Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Sand That Eats Man
These red drawings are very simple, and each picture simply depicts some scenes and some small people. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. biqUgE。 info
In the background of the first picture, there are seven smiling people standing side by side in front of a Muslim house, and a person on the right seems to be joining them, but the person who joins them has a strange expression, it is impossible to tell whether it is fear or pain, or helplessness.
In the background of the second picture, there are eight people in the shape of a giant gate, but one of them is lying on his back, seemingly dead, and the other seven are surrounded by him with sad expressions on their faces.
The third picture has a lot of sandstone in the background, and there are seven people in the picture, two of whom are leaving the other five.
The fourth picture appears to be in the middle of a sand dune, and in this one there are only five people, one of whom is lying to the ground, and the other four are staring at him.
The fifth picture has no background, only three people are drawn alone, and a small line is written in cinnabar at the back of the picture: Do not take anything.
These pictures are simple, but they seem to me to be so shocking:
When we left Beijing and arrived at Retennamu, there were seven people, me, Zhang Meng, Xiaopang, Lao Zhang, Uncle Hai, Xiangzi and Ah Mei, and we had nowhere to stay, so we spent the night in the Muslim house where Ah Mei said that there were "unclean things", and then we met Su Ziwu, who joined us as our guide, and the scene was exactly the same as the first picture.
In the abandoned mansion of Tengremu, we were attacked by corpse locusts, and Uncle Hai did not listen to Xiaopang's advice and did not follow Wang Fatzi's method to remove the corpse poison of the corpse locusts, so that he later died in the strange giant gate-shaped sandstone place in the Devil's Valley, as depicted in the second picture.
Ame and Shoko came with Uncle Hai, who unfortunately passed away. It doesn't make sense for them to go to the Ancient City of the Sun again, so in the Devil's Valley, Ame and Shoko leave us, which is consistent with what is depicted in the third picture.
Under the leadership of Su Ziwu, we followed the route marked by the Loulan handscroll, and finally arrived at the first landmark site to the ancient city of the Sun - Sun Hill. However, after arriving at this place, there was no trace of Sun Mound, and our guide, Su Ziwu, unfortunately died tragically, which was exactly the same as the fourth picture on the yellow silk paper.
In the fifth picture, there are only three people left.
I don't know who drew these pictures, but I can only guess that they were drawn by the Taoist priest who was passing by the shop, but what is strange is that the Taoist priest was said to have met Su Ziwu a month before we arrived in Natenremu. And the picture described on this yellow silk paper is what happened to us more than a month later, no matter who drew these pictures, he actually "predicted" what will happen in the future, which is completely contrary to common sense, even "ridiculous"!
Su Ziwu has been worried about us since he saw us, and from time to time he touched the yellow silk paper he was carrying in his arms. I now realized that he must have known that what the Taoist priest said was true. What is described on this yellow silk paper is bound to happen, and he may become one of the people who dies. He had always been terrified by this, but he could not escape it, and I still vividly remembered what he said, "What should come is always coming, and hiding cannot be hidden", it seems that he has long known the misfortune that will befall him. But he never dared to take out this yellow silk paper and tell us, maybe because he was afraid that we wouldn't believe it, maybe there was some other reason.
But no matter what, the "prophecy" on this yellow silk paper has really come true, and this seemingly unreasonable and ridiculous thing has really happened in front of our eyes. However, what makes me feel the most creepy is that only three people are depicted in the fifth picture, and now, I, Lao Zhang, Zhang Meng, and Xiaopang are a total of four people, and where has the other one gone? Since the previous prophecy has been fulfilled, it also means that according to the fifth picture, only three people are alive in the end, and one of the four of us will suffer misfortune. Who could be this person who is about to befall misfortune?
Thinking of this, I felt chills and goosebumps all over my body.
", Dongzi, it seems to be us on this paper. Zhang Meng exclaimed.
I nodded.
"The person who painted this picture seems to have known what happened to us in advance, how is this—how is this possible? It's incredible!" Lao Zhang also said in surprise.
Xiaopang looked very calm, took the yellow silk paper from my hand and looked at it carefully, shook his head and said: "I guess it was the old man Su Ziwu's ghost, it must be that he secretly painted these paintings after the incident while we were not paying attention, I don't know what his purpose is, maybe, probably, probably...... It's a joke with us. ”
"Damn, fat guy, say you're smart, you guys are sometimes confused, don't you see another person dead in the fourth painting? The old man Su Ziwu is dead now, in order to play with our brothers, he 'painted himself to death', is there such a joke?"
"Then you say, what's going on with these paintings? Can anyone really pinch it? If you want to say that the fat man and I, I have this kind of magic power, and I don't usually use it much, but others, I don't believe that anyone still has this kind of Taoism. ”
"You fat guy is still joking at this time, no matter who painted this painting, at least the first four paintings have been realized, you look at the fifth painting, there are only three people painted on it, we have four people now, where is the fourth person? That is to say, maybe, maybe one of the four of us will have an accident. Zhang Meng said urgently.
