Chapter 231: First Rain

At that moment, I dazedly thought I was about to die, and I had already resigned myself to it, thinking to myself that death felt like this, and it wasn't bad.

My consciousness remained muddled like this, and I don't know how long this hazy state lasted. Slowly, I felt something like patting my face. The feeling was very distant, but gradually it became clearer.

Then my senses began to revive, and I gradually regained consciousness. At first, I only dimly felt that my body was back, but later as my awareness cleared, I gradually became aware of my surroundings.

The first thing I felt was coolness, a great coolness. Walking all the way through Devil's City, the mental oppression and low-hanging clouds had made one very suffocated, so the coolness all around was especially refreshing, as if I had been immersed in an ice-water bath.

Then I noticed that the feeling of chapped lips was gone. My lips were cool, as if something cold was drilling into my mouth. I licked it once, licked again, and licked a third time, and realized it was water!

Could it be that someone was saving me! My heart was overjoyed. By then my body had already reacted; I sucked desperately, moving my lips with all my strength, and little by little, I felt a stream of coldness entering my internal organs.

After drinking the water, I fell into a deep sleep again. In the moment I lost consciousness, I seemed to hear several familiar voices talking, but I couldn't make them out, and I had no strength to

When I woke up again, I felt as if I had slept for a very, very long time. All kinds of sensations came back together—hearing, touch. My strength began to recover, my consciousness became clearer and clearer, and finally I opened my eyes.

The first thing that came into view was a big, rugged face, very familiar, grinning stupidly at me.

Seeing this face, I immediately felt something was wrong, but couldn't figure out why. Who is this? I closed my eyes and thought, searching through the faces of those Tibetan drivers. The one driving the 876? No. The one driving the water truck? No.

I racked my brains but couldn't figure out who in the team this was. Then I suddenly jolted and realized why: No, this wasn't someone from the team—this was... Huh? Isn't that Wang Pangzi's face? My mind tightened. Ah? Wang Pangzi? How could he be here? Impossible? He'd already gone back to Beijing.

Was I dreaming? Hallucinating?

I opened my eyes again, and there was still that familiar fat face, full of stubble, looking a little older than when he was in Beijing. He was staring at me, leaning in even closer.

I closed my eyes again. This didn't feel right. No, no, it couldn't be Wang Pangzi. Even if I were dreaming, I wouldn't dream of him.

I gritted my teeth hard and opened my eyes for the third time. By then, my mind was very clear. I looked and sure enough, it was Wang Pangzi. He lit a cigarette and was turning his head to say something behind him. My ears were still unclear; I couldn't make out what he was saying. Then I saw another head poke over, also very familiar—it turned out to be Panzi.

What's going on? I frowned, thinking to myself: Could it be that I never entered the Gobi at all, that I'm still in Hangzhou? Was everything before just a dream?

Recalling what had happened, a flood of memories surged up: the sandstorm we encountered, the car breaking down, people disappearing, the sunken ship embedded in the mound... Everything was so real—there was no way it was a dream.

At that moment my ears regained their hearing, and I heard Panzi say, "Third Young Master, how are you feeling?"

I arched my back hard and tried to sit up. Panzi came over to help me. I sat up and let out a long breath, then looked around. It looked like a cave with a campfire inside. I saw a few sleeping bags and gear scattered around. Outside the cave it was pitch black, so it was clearly night.

At the same time I saw Poker-face sitting by the fire, cooking something, while A Ning lay in a sleeping bag on the other side, still not awake.

I gradually realized I wasn't dreaming. "What's going on?" I massaged my temples and asked Panzi. "How are you here? Am I dreaming? Didn't I die?"

"Not dead, but almost dead," Fatty said from the side. "If it weren't for your lord Fatty's sharp eyes, I wouldn't have seen this thing; by now you'd already be stinking."

I watched Fatty playing with a few copper coins and knew they were A Ning's marks, but I still didn't understand.

"Then how are you here?" I asked in surprise.

"We've been following your team the whole time," Panzi said, pointing at Poker-face. "You don't know, but after you entered the Gobi, Third Master's team immediately followed. At every campsite of yours, this young fellow left marks to guide us. We stayed one stop behind you, always in the rear."

"What?" I didn't quite catch what Panzi said. "Marks? Behind us... he..."

Panzi said, "This was Third Master's plan. This young fellow and Black Blind were both arranged by Third Master to cooperate with that foreigner, in order to infiltrate the team. Because Third Master said things had reached this point—it was impossible for him to figure out Jude Kao's real purpose on his own. He had to use this method, just like Jude Kao did back in the day, to worm his way in and understand the situation. I really didn't expect that you'd also sneak in. If Third Master had known, he would have just asked you directly."

