Seeing the monkey's miserable appearance, Dan Xuan seemed very distressed. Regardless of his own injuries, he bravely walked over and helped the monkey up.
"No need to say that, it doesn't matter, it really doesn't matter~~"
Danxuan's enthusiastic attitude towards the monkey was a bit uncharacteristic, which made Pangwei a little bit unable to accept it, and kept pouting at Chen Zhi.
Then he looked at Danxuan and said with a smile,
"Um~~, I think the master is almost good too!
It's getting late, so let's go into the ruins and have a look. After all, we've been working hard for so long and traveled thousands of miles to get here. This is serious business!
Since Master Danxuan is injured, why not stay here for now, the place inside is not big, we can walk through it twice in a while, and then let you go in together when it is safe!"
"No, no, I want to go too!",
Danxuan struggled to stand up and looked at the ruins of the ancient city in front of him with a somewhat profound look:
"I am the one who should go in!
More than 1,300 years ago, this was an extremely prosperous capital city, bustling with traffic and crowded with people, but now..."
Danxuan sighed softly,
"Everything is gone~~
It’s time for me to go back and take a look~~”
Danxuan's emotions were very natural and obviously came from his sincerity, but his words aroused the vigilance of Chen Zhi and others.
The three of them looked at each other and were speechless. Finally, the fat man smiled and said to Danxuan,
"Haha~~,
I said, Master, please stop talking like that, we are very scared~~
How do you say it, as if you have been here before? You even know what this place is like.
Please don't say that again, I'm too timid to even go in even if you tell me..."
After Danxuan heard Fat Wei's words, he smiled lightly and said nothing more.
Chen Zhi's original intention was to let Danxuan rest in the iron room outside. He was injured, and it would be a burden to carry it around.
However, Danxuan was very insistent and wanted to go in with them. In the end, they decided to enter the ancient city together and go in and out together.
The final destination is in sight, and there is really no need to delay any longer.
So after having a simple lunch, that afternoon, they entered the ancient city of Gaochang.
And here, it is indeed a ruins submerged in the yellow sand. Everything in the past is fully displayed here, including that period of history that no one knows...
In fact, in the morning, Chen Zhi had already stood high on the hillside and assessed the general terrain of the ancient city.
This ancient city can be divided into three parts: the outer city, the inner city and the palace city. The city has a wide area and architectural sites are scattered in all directions, especially in the southwest. It should have been a residential area in the past.
Under the telescope, there are also many large landmark buildings, which are well preserved. Streets run through the city, and every area is clearly visible.
Chen Zhi and others are actually very familiar with this kind of ancient architectural city. Especially in such a small country, the internal structure is generally very complete.
They drew several passages in the city on an electronic version, and after planning a route, they chose the nearest road and walked into the city.
It is very quiet in the depths of the desert during the day. Perhaps due to the geographical environment here, Gaochang City is no longer as hot as outside.
Ancient vegetation can be seen everywhere, as well as some scattered pots and vessels. It seems that a long time ago, this was also a very lush oasis.
Every oasis must have a source of water, but now this source of fresh water is nowhere to be found.
This kind of thing is also common in history. Water in the desert is very rare. The water source may have dried up, or it may not have gone anywhere at all.
After walking in from the city gate, I discovered that the ruins that looked low and low from the front actually looked so tall up close.
The ancient city of Gaochang has a towering city wall, criss-crossing streets, remnants of the moat still exist, and the city walls are basically well preserved. It is very magnificent when viewed up close, and is very rich in the style of the Western Regions.
The outer city is generally square in shape, with the thickness of each wall reaching about 12 meters and a circumference of nearly 5 kilometers. It is built with rammed earth boards. Some areas are repaired with adobes. There are protruding horse faces on the periphery. There are roughly two cities on each side.
The door is very elegantly designed.
These city gates have basically been destroyed, and the west and north gates are the best preserved. There are zigzag urns on both sides, and the inner city is in the middle of the outer city.
Most of the southwest two city walls are well preserved, with a circumference of about 3 kilometers. The palace city is rectangular and located in the north of the city.
The North Palace Wall is the north wall of the outer city. There are still many 3-4 meter high platforms in this area, which are much higher than the ground. Judging from this style, it should have been the location of the Gaochang Palace.
As they continued walking inward, they found a high platform in the north of the inner city, with an adobe square tower more than 15 meters high.
This kind of building was very common in the ancient Western Regions. This kind of square tower is commonly known as "Khan's Fort", which means royal palace.
Chen Zhi and the others walked down along the west side. There was a two-story building above ground and underground. There were many remnants of gold lacquer and silver carvings around, which may be the ruins of an ancient palace.
After arriving here, Danxuan's physical strength was obviously no longer enough. Big drops of sweat fell from his forehead, and his clothes were all soaked, as if he had taken a bath.
Chen Zhi and the others did not dare to take him any further, so they asked Ghost Sword to stay and watch him, while he and Fat Wei took the monkey and continued walking inside.
The road after that was quite good. The desert is such a place. Although it is hot, the sun makes the road surface very clean and there is no slippery surface.
As they walked toward the outer city, they discovered a large temple in the southwest.
This temple is the most prominent building in the entire ruins, and the wall color is different from the surrounding buildings, so it should have been built later.
Fat Wei and Chen Zhi walked around the temple. It was indeed a very big temple.
The temple gate alone is about 15 meters long, about 80 to 90 meters wide from north to south, and covers an area of nearly 10,000 square meters. This scale is definitely no less than any large temple in the Central Plains.
There are still remaining handicraft workshops and market ruins near the temple. It seems that it was once crowded with incense and very lively.
They walked in along the gate, and after entering, they discovered that the temple was very clean, as if the dust from the outside had not contaminated it.
The temple consists of a mountain gate, a courtyard, a lecture hall, a sutra collection building, a main hall, a monk's room, etc. It has all the necessary utensils. The colorful Buddha statues are still lifelike, but most of them are incomplete.
Chen Zhi took a closer look and found that most of the Buddha statues had flaws, forcibly damaged by hard objects such as iron.
This temple is so big that you can't see the end at a glance. Walking along the temple, you will find an amazing discovery!
It turns out that this is a Chinese-style temple. There is a downward ladder in the center of the temple. The ladder is made of silverware and is inlaid with gemstones and cat's eyes. It is very gorgeous.
Walking down the ladder, you soon found a small temple.
The courtyard of the small chamber was carefully laid out, the stone tiles on the floor were of exquisite workmanship, and the walls and ceiling had traces of gold foil inlays. It seemed like a place used by the royal family and nobles to pray alone.
And here, there is a horizontal stone wall.
On this stone wall, they once again saw the magnificent "Holy Buddha Crossing the Scroll Wall"
Only this time, there is more content on the wall...