"I don't think his fifth painting is accurate, think about it, now our guide old man Su Ziwu is over, let alone going to the Sun Ancient City, I don't think we can go back, how can there be three people left, and the whole army will be wiped out." Xiaopang deliberately said angrily.
"You fat guy, and crow's mouth, I don't see that the person in the painting is you, you see, in the fifth painting, how can there be a fat man? ”
"There are no three who look like hemp rods, and obviously the painting is not Comrade Zhang Meng, who is thinner than Huanghua. Chubby laughed.
Chubby and Zhang Meng are poor and endless, I know that Chubby deliberately jokes to avoid everyone being nervous, a very big advantage of Chubby is that no matter how big things are, they are not messy, and they eat and sleep no matter what the situation. Even if he is "dying", he can joke indifferently, his trait subtly affects everyone, with him, people feel very down-to-earth, and the tension is reduced a lot.
Zhang Meng was about to fight back against Chubby again, at this moment. A voice came from beneath our feet.
The sound was like the sound of countless beans sifting through a basket, coming from the depths of the stratum, and although it was not very loud, it was so wide that it seemed that the whole area was filled with this sound.
"Nima, what's that?" Chubby said.
"I don't know, but it's certainly not a good thing, everyone be careful. I said.
As soon as I finished speaking, I saw Su Ziwu's corpse trembling slightly in front of me. Before I could figure out what was going on, his body was suddenly in the sand and disappeared!
I was so shocked that I couldn't close my mouth.
"Damn, what's going on, how did the corpse get into the sand?" Zhang Meng shouted.
"Damn, it didn't get into it by itself, I think it was 'swallowed' by the sand, this place should not stay for a long time, everyone hurry up. Chubby said.
Before Xiaopang finished speaking, the camel next to Zhang Meng was also "swallowed" by the sand, and we didn't see how it went down. It's just a flower in front of me, and when I see it sink down, it's gone. And where it had been standing, there were no pits, no holes, not even traces.
"Hurry up...... Before I could say the word "run", I felt my feet sink, and my body fell straight down, and it felt like stepping on a trap.
Fortunately, the little chubby hand next to me was sick at the moment I fell. He grabbed me by the arm and threw me to the side, and I staggered to the ground. Looking at the ground where I was standing just now, there was still smooth sand, and there was nothing out of the ordeal.
"This place is too evil, go quickly!" shouted Lao Zhang as he jumped on his camel.
I quickly got up from the ground. Hurriedly jumped on the snow peak camel, Zhang Meng's camel fell into the sand, and he rode up the snow peak with me. Chubby also jumped on his camel.
They stabbed the camel's thigh with their thorns, and the camel was frightened, kicked its hooves away, and ran forward like crazy.
Zhang Meng and I rode the snow peak fast in front, and Lao Zhang and the chubby camel followed behind, galloping all the way. Not to mention, this camel is worthy of the ship of the desert, and it can run faster on the sand dunes than on the flat ground, and in the blink of an eye, we will gallop out dozens of meters away.
At this time, we heard the sound of "sifting beans" behind us getting louder and louder, as if it was gradually rising from the depths of the ground to the surface, but at this time we did not bother to look back, and rode on the camel and ran forward desperately.
After running for about seven or eight minutes, I don't know how far I had run, and the sound behind me was gone, so I took the Snow Peak Camel with me.
"Dongzi, why don't you run away?" Zhang Meng asked behind me.
"You should leave that ghost place," I said: "I can't run anymore, in that place just now, it is at least possible to return to Natenremu according to the route of Loulan's handscroll, although there is no old Mr. Su as a guide, with memory and snow peak camels There is still a chance, but running blindly like this, once you lose your way, it is equivalent to looking for death in this vast desert." ”
Zhang Meng nodded. At this time, Xiaopang and Lao Zhang also followed.
We stood there for a while, not daring to get off the camel, highly nervous, vigilant, thinking that if we got into the sand, we would jump off the camel as soon as we got into it, and at least we would be able to save people from being swallowed up by the sand.
After waiting for more than half an hour to see if anything like that had just happened, and then listening carefully, there was silence in the distance, and there was no longer that sound like "sifting beans".
We discussed it and prepared to venture back to where we were. Judging from the current situation, without Su Ziwu as a guide, it is impossible for the four of us to find the Sun Mound and then find the Sun Ancient City, we can only return to the place just now, and then try to return to Natenremu from that place by the same way.
After agreeing, we walked cautiously back in the footsteps of the camels, and it didn't feel like a long time to run over, but when we walked back, it felt like we had walked a long distance, and we saw that the sun was sinking in the west, and we were about to set under the dunes.
We climbed over and over the sand dunes, and we figured back to the area where we had just been, and we went up to a large sand dune, and looked ahead, but we were stunned by what we saw. (To be continued.) )