Daomu Biji

Two minutes later, Aning stopped breathing and died in my arms. Her pretty and unpredictable face with messy short hair held a surprised expression. We surrounded her until she finally breathed her last and became quiet, as if time had frozen.

Suddenly I felt like everything stopped. I felt so sad that I wanted to cry but couldn't. My chest seemed to be blocked by something.

It all happened so fast.

Although there were many dangers along the way, and I expected that something would happen to someone, I never thought that this woman would die, and that she would die so easily and suddenly. It just happened without any warning, and then the person who was talking just now died instantly. And he is really dead, and we don’t even have a chance to save him.

At first, I didn’t believe what I was seeing. I thought I was dreaming. How could this woman die? She is so strong, gorgeous and cunning, with a weak appearance but a strong heart. Although I don't like her, I sincerely admire her. If I have to die, everyone here is stronger than me, so I should be the one who is most likely to die.

But she did die, right in front of me, so easily, really, casually.

I suddenly felt like I was being knocked back to my original state. Although things were dangerous every time, several of us made it through. Even when I went out alone in the Qinling Mountains, I barely came back alive. I once thought that after these things, people like us are already very powerful and have considerable experience. As long as a few of us are together, although we will encounter dangers, most of them can handle it. Even if we die, we should die in The most dangerous place in the ancient tomb. But now, Aning died so easily on a snake. I suddenly realized that no, humans are inherently fragile animals. Whether it is Menyouping, Panzi, or me, in a place like this, death is still death. No matter how skilled or experienced it is, it is useless.

This is the law of reality, not the plot in novels or movies. As long as we encounter this kind of thing, we will all die. Even a stuffy oil bottle, if we were standing on the edge of the waterfall, we would definitely have died just now!

I raised my head and looked at the dense jungle in front of me, and I suddenly felt great fear and despair. At that moment, I just wanted to run away, ignore everything, and escape from this place.

At this time, the sky finally dawned. The sun shone down from one side of the canyon, and the surrounding area lit up. The water in front was steaming, and the splashing water curtain of the waterfall formed a white cloud over the dense rain forest under the sunlight. mist.

The beauty remains, but the beauty is gone.

Pan Zi is a person who can see life and death. Although he also had a look of pity on his face at this time, he was much calmer than us. He was just seriously injured and couldn't say much. He told us that it was an accident. Although it was very Suddenly, we have to accept that we don’t know if there are any similar snakes here, so we shouldn’t stay for a long time. We’d better leave and find a cleaner place before we think of a solution.

I thought about the cockscomb snake that Menyouping had just killed, and felt a little more pity in my heart. I turned to look at the snake corpse floating on the water, only to find that the corpse was gone. This kind of snake is said to take revenge on those who kill its own kind. However, it is unrelenting and strange. It is indeed dangerous to stay here. Thinking of Aning's tragic situation, he can't stay any longer.

I couldn't bear to leave Aning's body here for a while, so I carried it on my back, and the fat man helped Pan Zi. The few of them didn't dare to go further into the jungle, so they waded along the edge of the canyon.

It was impossible for anyone to chat, and the fat man couldn’t sing folk songs. I didn’t even know why I was still moving forward. My mind went blank.

One foot deep, one foot shallow, we walked forward in a daze for more than ten minutes, but we could not find a dry place for us to rest. The sun is getting higher and higher, and the coolness of last night's heavy rain is gone. Everyone has reached the limit. They are too tired. After a night of running, fighting, climbing trees, dying, and escaping, even an iron man has no strength, and it is even more deadly. Yes, as the temperature rises, the humidity here becomes very large.

The fat man couldn't stand this and was panting terribly. In the end, it was Pan Zi who was supporting him.

Just when we were thinking about whether we should come up and rest on the spot, suddenly there was a downward slope in the canyon in front of us. The rainwater stream on the ground became very fast and flowed down the slope. We carefully waded down the stream. , only went down to the bottom of the slope, and saw the exit of the canyon appeared in front of us.

