In the evening, the brigade was already approaching the dead woods. Meda looked up, and a black forest had appeared in front of him. He urged him to take a closer look, and the large woodland was indeed bare, with no green on the trees, only dry branches. The bark of these poplar trees is cracked, and some even have their roots exposed.

Some of these ancient trees were lying on the ground, some were reclining against each other, and some were still standing but their bodies were cracked. None of the two dead trees in this large area are similar, like the tragic scene of corpses on the ancient battlefield that had just been fiercely fought.

Murda looked closely at the backlit places of each tree, and sure enough, many dead trees would have a human face carved on the trunk more than a meter high. These faces are carved so lifelike that they look like they grew out of a tree. The expression on his face was hideous and distorted, as if he was suffering a great deal of torture before he died.

Seeing these faces, the Blackwater tribesmen immediately knelt down, threw their hands on the ground, and kept kneeling. Mo Dazhi said that the Huns have always been in awe of the identity of ghosts and gods, and the people of the Heishui tribe have personally experienced the catastrophe in the dead woods, and their kneeling also has the meaning of praying for forgiveness.

Murda took the opportunity to take a closer look at a dead tree in front of him, and found that the core of the dead wood was hollow, and the black hole inside exuded a strange aura. Emboldened, he reached in and felt around, but found nothing. He lit another torch and shone it inside by the light of the fire, and although it illuminated the inside, the place where the fire did not reach was still a black hole. It shows that the hole in the tree is very deep and should lead all the way to the ground.

When the tall sand mountains in the distance slowly swallowed up the last ray of sunlight, the darkness and depth of the night suddenly shrouded the dead wood forest. The people of the Black Water Tribes are like a great enemy, and everyone draws their scimitars and slashes at the danger of the night at any time.

The night was getting darker, and everyone was afraid to go forward. Sbuliao asked the people to camp on the spot and put them in a circle. You can't sleep at night in the dead woods, you have to wake up very much. Everyone held their breath as if they were waiting for something to come.

Murda felt that the hole in the tree was strange, so she picked up a torch and examined the dozens of dead trees around her, but each one was hollow. Moreover, the tree hole is very deep, and the light of the torch does not reach the bottom of the cave at all. Gradually, Murda noticed something like smoke floating up from the dark depths of the tree hollow, which looked like a thick fog. The temperature difference between day and night in the desert is very large, and now should be the time for the water mist to sink, how can there be fog rising?

The root system of poplar trees is very large, some of them are more than 100 meters deep, and the death of these poplar trees indicates that the groundwater level here is very low, so they can die of thirst for these drought-tolerant poplar trees. If there really is a mist of water that can float from the hole in the tree to the ground, then there must be water underneath, how can these poplars die?

Murda felt that there must be something wrong with the fog, and it could not be formed by water condensation. The fog had risen higher and higher, and had slowly crept out along the tops and crevices of the tree cavities. This fog-like thing seems to be quite dense, and it crawls out of the tree hole and into the ground. After a while, the mist was filled under everyone's feet, and they slowly climbed up the ground. Murda suddenly understood something and shouted

"Everybody drench their headscarves with water! Cover your mouth and nose! Never suck these fogs in! ”

The group hurriedly did as Meda instructed, but some of them inhaled a lot of thick fog before it reached their heads at the end of the fog. The men immediately staggered and began to dizzy, and after a while, they began to shout

"Don't call me by name! Don't kill me! ”

"Spare me my life, you can call someone else's name!"

"Why do you want to call me!?"

These people are all shouting and shouting, but it feels like they are talking to someone. This frightened the rest of the people, could it be that there was something hidden in the fog around them? Is it a human or a monster? Why can't I see it?

Some people wanted to go up and hug these crazy people, but these smokers all raised their scimitars and danced wildly, and everyone could not get close. These men danced their knives for a while, and suddenly the tip of the knife stabbed into their stomachs. After plunging into it, he pulled out the knife and threw it on the ground, and a terrifying scene appeared. These people who cut their own abdomen actually stuffed their hands into the knife along the edge of the knife, and then grabbed them in the stomach, grabbed the intestines, and dragged them out. While dragging, there was a hideous and miserable expression on his face.

Murda and the others were all stunned, although these people in front of them had painful expressions and screamed one after another, but they moved fiercely, as if they were pulling other people's intestines. After a while, the men lost so much blood that they fell to the ground and died.

At this moment, they saw swarms of large termites emerge from hollow tree holes, and the rustling sound of their march seemed to be a vague incantation sprinkled with thoughts. Ant colonies erupted from the dead trees and pounced on the corpses of the freshly disemboweled.

Within a few minutes, Meda was surrounded by huge termites, and the surviving people were jumping up and down trying to avoid the termite attack. However, the termites ignored those who were still alive and rushed straight to the corpses that had their stomachs cut open. After a while, the corpse was crawling with termites.

The termites lifted the corpse and carried it towards the hole. The bloody corpse, the miserable state of the intestines and rotten stomach, the hideous and terrifying expression, and the dense white termites all over the body. Everyone suddenly felt a hot surge in their stomachs, and they were extremely nauseous.

