Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Sha Yilin

It takes a few days to travel from Beijing to Urumqi in Xinjiang by train. We have guessed many possibilities along the way, and even suspected that the traffickers are talking nonsense and will make us run for nothing.But after thinking about it, the trafficker has no reason to lie to people. Anyway, he got both stolen goods, so he must be honest.I have seen and smelled the mud of those ancient objects carefully, and it is indeed formed by the accumulation of dead leaves and slowly decaying.After inspection, the sludge was found to be the dead leaves of spruce and birch. In the south of Bogda Peak in Tianshan Mountain, there is indeed a large area full of these two kinds of trees.

Now, Tianshan Mountain has long been banned from logging, and the lumberjack was probably invented by traders. It is too late to plant trees now, so no one has the heart to log.However, none of us have been to Tianshan Mountain, maybe there are tree thieves, there are no wonders in the world. Xinhong and I came to Xinjiang completely as tourists. After getting off the train, we didn't plan to rest in Urumqi, and we went straight to Tianshan Mountain.Bogda Peak is 70 kilometers away from Urumqi. Driving from Urumqi, you can go to Fukang first, and then go south through the huge alluvial fan of Sangong River to enter the mountain pass.

Fukang City is located at the northern foot of Tianshan Mountain, the southern edge of the Junggar Basin, adjacent to Midong District of Urumqi.Fukang has a long history. As early as the Han and Tang Dynasties, it was an important station on the ancient Silk Road. In the Ming Dynasty, the city of Tnagar was built. Fukang was given the name Fukang in the meaning of "Kang". In November 1992, it was withdrawn from the county and established as a city. We rented a car in Fukang to go there, but unfortunately we were short of cash, so we had to brazenly bargain.Because of the development of tourism, the drivers here are bilingual in Chinese, communication is not a problem.The driver brother was also straightforward, seeing that we were young people and the clothes on our bodies were not very luxurious, so he agreed to our low price.Along the way, we asked him about the Tianshan Mountains, whether there are forests full of spruces and birches on the south side of Bogda Peak in Tianshan Mountains.Who knows, as soon as I spoke, the driver slammed on the brakes and stopped going.

Fortunately, there were not many vehicles passing by on the wide black road, and the sudden braking did not cause any accidents.The driver's brother was terrified, as if seeing a ghost, he said: "You are not asking about Sha Yilin, are you?" "What is Sha Yilin?" Xinhong heard something, so he asked immediately. "Oh, this Sha Yilin, as long as anyone who has lived in Tianshan knows that you can't go!" The driver brother said nervously, "If you really want to go, I advise you to go home immediately." "What time is it, do you still believe this?" I thought it was funny, seeing that he was quite educated, how could he know that he was superstitious when he opened his mouth.

"I'm not lying to you!" The driver brother said seriously. It turned out that on the south side of Bogda Peak, that is, the south side of Datian Lake, on a hillside more than 3,000 meters above sea level, there is a forest with spruce, birch, and some small bushes growing there.In the entire Bogda Peak, only the southern slopes have a large forest like this, and the rest are overgrown with weeds and weeds.It is said that no one has entered that forest for thousands of years, because very few people have entered, so the fallen leaves have turned into thick black mud, and even some places have produced mud.

I don’t know when the legend of Sha Yilin began to spread. The local people will not go to Sha Yilin whether they are hunting or logging.In the language around the Tianshan Mountains, Shayi means death as well as a demon.According to legend, there lived a red demon in the Shayil Forest. Once outsiders entered the forest, he would attach himself to that person, and would not leave until the person's energy was exhausted.Everyone who goes in will not come out alive, and even if they walk around, they will lose their lives.After liberation, a few lumberjacks wanted to take a walk in Shayilin in order to respond to the “Four Olds”, and wrote that so-and-so came here to shit.Unexpectedly, those few lumberjacks died around the forest before entering the forest.Strange to say, after the corpses of those woodcutters were carried back, there were bursts of red light flashing at night, and the whole corpses turned crimson.

Sha Yilin is a forbidden place in the eyes of the locals, and the locals dare not approach it at all.Those lumberjacks were all educated youths from Shandong. The locals had advised them not to go there, but they didn't take it seriously.Since then, the local leadership has put up an iron fence on one side of the forest, prohibiting entry in the name of closing the mountain for afforestation. When we heard what the driver said, we naturally wouldn't run away with our tails between our legs. We had to take our face into consideration, at least not to show cowardice in front of this driver.We have heard this kind of silly legend no less than a thousand times, and of course we don't pay attention to it.In order to let the driver continue to drive with peace of mind, we said that we were just asking casually and didn't want to go to that ghost place.

