so, in this Gobi village with only a few low adobe houses, with the biting cold wind of the night Gobi blowing, watching the flickering bonfire, and then thinking about our distance from the civilized world, I still felt a chill of fear.

After he finished speaking, we lost the desire to talk. The few of us sat silently by the bonfire for a long time, then each went into our own sleeping bags to rest. We were to set out early tomorrow. A Ning hadn't set up tents; we were all sleeping in open-air sleeping bags. The temperature here sometimes drops below zero at night, so we all hid behind the raised ridges of the field, close to the bonfire for warmth.

Lying there, I sensed many people couldn't sleep. Around us was the sound of whispers carried by the wind. That was no surprise. This might be the last place marked on the map before entering Qaidam. Veterans of such activities naturally wouldn't care, but a large part of the team were locally hired people, who would naturally be a bit excited at such a time.

I didn't know if I was a veteran or a novice. I just looked up at the sky and found that here the sky seemed much closer to the ground, and the stars were much clearer. Having grown up in the south, after becoming an adult I hadn't seen a sky full of stars for a long time. Now seeing the brilliant Milky Way so clear in the sky, I couldn't help but lose my sleepiness.

However, the exhaustion of the long journey always takes its toll. After a while of fussing, the sounds around gradually quieted down.

A Ning and the others had arranged for people to stand watch. Because there were many people, these tiring tasks were mainly handled by the locally hired people, so it wouldn't rotate to us. But since this was still a village, there was no need for too much vigilance. Zhaxi also said that only near Hoh Xil could there be large wild animals; here there was so little grass that even rats didn't come, let alone carnivores. So I didn't even hear the watchmen talking; I guessed they might have fallen asleep. I vaguely heard a few animal calls in the wind, but didn't pay much attention. We were sleeping in the very center of the entire camp; if something were to eat us, it wouldn't be our turn first.

As I was thinking about things and looking at the night sky, I didn't know how long passed. Just as I was also getting drowsy, I suddenly felt someone walk up to me. I shuddered and woke up to see that it was actually Zhaxi.

I was startled by him and quickly sat up, about to speak. He crouched down and pressed his hand over my mouth, whispering, "Don't talk. Come with me. My grandmother wants to see you."