The carcasses were hunched by termites and carried into tree hollows. Some carcasses were too large to fit through the narrow holes, and termites began to bite the bodies that remained outside the holes. Without half a pillar of incense, the corpse's arms and thighs were bitten off one by one, allowing the post-termites to drag these unloaded limbs into the hole.

Some of the larger termites began to gnaw frantically on the dead wood to the south of the dead wood. After waiting for a while, they found that these large termites were carved into the dead wood, and their expressions were exactly the same as those of the corpses that were dragged into the dead wood. That's how the faces on the trees came from!

As the corpse was dragged into the hole, a large number of termites disappeared into the mist. Everyone stared blankly at the scene in front of them, and they were already frightened and couldn't move. There are also many pious Black Water people who fell to the ground and began to kowtow, as if these termites were immortals, and they must be sent off.

Meda wondered if he couldn't let time go on like this, he couldn't stay here for long, if the termites came back, wouldn't it be a total annihilation! Meda hurriedly told the men to flee on horseback and camels. Oddly enough, the animals also inhaled the mist, but did not react in any way. Murda didn't have time to think about it, so he took the ink turtle in front to lead the way, and everyone rode on horseback and ran with Murda.

The group ran for a long time, and it was not until dawn that the dense fog around them subsided, and everyone took a breath. Seeing the red sun rising in the east, the tense nerves eased slightly. The night's fright and tiredness made it impossible for the body to support it anymore, and many people were carried under the horses and fell asleep without getting up.

If you sleep like this, the increasingly hot weather will burn everyone to death, and you must create a place to shade the sun. Murda endured his sleepiness and set up his tent with the exhausted Blackwater people.

By the time everyone woke up, it was already approaching evening. Although he is still in the Deadwood Forest, the secret of the Deadwood's killing has been revealed by Murda. Everyone used wet bandans to plug their mouths and noses before dark, and they kept hurrying at night. Since the ecstasy smoke cannot be inhaled, these termites are helpless against this group of conscious people. After three days in a row, he finally walked out of this soul-devouring dead wood forest.

When everyone saw the edge of the dead wood again, everyone burst into tears and wept with joy.

Finally escaped!

Further on, there are large sand dunes one after another, but from time to time small oases will appear. The desert scenery of the long river and the sunset on this road made everyone forget the hardships of the road for the time being.

After crossing a huge sand dune, a large forest of lush poplars comes into view. In autumn, the poplar forests interspersed with red and gold are like ink in the hands of the painter, dotted with thousands of miles of Hanhai desert. Looking over the sand hill, there is a small lake in the woods, the surface of which is not large, but there is a little bit of white swimming on it. Meda and they urged the horses to rush over, and it turned out that the white ones were swans.

The scenery is picturesque, and Moda really doesn't want to go any further, and wants to rest for a while in this desert wonderland. Looking back on the experience along the way, it was really from hell to heaven. The group set up camp by the lake, took out the jerky they had brought with them, and began to eat. Murda didn't have the heart to eat, he paced to the shore and lay down on the warm sand. Listen to the rustling sound of the poplar forest rustling in the wind and let yourself fully integrate into this magical land.

These days, it's too tiring to be confused. When I finally arrived at a place where there were trees and water, I jumped out in a daze and wandered around.

Confused, he saw that not far away, Liu An followed a woman from the Black Water Department looking for something. The woman walked up to a small patch of plants and beckoned to Liu An

"This is Suoyang."

I picked a few plants and handed them to Liu'an. The stem of this thing is cylindrical, with a round protrusion at the tip, twenty centimeters long and five centimeters in diameter. The surface of this thing is reddish-brown, crumpled and ravine-like. The woman said

"Remember, don't eat too much at once. Cut it off the size of your thumb and eat it with lamb. Otherwise, it's too much, and I'm afraid you won't be able to stand it. My man once drank too much and ate a whole rod, and tossed me for a night, and he was about to pass out. ”

Liu An blushed and followed the woman to continue searching. The woman found a columnar plant similar to Suoyang and stopped, and said to Liu An

"This is Cistanche. Do you think it doesn't look like a lock yang? It's just that it's purple, while Suoyang is reddish-brown. Although the appearance is the same, the effect is very different. Men can only use it to replenish their bodies, but women can be terrible if they eat it. Alida in the tent next to me was a good girl, and she was always tepid when her men wanted her. Then one night, her man found a cistanche and stewed it in the lamb for her. Oh my God, Alida called our Blackwater stallion to go into heat that night. After that, those bad men in our Blackwater Department always wanted to secretly give us women something to eat. You have to remember that you don't get bullied by that man. ”

Liu An nodded, touched Cistanche, and then followed the woman to the forest to find Suoyang.

How smart the fox is, it rolled its little eyes and pondered for a while. Jumped up to the giant cistanche, plucked it off, and then jumped back to find Murda.

They spent the night by the lake, and the next day, with the first rays of the morning sun, they climbed over the sand mountain behind the desert.