Xinhong and I discussed it in the back seat of the car, and felt that the place might be the place the traffickers mentioned. The black dead leaf mud can only be decomposed to that extent if no one passes by it for a hundred years, and because of this, Uncle Zou's corpse will preserved in the mud.However, those red monsters and their corpses turn red after death, why is this?Could it be that there really is a monster in Shayilin who takes people's lives? People who do archaeology or geology all the year round will encounter unexpected situations of nature. Maybe something happened to Uncle Zou in the woods, so he left and never came back.Our only purpose in this trip is to find Uncle Zou's remains and bury him properly so as not to become a lonely ghost.However, according to what the driver said, it seems that only local people know about Sha Yilin. Where did Uncle Zou hear it from, and why did he enter the forest? Could there be any ancient monuments there?

The driver brother said that Tianchi in Tianshan is divided into big Tianchi, East Xiaotianchi and West Xiaotianchi, all of which are scenic spots.After a bumpy journey, we arrived at the "Tianchi Shimen".Shimen is a natural mountain pass into Tianchi Scenic Area, with a width of about 100 meters on both sides and only 10 meters at the narrowest point.The two peaks of Shimen are facing each other, and a line is connected in the middle. It is a canyon formed by the cutting of the river, so it is also called "Shixia".The stone wall is towering, tens of meters high and about 100 meters long. It looks like two open door panels, and the stone is dark in color, like cast iron. No wonder the locals call it "Iron Gate Pass".

To reach Datianchi, you have to drive there, and there is a "Fifty Pantian" on the road.The reason why it is called "Fifty Pans" is because there are about fifty winding roads on the top of Shangtianchi, and the car turns around in fifty windings. If I were to drive, I would have rushed to the bottom of the cliff.After more than ten minutes, we came to the left half kilometer of the last set. Here is the East Xiaotianchi, 1860 meters above sea level.Xixiaotianchi is located at the bottom right of the third disk of "Fifty Pantian", with an altitude of 1660 meters.The environment of East Xiaotianchi is quiet, the water is clear and the bottom is clear, it is shocking and chilly.It is also called "Black Dragon Pool". It is said that East Xiao Tianchi was originally a swimming pool for fairies in the sky, but it was later occupied by a black dragon, so it is also called "Black Dragon Pool".The cliff on the north bank of East Xiaotianchi is nearly 100 meters high, so it is also called "Hundred Meter Cliff".At the end of spring and early summer, when the ice and snow melt, the water in the pool rises and leaks down from the north bank, forming a waterfall nearly 100 meters high. .

When we listened to the driver's brother's explanation, our hearts flew out. When we were enjoying the free tour guide knowledge, the car stopped again.His grandma, isn't this driver trying to rob him halfway?Didn't I just hear him talk about some scenery allusions, do I have to charge money for this? I was rather impatient, and just about to yell at him, Xinhong opened his mouth first and said, "Why didn't eldest brother leave?" "Aren't you trying to blackmail us?" I'm not as polite as Xinhong, whoever is honest doesn't suffer a disadvantage these days. "Oh, there is no way, the car is broken!" The driver turned his head and said helplessly. "What, it's broken?" I immediately felt that the driver was deliberately extorting money from us, and wanted to take the opportunity to raise the price.No wonder they were so happy when we bargained for the price. It turned out that they still kept a hand. It is not so easy to want to cheat. Xinhong asked the driver brother to check whether the car was really broken. Sure enough, the driver said that it was impossible to fix it all at once anyway.It seems that the driver really doesn't see money, and his heart is not dead.I was about to have a fit, but Xinhong said, it doesn't matter if it's broken, he was planning to walk to Datianchi by himself.Although I took the car all the way and didn't have to tire my legs, I lost all strength and couldn't move.The driver was sincere, and I didn't think he looked like a bad person, so I gave up and didn't make things difficult for him.I gave him the fare, but he didn't want it, saying that we couldn't be charged because we didn't take us to our destination.Judging by his posture, Ganqing is still a model driver, which made me feel a little bit embarrassed. Xinhong was a bit dull, and he really walked when he said he was going. When I saw the mountain, my legs went limp.This may not seem far away, but when it comes to walking, it is no different from the Long March.Who knew, when I followed Xinhong dejectedly, he suddenly ran away.This brat insisted on going up. I haven't asked him why, but now he's getting wind under his feet. Could it be that he wants me to die of exhaustion? However, when I rushed up in a puzzled state, Xinhong said something that shocked me.