Chapter 21 Chapter 21 Devil City

Aning was very strange and asked, "Why?" Tashi said to us: "My grandma said, the ghost city in front of you is not a tourist attraction. This Yadan landform is about 87 square kilometers, very vast, and it is still in the most primitive state without any road signs. , Walking in it at night, if you are not familiar with the environment, it is very easy to get lost. And it is said that there are many quicksand wells in it. In 1997, a team of geological expedition members disappeared in it. At that time, many people were dispatched to find it. , Then in 1999 when there was a strong wind, some photographers found two mummies in a sandpit when they were taking photos here, and the others have not been found yet.”

Aning shook his head after hearing this, and said, "Don't worry about it. We have GPS. If, as you said, the terrain here is so complicated, we have to go in. If we wait until dawn to find it, something may have happened to them." After speaking, he ignored Tashi's advice, greeted a few people, turned on the flashlight, and planned to go deeper. I think what she said is also reasonable. Tashi has always played the role of alarmist. Now, Aning will not believe all his words, and the behavior of foreigners is people-oriented. Let the three people go, in their hearts It is equivalent to killing them with their own hands, and these people cannot make such a decision.

I naturally wanted to go with them, because those three people disappeared when I was with them, and I had to try my best, otherwise, if there were any accidents, I would not be at peace.And it's completely impossible to fall asleep sitting here. Tashi was still going to talk, but at this time Zhuoma Zhuoma spoke, she shook her head to tell Tashi not to speak, and then quickly said something to Tashi in Tibetan. Tashi immediately showed a very incomprehensible expression, but Dingzhu Dolma's expression was very firm, and Tashi wanted to protest, but Dingzhu Dolma scolded him, and Tashi didn't dare to continue talking.He nodded to Dingzhu Zhuoma, stepped back, and said to us with a depressed face: "You are lucky, my grandma asked me to take you in." Then he turned on the flashlight and walked to his luggage, started Clean up gear.

I couldn't understand Tibetan, so I asked Aning what the old woman said.Aning also shook his head, saying it was too soft to hear, probably about collecting money from people and helping people to eliminate disasters. I was amused in my heart, so I glanced at Zhuoma Dingzhu, the old woman had already gone back to the tent, and it seemed that she was not worried about these things at all. Tashi cleaned up his equipment, asked us to get rid of unnecessary things, bring enough water and dry food, and a flare gun, then woke up a driver, told him our plan, and asked him to Stay outside, ready to respond, if you see us playing a signal flare inside, don't come in, just play a signal signal outside to point us in the direction.If you haven't come out yet, let others come in to find us after dawn, and he will leave marks along the way.

The driver agreed in a daze, and the four of us straightened up. Zhaxila took the lead with a long face, and set off to the entrance of the Devil City behind him. Our shelter from the wind is on the edge of Devil City. Behind the tall rock mountain where we camped is a steep slope that extends downwards. At the end, the castle-like rock mountain we saw during the sandstorm should be a relatively high rock mountain in Devil City. up. Tashi built an Arabic pile of crushed stones on the steep slope to mark the direction for later generations. He said that he would pile one whenever there was a turn along the way, and once he saw the pile of stones he had piled up while advancing, We can no longer move forward, and if we move forward, we will start to go around in circles.This is his bottom line.

We feel reasonable and say no problem. Soon we walked into the entrance of the city, and we entered the Devil City. The surrounding scene began to be strange. Looking up, under the moonlight, there were all black rocks protruding above the Gobi gravel. Because of the relationship between the light, we couldn’t see clearly. If you look at it, you can see the weathered gullies cut by the wind on the rocky mountain are very obvious.Under this blackness, the few places where the moonlight can shine are extraordinarily pale. This kind of feeling is a bit like walking on the surface of the moon.

I looked all the way, imagining the contents of the geomechanics back then, and I have completely forgotten it. I only know that the Yardang wind-eroded rock group in this place is not yet mature, probably because the terrain is relatively low, and the rocky mountains and mounds are exposed on the surface. The time is not long, and it has not been weathered very badly, so most of the rocky mountains and mounds are still very tall. In this case, we can only walk between the rocky mounds, and cannot climb up the mounds like other devil cities. However, the valleys under this landform are not flat, and the high places protrude above the gravel , and the low places are covered by Gobi.In geology, this kind of rocky mountain is actually considered to be the top of an underground mountain range. Although it is only a dozen meters high, there are huge rocky mountain bases a few kilometers deep under our feet. These mountains hidden under the gravel are Kunlun Mountains. offshoot of the mountain.Theoretically speaking, we are also walking on Kunlun Mountain now.

