Mengzi patted Erdan hard on the shoulder and said: "Okay, what do you mean by crying? Or are you not a man from the desert? Tell me what happened..."
Mengzi was very happy that there were no casualties. No matter how important the camel was, it was not as precious as human life. Although Erdan was usually naughty and mischievous, in Mengzi's eyes he was still a good young man.
"Brother Mengzi, there really is a devil there..."
Erdan stopped crying and told the whole story from beginning to end. Erdan, who was originally so bold, no longer had any doubts about the legends in the town.
"It's not a devil, it's just quicksand. But looking at the scope of this quicksand, it should be quite big..."
Professor Man is the only desert management expert among the two teams, and he has the most say. Of course, he must resist this kind of feudal superstition.
"Professor Man, is there any way to survey the scope of quicksand?"
Zhuang Rui asked from the side. In fact, the aura in his eyes could tell the difference between quicksand and yellow sand, but if he wanted to return to that area, he had to have a good excuse.
"Brother Zhuang, I think... I think we should go back and find them..."
After Mengzi comforted Erdan, he looked at Zhuang Rui. He had heard about the old man's forbidden area for devils since he was a child, and his psychological shadow was greater than that of Erdan. Now that he heard that Zhuang Rui still wanted to go there, he couldn't help but be the first to do so.
expressed opposition.
"Brother Mengzi, let's listen to Professor Man's opinion first..." Zhuang Rui said noncommittally.
"Xiaozhuang, actually the quicksand is not as scary as people think. If the two camels hadn't struggled desperately, the quicksand would have submerged at most half of their bodies. I think we can go and survey it again..."
The main reason why we left there earlier was that we ran out of supplies. Now that we saw Zhuang Rui's camel team, Professor Man's mind became active again. The phenomenon of quicksand in the desert was rare, and Professor Man also wanted to study it in depth.
"No... no, Teacher Man, there really are demons there. They are gone. Let's not go there..."
After hearing Professor Man's words, Erdan, who had already calmed down, became uneasy again, as if there was a devil chasing him behind him. While talking, he leaned his body against the camel and looked around in a panic.
After Zhuang Rui thought for a while, he said: "Brother Mengzi, I think... let's vote, the minority obeys the majority..."
"All right……"
Mengzi nodded. In fact, he was still a little curious despite his fear. Adventure can always stimulate a man's competitive spirit, especially when there is a beautiful girl in the team.
"I agree……"
"I also agree to go..."
"I agree……"
Four people from the Institute of Archeology of Peking University raised their hands as expected. In addition to Zhuang Rui and Professor Man, only Erdan, Yan Yilan and Mengzi did not raise their hands.
"@￥#%@..." Nakagawa, whose face was covered tightly with a veil, also raised his hand.
"Little...little Japan said he also wants to go with you..."
Yan Xiaowei fulfilled his duty as an interpreter, but he did not call Nakagawa by his name, but called Little Japan, because Yan Xiaowei never wanted to go back to that place again.
"Sir, I think...if you want to go, you should let us know your identity, right?"
After Zhuang Rui heard Yan Xiaowei's words, he looked at Zhongchuan. Although he knew that he was Japanese, he had never been able to see his appearance from the time he saw him until now. Zhuang Rui's request was not too much.
After Yan Xiaowei translated Zhuang Rui's words, Zhongchuan hesitated for a moment, then took off the veil on his face, bowed deeply to Zhuang Rui, and said: "I'm sorry, I apologize to you for the unpleasantness before, please forgive me.
I……"
Having already arrived here, Nakagawa was extremely unwilling to be excluded from this expedition, so he kept his posture low and apologized for his previous mistakes.
"It's you??!"
"It's you again, damn, you're really haunted..."
After seeing Zhongchuan's appearance, Zhuang Rui and others exclaimed, this is really not a case of enemies never getting together. From Xi'an to the desert, they encountered this little Japan one after another.
"I'm really sorry. Please forgive me. My father disappeared in this desert, so... I must follow you to conquer this desert..."
Zhongchuan bowed again at a 90-degree angle. He was even more depressed than Zhuang Rui and others. He had long heard that there were many Chinese people, but why did he meet the same group of people over and over again?
"Your father disappeared here? What happened?" Zhuang Rui didn't know this past incident, so he couldn't help but be stunned for a moment after hearing this.
Yan Translator, who had heard this story earlier, immediately explained it to Zhuang Rui and others, exaggerating the facts a lot. He wanted to use this to make Zhuang Rui give up the idea of going to the quicksand area.
