Chapter 5 Chapter 5 Stone Statue

While thinking about it, we have come to the bottom of the statue, and the water flow is getting faster and faster. We see the swamp water flow under the tree roots. We don’t know what’s going on below. Pan Zi told us to be careful, saying that there might be some gaps in the ruins under the mud leads underground.It's like the mouth of a well. The fat man didn't listen at all, all his attention was attracted by the stone carving on one side, on which the miner's lamp slid back and forth. Under the focal length light, I saw more details. The stone sculpture seems to be carved from a whole boulder, and many places have been incompletely cracked. Because of the large amount of moss covered, it looks even more weird and ugly. Looking so close, On the contrary, I can't feel what the whole sculpture is.

After a few glances, the fat man shone the light under the water. The stone statue was almost wrapped between two huge dipterocarp trees, and the part inside the swamp was completely entangled by tree roots. Where the bottom of the water is relatively deep, there are also some strange shadows that are wrapped up at the same time, the shape is very irregular, and they are shrunk inside the roots of the trees.I don't know if it is part of the stone carving. The fat man looked at it for a long time, but couldn't see what it was, and I also wondered why the surrounding tree roots could be so clearly illuminated by the miner's lamp, but no matter how it was illuminated, it was just a shadow. It's not a shadow, but a hole.

And looking at the direction in which the attached crops on the tree roots are flying, it seems that the water here is flowing down into this black hole.Sure enough, as Pan Zi said, there is a gap under the statue leading to the ground. I thought I could see some weird things, but now I couldn't help being disappointed, so Pan Zi continued to urge us, so we had to continue to set off. The fat man was not very reconciled, and while flicking the miner's lamp to shine back, he said to himself: "Where does this water go? Is it empty under this ancient city?" I don't think so, this may be part of the previous city's sewer project, and some underground drains and wells can still be used, so there will be such a phenomenon.

The fat man said: "Then where does the sewer channel lead to? This is a low-lying area, no matter how low it is, there is no place to flow to." I thought about it, the drainage system of a general city, the outlet is the nearby big river, and finally rushed into the sea.Like this ancient city in the Western Regions, there are no large above-ground lakes or rivers nearby, but there must be underground rivers passing by, so logically, this drainage system should lead to the nearby underground rivers. However, in fact, there is very little rainfall in the Western Regions. The water is so precious that it is impossible to need such an extravagant system of "drainage". Generally speaking, in the investigation of Loulan and nearby ruins, the so-called drainage is ground drainage and then introduced into the well. It is a bit strange that there is underground drainage here.

So I feel that the drainage system here is either introduced into the underground river, or there are wells or pools for water storage everywhere in the underground of the ancient city, and the water is pouring into those deep wells and stored. These wells may be connected underground like the Karez wells in Turpan. When one well is full, water will be automatically sent to the other well until all the wells are full of water. It is quite possible that the hollow under the statue may have been the mouth of the well at that time.In the stone tower we saw just now, the fat man said that there was a sound of water below, which may also be the sound of the underground water diversion tunnel.

"This damn thing is digging deep holes and accumulating food widely. It seems that Chairman Mao's ideas also came from the ancients. Our Queen Mother of the West is really unambiguous." The fat man said. Pan Zi said: "But the rainfall here is so little, and it only rains once every few years. Such a large project may take hundreds of years. Will it work?" "If you look at it in the short term, it may not be worth the loss. However, countries in the Western Regions can be kings if they have water. Loulan is known as a great country in the Western Regions and only has a few thousand soldiers. The terrain here is strange. If there is a lot of water, even if the country is small, it can stick to it. , Look at the situation here, this oasis must have been formed because of this, trees can hold water, and water can support trees, the Queen Mother of the West at that time was obviously a person with foresight.”

Originally, the location of the ancient city of Xiwangmu was extremely low-lying, and such a setting could even introduce limited Gobi groundwater. However, if what I think is correct, we have been here for a few days. For such a long time, these wells It is still draining water, which means that the wells are not full until now. How deep are the wells and thoroughfares below? Pan Zi thought for a while, nodded and said, "That makes sense, but everything has advantages and disadvantages. If a war breaks out and someone sneaks into the city to throw poison, wouldn't everyone in the city be unlucky?"

I said: "There must not be many wellheads. I think there may be wellheads in the Palace of the Queen Mother of the West and the houses of powerful officials. The common people may use the kind of public wellheads I saw just now. These places must be heavily guarded. We have also seen ancient costumes. To put it bluntly, poisoning seems easy, but it is still difficult to do, after all, the mouth of the well is deep, and even the poisonous Escherichia coli cannot be killed if the poison is diluted.” Speaking of this, the fat man was stunned for a moment. He didn't know what he thought of. After thinking for a while, he suddenly said: "Damn, so the mouths of these wells must be connected, so we can go to the Palace of the West Queen Mother through the mouths of the wells."

I said: "It is true, but we are not fish, and the wells below must be criss-crossed, like a maze. Even if you are given the most perfect diving equipment, you may not be able to survive. Maybe, the well mouth below is only The thickness of the mouth of the bowl is even more troublesome." The fat man scolded: "Are you mocking me again? Fat Lord, what's wrong with me being fat." I said, "Damn it, I'm not mocking you. I'm not as thin as the mouth of a bowl." "I don't think so." The fat man said, "We used to learn basic lessons when we were at the branch, and we dug field ridges to divert water, and the width should be determined according to the amount of water. If there is such a heavy rain, is the thoroughfare of the thickness of the bowl enough? Xiao Wu Can't you count these?"

When I was studying architecture, I talked about this issue, but now I need to use it temporarily, it is completely useless, and I have to give up after thinking about it for a few seconds.He said to him: "I can't remember it now, I'd better think about it when I rest." Pan Zi said: "Okay, little third master, you two, stop thinking about this, hurry up, we can't get off even if the subway is so wide, and the most important thing for us now is to get to the third master as soon as possible." When I thought about it, I nodded immediately, and stopped thinking about it. At this moment, I suddenly heard the sound of a branch breaking in the woods behind me. At the same time, there seemed to be a trembling of the crown of the tree, and the sound of the leaves trembling was continuous. Know what moved a bit in the dense bushes.

We came all the way, there was almost no sound in the woods, and this kind of movement suddenly appeared, which shocked us all, and we all stopped and turned our heads to look back. The canopy was dense, and apart from the huge stone sculpture with a human face and a bird body, nothing could be seen clearly, and the sound also slowly stopped.The woods quickly returned to that suffocating silence. We looked at each other, this kind of movement must not be made by small things.It seems that there is nothing in this forest. Pan Zi picked up the gun and signaled us to prepare weapons, stop talking, and leave here quickly.We nodded, not daring to be negligent anymore, gathered our energy and began to observe the movement around us, and then quickened our pace. After walking two steps, the fat man suddenly let out a snort and said, "Wait!" When we asked him what he was doing, he turned around, pointed to the stone statue of a human-faced bird behind him, and asked us, "Where was its face facing just now?" When we looked at the stone sculpture, we found that the stone sculpture's face had turned around at some point, and its expressionless, moss-covered giant face was facing us.Because it is half covered by the trees, it looks like an unknown creature hiding behind the trees and peeping.