But I didn't have time to think about these academic issues. As soon as I got two or three kilometers away, Aning started calling on the walkie-talkie, and we shouted loudly, hoping that the three people could hear us and respond to us. In the silent Devil City, our voices are bounced into countless rebounds at once, overlapping each other, and can spread far.It sounds very strange from a distance, like a ghostly voice from the dark. Walking like this while shouting, I searched for two or three hours, and went deep into the depths of the Devil City. The flashlight swept the surrounding rocks, my eyes were blurred, and my mouth was numb from shouting.But there was no sign of the Caucasians at all, and there was no echo to our shouts. Only our own echo and a slight whine of the wind answered us.

We stopped to rest, Aning asked Tashi a few times, according to his experience, how to find it is better? Tashi shook his head: "You are the only way. We have walked about seven kilometers now. According to the straight-line distance, we have already walked a long way, but in fact we have already turned the direction unconsciously. Looking at the compass, now we Almost walking back, people here are like ants, they will take the S-shaped route unconsciously, so now I can only guarantee to take you out, I can’t give advice when looking for someone...It’s okay if they don’t move, if they I'm also looking for a way out, so what's the probability that you two teams will meet in the maze of 80 square kilometers?"

Aning was dissatisfied with this answer, and frowned, "Has any of you lost before?" Tashi piled up stones and shook his head without raising his head: "We never go to this kind of place at night." After he finished speaking, he sighed, not knowing what it meant. Aning looked at our expressions and encouraged us a few words, telling us not to lose heart.But obviously it didn't help much. We smoked several cigarettes, recovered a little bit, and then moved on. However, things still did not develop as we expected.Walking while shouting again, I don’t know how long I walked, and I rested four times during the period. Tashi piled up no less than 30 stone piles, but I still didn’t even see a person, and there was no response. The silent ghost city Li seems to swallow any sound for us.

And what makes me really feel terrible is that we didn't see any of Tashi's stone piles appearing, which shows that we are still moving forward. This ghost city is really unfathomable, and I don't know how much distance there is in it. Moving on, we walked into a canyon made of rocks. Under a big rock, we couldn't walk anymore, so we had to stop for the sixth time to rest. At this time, our voices were all hoarse, and we could no longer shout.We drank water in big gulps, everyone entered a state of aphasia, and our minds went blank. After a period of silence, the team doctor suddenly said: "Could it be that there are really devils in this devil city? They were taken away by devils?" The words were so abrupt that we all froze for a moment. Tashi gave him a glare and told him not to talk nonsense. Tibetans are more traditional, and such words sound uncomfortable. "The devil is definitely not there, and the people are definitely here." After a long while, Tashi took a sip of water, moistened his throat and said slowly: "It's just that I don't know what the situation is now." Several people fell silent again, pondering their own thoughts.In fact, I know that the hope in the hearts of the few of us is very small now. When I first came in, I thought that the probability of finding them was very high, at least some traces could be found. Now, I have no idea at all. After resting for a while, Aning looked at his watch and stood up, beckoning us to get ready to continue. We all stood up reflexively, took a deep breath, prepared to cheer up, and continued to shout. At this moment, several of us heard a loud cry from Ah Ning's walkie-talkie.The static sound is very loud, very ear-piercing, and I can't hear what it is. The surrounding area was terribly quiet, and the sudden sound scared us half to death, and we immediately looked at Aning's walkie-talkie. Ah Ning was also stunned, and it took several seconds to react, so she hurriedly picked up the walkie-talkie and listened carefully. The sound came again, the static harsh, but it was clear that it was someone calling. "They're around!" we exclaimed.Aning almost jumped up. In a terrain like Devil City, the walkie-talkie is almost useless, and the signal can only be received within a very short distance.Aning tried to receive such a signal all the way through debugging, but there was no result. Now the signal suddenly rang, and it was obvious that the other party's walkie-talkie was not far away. We breathed a sigh of relief, and Aning immediately started to tune the frequency, and the voice became clearer, but we still couldn't hear what he was saying.Then she yelled into the walkie-talkie: "I am the team leader, we are searching for you, where are you?" The answer was a series of indescribable voices, very disturbing, but with a changed tone, so it was obvious that the other party could hear us. The frustration just now was swept away, and the team doctor yelled "YES".I also took out my walkie-talkie, patted it, and adjusted it to see if it was a problem with the machine. Soon I also adjusted the sound, which was also noisy. Aning called again, and this time the voice was a little clearer. We tried to listen, hoping to hear what the other party was saying clearly. As I listened, I realized that something was wrong. The person on the other end of the walkie-talkie didn't seem to be talking. The tone of the conversation was so weird that it was hard to describe it. When I listened carefully, it seemed that a person was sneering viciously.