I was still a bit confused. It took me a while to understand Panzi's words. "Wait, wait, what? My Third Uncle? Are you saying my Third Uncle planned all this? Then... you all?"

"We were ready in Golmud long before. Our people in Dunhuang had been preparing for nearly half a month. As soon as your team set out, we followed right behind. At that time, this young fellow left information telling us you were in the team, and Third Master got quite a shock. Third Young Master, you really are something. Didn't Third Master tell you not to wade into these muddy waters anymore? Why did you still come?"

I took a deep breath and suddenly felt very weak. Damn, I thought to myself, I really didn't see this coming. So... that Black Blind had been taking such good care of me all along... It seems it was all because of my Third Uncle's connection.

Panzi continued, "Since you were inside, Third Master had to consider your safety, so he had Black Blind look out for you a bit. This time the setup was big. Jude Kao was still one move short—he thought he had shaken Third Master off this time, but he never expected we had already planned everything."

"Where's my Third Uncle?" I looked around but didn't see Third Uncle.

"Third Master is behind us, a little ways off. We brought quite a few people this time—too many to track easily. Wang Pangzi and I were the vanguard, clearing the way ahead, following you all the way, and leaving marks for Third Master along the route. We just didn't expect that you would run into trouble when you got here."

Only then did my thinking become clear. It suddenly came back to me: that night when I had a long talk with Poker-face, he said he was on my side and told me not to worry. So that's what he meant. So this was Third Uncle's plan.

This... I really hadn't thought of it that way. It seems an old fox really is an old fox. To contend with Third Uncle, I really am not qualified.

"You were lucky we were following you all along, otherwise you'd be dried up by now," Fatty from the side said. "With your physique, you still want to work in this line? I think when you get back, you really should just focus on your little business."

I asked Panzi, "How come he came too?"

Panzi said that all the experienced hands in Changsha had gone to work for other people. Now Third Master had taken on a batch of new people, but they lacked experience, so he invited him (Fatty) to help out, at the old rate.

Fatty said, "What? You still look down on me? Let me tell you, I carried you back on my back."

I quickly waved my hand. My heart suddenly settled down. Third Uncle's people were like family after all—they were on my side. I no longer had to be on guard about everything. And since I was used to working with these people and knew their skills, the thing that made me happiest was that Poker-face was truly on our side. That made everything all right.

Just now, Fatty was feeding me water. As I gradually regained my strength, I drank a few sips on my own. They wouldn't let me drink too much, saying I needed to replenish fluids slowly.

I saw A Ning was unresponsive and didn't know what was going on, so I asked Panzi if she was okay.

Panzi said, "Don't worry. Your sweetheart has a better constitution than you. She woke up once already, ate a bit, and went back to sleep. This isn't a desert. You just passed out from dehydration, not sunburn. Replenish some saline and get plenty of rest, and you'll be fine."

Panzi was teasing me, probably because he saw that both A Ning and I were disheveled. I didn't have the energy to argue, so I ignored him. Though my body was still a bit weak, my spirits were pretty good. I got up, ate something, and asked what cave this was and how they had found us.

Panzi told me that we were still in the Devil's City, inside a cave in a rocky mountain. Fatty had discovered this cave. After the incident, Zhaxi and the others had escaped to where the car broke down. They waited for us for a long time, but we never came out. Zhaxi remembered that neither A Ning nor I could read the Arabic stone piles, so he didn't know if we had met with an accident or gotten lost.

Right away, Poker-face signaled them with a mirror. They caught up. Black Blind stayed behind to look after the others, and Poker-face led Panzi in to find us.

I asked how they found us in such a vast area. Panzi said the place was a bit eerie—the arrangement of these rocky mountains seemed deliberate. They just followed their instincts, and as it turned out, they took exactly the same route we did. Eventually, they saw A Ning's markers and followed them all the way to where we were lying in the sand.

Mentioning this made me shudder. I nodded quickly. "Indeed, this damn place—no matter how you walk, you never seem to reach the end, yet you're not retracing your steps. I don't know what's going on." Suddenly, I grew anxious again, thinking, 'Now we're still in the Devil's City. Can we still not get out?' "We're not as stupid as you. We left markers all along the way. Don't worry," Panzi said.

Fatty also said, "The markers I set up are all this big. You can see them from a kilometer away. And I've also figured out the reason we couldn't get out." "Oh," I sighed in relief and asked, "So why is that?"

Panzi said, "At first, we didn't know either. But Fatty was sharp—he really figured it out. Let me tell you straight: the place we're in now is not the same Devil's City as before. This spot is at least a hundred and fifty kilometers from the original Devil's City. This is a huge yardang landform group, made up of over a dozen small Devil's Cities, with the Gobi in between. And all the Devil's Cities are connected by rocky mountain ranges, end to end, forming a giant chain of Devil's Cities. If you follow this chain, that's 3,600 square kilometers. Could you possibly get out?"