The trees outside became sparse, and there was a black swamp, which was more than two hundred meters long, and then slowly began to become denser. Behind it was a large aquatic rainforest soaked in the swamp, all of which were small but extremely lush aquatic trees. Classes are intricate and unfathomable.

We all looked at each other, feeling a sense of fate. It turned out that we only had ten minutes to go to the so-called exit of the canyon last night, and we actually chose to stop. If we insisted on walking at that time, the result might be... Completely different.

After walking a few steps further, we came to the edge of the swamp. From here, the view of the swamp was limited, and it was not as vast as what we saw at the top of the valley outside. If we hadn't been walking along the mountain wall, we wouldn't have known we were out of the valley. There was still a dense forest ahead, and it felt like it was just a continuation of the canyon. Of course, there are still differences. The further you go, the more you walk, the more you feel something is wrong. The water is getting deeper and deeper, and the sludge underground is becoming increasingly untenable.

Fortunately, in the shallow part of the swamp, there is a large flat stone that protrudes abruptly from the swamp and is not submerged by the water. We were curious as to why there was such a big stone here. We waded carefully through the water and climbed up, only to find that this huge stone was carved with complex decorative patterns, and there was a very huge shadow under the water. It seems to be part of several large statues placed side by side.

This is the entrance to the City of the West Queen Mother. The Queen Mother of the West is the king of the Western Regions and has been the absolute spiritual leader of the Western Regions for a long time. So the entrance to the City of the West Queen Mother will naturally not be too shabby. Maybe this is a stone sculpture from that time, or It is a statue on the city defense building here, used to provide a mental deterrent to the envoys coming and going. Of course, after so many years, it is naturally impossible to preserve this kind of statue under the erosion of rain.

At first glance, I felt that the ancient patterns on the stone were very similar to those at Angkor Wat. When I looked closer, I realized that they were not Khmer Buddhist patterns, but because this stone had also been beaten black by wind and rain. Gray looks particularly ancient and mysterious.

Just as we were thinking about whether there were other ruins under the swamp if there was a collapsed statue here, we heard the fat man saying hello and asking us to look at his side.

We turned around and saw that in the sunlight, in the deeper part of the black swamp in front of us, there were densely packed and huge black shadows, which seemed to be covered with something. They looked like stones, and some were completely underwater. Menyouping and I looked through the binoculars and were surprised to find that all the shadows under the water in the swamp seemed to be ruins, stretching all the way to the center of the swamp.

The ruins of the ancient city of Queen Mother of the West were actually buried under this swamp.

"There should be a very lush ancient city in this valley. After the collapse of the Western Queen Mother Kingdom, the ancient city was abandoned. The drainage system collapsed, groundwater surged up, and rainwater carrying silt and sludge poured back for thousands of years, turning the entire city into ruins. The city is submerged under water. It seems that the scale of the West Queen Mother City is very large, and what we see now is only a handful." Menyou Ping said lightly.

I was also a little shocked. It was quite common for the ancient city to be flooded. This swamp was actually not very large. The ancient city at that time had developed to the edge of the basin, indicating that the civilization at that time had reached its peak. But in this case, the West Queen Mother Palace and Qi are also in the underwater mud. How do we enter?

However, thinking of Wen Jin's notes, this swamp was formed not a year or two ago. In the 1990s, in her team, Huo Ling entered the Palace of the Queen Mother of the West, also after heavy rain, so there should be There is a way to get in, it’s just that we haven’t reached that situation yet.

The stone was relatively dry, so I put Aning's body down. Everyone was exhausted and sat down to rest.

He took off his clothes and spread them on the stones to dry. The fat man wanted to start a smokeless stove, but he rummaged through his luggage and couldn't find any. It seemed that they had all been lost in the chaos last night. He couldn't make a fire, so he used fuel. The light cotton on the can is just fine. Unexpectedly, the swamp here is actually salt water. It seems to be connected to the water system of the nearby large salt marsh. Fortunately, the rain water washes down from the canyon and there is basically no smell on the mouth. Otherwise, we might not even be able to drink water. I first put in a few disinfectant tablets and made some tea. Then get water to wash your body.