"It turns out that the person who hired someone from our town was your father..."
After Mengzi heard the whole story, he looked at Zhongchuan with a somewhat unkind look. This town was just that big, and many families were related to each other. Among the people who died in the desert that year, one of Mengzi's cousins was
uncle.
"I'm really sorry. I will compensate those who were killed in the accident. I also hope you can forgive me..."
After hearing Yan Xiaowei's translation, Zhongchuan bowed to Mengzi again, his attitude was so sincere that Mengzi couldn't get angry.
Seeing Zhongchuan bowing and apologizing, Zhuang Rui couldn't help but frowned, looked at Translator Yan, and said, "Ask, what did his father do when he came to China..."
Yan Xiaowei nodded. He could see that Zhuang Rui was the leader of the team. After communicating with Zhongchuan, he said to Zhuang Rui: "He said that his father was an explorer and wanted to cross this land.
Desert, I arrived in the North Gobi Desert, but I didn’t expect to crash here..."
"Explorer?"
Zhuang Rui laughed playfully. He calculated the time. When Lao Zhongchuan came to China, it should be the time when the two countries had just established diplomatic relations. People had just started to interact with each other, so they couldn't wait to come to this place where birds don't shit. Is it just
Is it for adventure?
"Okay, let him follow, but I hope he can keep his promise and give some compensation to the descendants of those who were killed in the town when he returns..."
Zhuang Rui nodded and agreed to Nakagawa's request. He wanted to see why this Japanese, who had a "fate" with him and others, came to this desert alone for two generations.
"Thank you, thank you, I will definitely compensate those who died with my father..."
Zhongchuan bowed his body again, his eyes shining with joy. He was afraid that if Zhuang Rui and others were excluded, this trip to China would be fruitless.
Seeing this situation, Erdan and Yan Yilan had no choice but to follow the others to the devil's restricted area again. After resting for a while, the group turned around and followed the camel's footprints to where they came from.
…
"This is it, Xiaozhuang, the camels can't go down, because once the camels fall into the quicksand, they will keep struggling..."
More than two hours later, the group came back to the sand dune. Looking at the silent sand surface more than a hundred meters ahead, Erdan and others' faces were full of unknown and fear.
"Okay, Professor Man, it's getting late now, let's get something to eat and set up the tent first..."
Zhuang Rui held the telescope and could clearly see the footprints of the two camels and the place swallowed by the quicksand. He could now imagine the mood of Erdan and others who watched the camels suffer the disaster.
After seeing the dead desert in front of him with his own eyes, Zhuang Rui couldn't help but become cautious. He wanted to find time at night to use his spiritual energy to survey first. If there was really no route through the quicksand area, he would have to give up.
This time we visited the ancient temple ruins.
"Okay, let's survey this quicksand area tomorrow morning. I hope the area will not be too large..."
Professor Man nodded. Quicksand was originally caused by groundwater. According to Professor Man's inference, perhaps it was after this oasis was eroded by wind and sand, but the underground water source was not exhausted, that it was formed in just a few decades.
Quicksand area.
In the evening, no one lit a fire to cook anymore. After everyone ate some dried meat, it was already dark. Everyone set up their tents and went to rest. Today was a thrilling day for the people here in Erdan.
.
…
Through the reflection of the moonlight on the sand surface, you can see the crescent-shaped dune chain, rare ridges of sand, honeycomb-shaped contiguous sand dunes, and desert flowers carved by sharp winds. The desert and the moonlight merge into one, which is called
It is nature that has created a beautiful picture.
The lonely moonlight poured down on the surface of the desert like water, giving people a dreamlike feeling. Zhuang Rui quietly got out of the tent and looked at this rare scenery. For a moment, he forgot his original intention.
Taking a deep breath, Zhuang Rui firmly imprinted this beautiful scenery into his mind, and then closed his eyes. After a while, spiritual energy poured out of his eyes, along the sand surface under his feet, towards the quicksand.
The area swept away.
"It's really different..."
When Zhuang Rui released his spiritual energy for about one or two hundred meters, he clearly felt that the sand in the desert ahead was very different from where he was.
The yellow sand under Zhuang Rui's feet is fine and dry, but the sand entering the quicksand area ahead contains a trace of water aura. Although it is very weak, Zhuang Rui can still distinguish it.
"One hundred meters..."
"Five hundred meters..."
"One thousand meters..."
Slowly expanding the range of the spiritual energy, Zhuang Rui's forehead wrinkled slightly. Now the range of the spiritual energy has reached one kilometer, but it has not yet left the range enveloped by quicksand.