I shook my head. "That's impossible. How could it be such a coincidence? I just randomly picked a direction and walked straight—didn't I deviate at all?"

Fatty said, "I say you're dumb, but you won't admit it. Which direction you take was designed by someone else. It's because in this Devil's City, there are many stones, and these stones are arranged very deliberately. Often, when you go around a rocky mountain, one side has more stones and the other side has fewer. But because the stones are chaotic, in an instant your conscious mind can't judge which side is easier or harder to walk on—they feel about the same. However, subconsciously, you can discern the side with fewer stones, and you reflexively choose that direction. As a result, in this Devil's City, you keep walking in the direction someone else designed for you. And almost every intersection is like this. Even if you get one intersection wrong, you still have countless chances to be corrected later. This kind of tactic was very common in ancient times. It has a very down-to-earth name given by the working people: it's called 'Qimen Dunjia' (The Strange Gate and the Hidden Stems)." As he spoke, he looked at Poker-face. "Little bro, am I right?"

Poker-face looked up at us, ignored him, and stared at the fire as if lost in thought.

I couldn't help laughing. "Since when did you understand Qimen Dunjia?"

Fatty said there were plenty of things I didn't know, and he looked quite smug. I figured he was just parroting something he'd just learned, so I dropped the subject and asked Fatty, "So you're saying that in this Devil's City, someone used these broken stones to set up an illusion?"

Fatty nodded. "That's exactly it. But it's not a profound formation. If you run into someone who's careless or especially observant, they'd definitely notice. These stones have been here for quite some time. I'm guessing this place was a battlefield back then. The Queen Mother of the West must have been a master of divination arts, and these stones were used for defense."

At that point, A Ning's voice came from a sleeping bag nearby. She said softly, "You're wrong. The Queen Mother of the West is actually the creator of Qimen Dunjia. The divinely bestowed book that the Yellow Emperor received back then was given to him by the Queen Mother. When it comes to Qimen Dunjia, she's the ancestor."

So the woman hadn't been asleep. We were all startled. I then recalled the legend of the Nine Heavens Mysterious Maiden and felt a chill. Indeed, it was like that. The legends and some historical records from that time all said that when the Yellow Emperor unified the Central Plains, he received great assistance from the kingdom of the Queen Mother of the West.

Then I thought of the ancient boat and figured that back then, this place must have been a shallow lake. These rocky mountains rose above the water, and the underwater rocks would run ships aground. So on the water, boatmen would be even more inclined to choose paths with fewer hidden reefs, making it even easier to get lost. This might be why the kingdom of the Queen Mother of the West remained undiscovered for so many years.

At that thought, my eyelid suddenly twitched. I said to Panzi, "Are you saying that the Devil's City here is a ring?"

Panzi nodded. I asked, "How do you know that?"

Panzi shook his head. "That's what our guide said. What's wrong?"

Excitedly, I drew a circle in the sand. "You don't know this—I've read Wenjin's notes. She said the Queen Mother of the West was protected by an invisible city wall. Others couldn't see this wall, but if they encountered it, they would inevitably turn back. Here, thousands of years ago, it should have all been water. That means there was a water belt, like a moat, encircling an area. If we assume that this protective belt is the 'invisible city wall' that kept people out and shielded the ancient city of the Queen Mother of the West for so many years, then the kingdom of the Queen Mother should lie within this ring—that is, in the middle of this Devil's City ring."

After I finished speaking, everyone looked at me impassively, as if they were looking at an idiot.

I was bewildered by their stares and spread my hands. "Am I wrong?"

Panzi patted my shoulder and said, "Young Master Wu, we'd already guessed that without reading Wenjin's notes. But if things were really that simple, the ancient city of the Queen Mother of the West would have been discovered long ago. This is the Qaidam Basin, not the Taklamakan. Though rarely visited, this place has been through countless geological surveys. So if the ghost city is here, the situation must be very special. It's likely entirely buried under the Gobi, or in a state that makes it extremely hard to find. Thinking you'll just see it when you get there—that's naive and foolish."

I thought about it and realized he was right. I asked them what their plan was. Panzi said they had originally planned to follow A Ning's team and head to Tamutuo. But now, they'd run into this major accident. However, according to Dingzhu Zhuoma, if they went west from this Devil's City and followed the ancient riverbed for two more days, they would reach the rock-mountain pass where she had parted ways with Wenjin's team back then. Beyond that, Dingzhu Zhuoma didn't know the way either. He planned to go there to rest and wait for Third Uncle's team after we recovered. After that, they intended to follow the river downstream, because the ancient city must be near the river, and the team from back then must have taken that route. We could try our luck that way too.