After being soaked in water all night, the skin on my body was wrinkled. When I took off my shoes, my feet were all white from soaking. The skin peeled off as soon as I buttoned the uppers. Even if I tightened the uppers, I could still see the marks on my feet after taking off my socks. Small leech-like things were sucked into his feet and burned to death with a dagger. If you pick it up to your eyes, you can't tell what kind of insect it is.

However, if the swamp is salt water, the number of insects should be relatively small. At least there are unlikely to be saltwater leeches here, which is great news for us as we enter the depths of the swamp.

Pan Zi handed me his cigarette and said it was local cigarette. He asked Tashi for it when we were parting. It can make people wet. This kind of moist method here will be worn out in a week. Take a few puffs to prevent you from being unable to walk when you get old.

I took it and smoked it. The cigarette was wrapped in a plastic bag, but after last night's tossing, it was also wet. I choked after a few puffs and cried. But I did feel it. I don't know if it was physiological. The most important thing is psychologically. When I smoke, I feel that my mind is much clearer, and my fatigue is suddenly not so obvious.

The fat man also asked him for it, and Pan Zi pinched half of it and gave it to him. He ordered it for a few bites and then finished it. He asked for panzi again and refused to give it to him. At this time, we saw that Menyoupin was silent and looked thoughtfully at the swamp on one side. Pan Zi probably felt embarrassed that he was missing, so he handed half of the bottle to him. I thought he wouldn't take it, but I didn't expect him to take it, but instead of lighting it, he put it in his mouth and chewed it.

"Damn it, little brother, if you don't know how to smoke, don't waste it." Fatty protested, "This thing is not for eating."

"You know what? Eating tobacco is much more powerful than smoking it. In Yunnan and Myanmar, more people chew it." Pan Zidao said, but after finishing speaking, he felt puzzled and looked at the oil bottle: "But I see, little brother, you don't look like an old man." Smoking gun? How do you know about chewing tobacco leaves? You ran across the boat?"

Menyoupin shook his head, chewed a few mouthfuls, and then spit the tobacco onto his hand to smear the wounds on his palm. I took a look and saw that the skin on his palm was white and turned up. Although there was no bleeding, it was obvious that the high temperature here also made it difficult to heal the wound. After applying it, he looked at Pan Zi, who looked at her with suspicion and distrust. My eyes were fixed on him, but he still didn't say anything. He turned to look at the swamp on the side and ignored us.

We are used to this situation. Menyouping seems to be very secretive about his own situation, but I understand that even he himself does not know the answers to a large part of these questions. "A person who appears out of thin air has no past and no future." , seems to have no connection with this world." This is his evaluation of himself, and it is really appropriate when I think about it occasionally.

We were completely naked, and with the evaporation of water from our bodies, we felt a little comfortable and relaxed. The fat man took out the compressed dried meat for us to eat. We ate it with tea and no idea. What a taste it is, it fills my stomach. I felt sleepy as soon as my stomach was full, so Pan Zi used his backpack and its contents to build a place to block the sun. He stood guard while the rest of us shrank in. Everyone knew very well that after entering the swamp, they might never have a chance to rest again. Now it was a blessing to have a sound sleep. They didn't have any extra thoughts. As soon as they lay down, their eyes almost went dark, and they fell asleep.

It was dark and dark, and I don't know how long I slept. I woke up in a daze, only to find that the surroundings were dark and my whole body was sticky. I rubbed my eyes and found that it was actually dark and it was raining again. Pan Zi fell on the luggage and fell asleep. Fatty was next to me, snoring, and Menyoupin was also sleeping deeply with his face turned inward.

The fuel cans in the distance were still burning, but they were turned blue by the rain and couldn't shine very far. I took out the lantern and lit the flame, and then wanted to wake up several other people, but at this time I realized something was wrong.

It turned out that the sleeping bag with An Ning's body wrapped on one side was opened at some point, and An Ning's upper body was exposed.