I said to Panzi, "But the ancient riverbed in this section is basically mixed in with the Gobi. You can't see it clearly at all."

"Don't worry about that," Fatty said, pointing outside into the pitch darkness.

We were at the back of the cave and didn't understand what he meant, so we walked out. As soon as we reached the cave entrance, a chill, damp air rushed at us, and then I heard a very familiar sound.

Outside was pitch black, and I couldn't make out the situation. But the scene felt very familiar to me. Yet for a moment, I couldn't quite believe what I was thinking.

By the time I stepped out of the cave entrance, my face was instantly hit by water droplets. Only then did I realize. I thought, 'Damn, it's actually raining outside!'

But how was that possible? This was the Gobi desert! It might only rain once a year here, and definitely not during this season.

I went back inside and said, "What's going on? Why is it raining?"

Panzi said, "Young Master Wu, you should thank this rain. Otherwise, by the time we found you, you'd have been a dried fish. When we found you, it had already started raining. Now the outside is all water, and we can't walk out. Otherwise, we would have carried you out. It's not comfortable staying here either. After this rain, the old riverbed will definitely fill with water. If we go downstream, even if we can't see the riverbed, the water will know the way. So don't worry."

At that moment, I thought of what Dingzhu Zhuoma had told me: "The time is almost up. If you miss it, you'll have to wait another five years." I wondered to myself, 'Could she have been referring to this rain?'

The more I thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed. But since Poker-face wasn't saying anything, it probably meant there was no problem. I felt much more at ease.

Afterwards, I went to rest. I didn't sleep well. When I woke up the next day, I once again thought I was dreaming.

In this cave, we rested for two days. A Ning and I both recovered fully. A Ning was familiar with Fatty. After all, Panzi and them had saved her, so she didn't say anything. But she suddenly became very cold toward me, probably because she thought I was also planted by Third Uncle and had deceived her.

I didn't care. I thought, 'We almost died, why would I bother about this?' On the third day, we set off. Following the markers, we trudged through water up to our ankles, walking in the rain for two days. First, we made it back outside and reunited with Black Blind. The people outside had been in despair. Seeing us come out safely, they couldn't believe their eyes.

Outside, Panzi rested for another day. He suggested I stay there, wait for Third Uncle to arrive, and then decide whether to go in.

But at this point, I felt I had no face to see Third Uncle, and the message Zhade Zhuoma had given me had made up my mind: I had to find Wenjin. Time was running out, so I insisted on going ahead with Panzi as the vanguard.

A Ning, who was nearby, also organized her own team. Most of her people wanted to go back. The Caucasian was in a very bad state, and the team doctor said that once Third Uncle's team arrived, they'd have to borrow a vehicle and head back immediately. After making arrangements, A Ning told Panzi she wanted to join us, since her team had already taken the lead.

There was no problem with A Ning joining. Panzi couldn't persuade me otherwise, and besides, the road was passable by car and not particularly dangerous, so he agreed. Me, Fatty, Panzi, Poker-face, and A Ning took one car, while Black Glasses stayed behind to wait for Third Uncle.

Over the next two days, we followed the riverbed, where the water level was gradually rising, and ventured deeper into the Gobi. The rainwater had carved out many tributaries in the riverbed. We searched them one by one, but no matter how hard we looked, we couldn't find that rocky mountain. My binoculars were worn out from use, and eventually I started to wonder if the mountain had been transformed by time and erosion.

The rain had stopped before we set out. Finally, we rested by the riverbed. The car tires were badly worn; one even went flat. We could only drive a little, then stop to pump air, and drive again—it was unbearably painful.

Fatty said, "Could it be that old woman was making it up? Maybe there's no mountain at all? Or maybe it wasn't even a mountain—just a mound that the wind blew away over the past ten-plus years?"

I didn't think so. The way Zhade Zhuoma looked, she didn't seem like a liar. Perhaps the course of this ancient river had changed.

"What do we do then? If we keep going, we'll run out of gas, and walking back would be tough."

"Where the water converges will be the lowest point of the whole plain. There should be a lake there. How about we find that lake first? Then start looking for traces of the river course from the lake. That should at least narrow the search area."

I figured that was our only option. We continued on our way, and as we drove up a slope, Panzi suddenly cursed loudly and slammed on the brakes.

We all crashed into the front seat cushions. Fatty started cursing, but before he could finish, everyone froze.

On the other side of the slope, there was actually a cliff. Our front had already gone over the edge, with two tires hanging in midair.

Trembling with fear, we got out of the car and walked to the edge of the cliff. Before us lay a huge basin, shrouded in mist—a massive oasis embedded in the Gobi!