Li Longsheng had a dream.

He dreamed that a huge and friendless dragon lurked under the lake, quietly poked out the dragon's whiskers and dragon's eyes, and peeked into the brief happy time of the man and woman, until the flood of desire receded with the ripples of Rob Naoer, and the dragon dived back to the quagmire of time two thousand years ago......

As the dawn approached, Li Longsheng and Yingka embraced each other to watch the oasis wake up from the night.

"Inka, I'm sorry."

"Don't say that, from the first day I met you, I knew that you were mine."

If Lop Nur is the Garden of Eden, Inka is indeed Eve, but Li Longsheng is not Adam.

When the day dawned, there was a commotion in the village, and the Rob people all went out, as if something big had happened?

Joy is so short-lived.

Yingka put on her dress, combed her hair, and held hands with Li Longsheng. She is not afraid of the openness of their relationship, and she also wants to swear an oath of sovereignty over him to other girls.

Li Longsheng saw more than a dozen camels entering the village, and the people on the humps were dusty, and the leader was the king of the small county of Ordos. Then came Wang Jiawei, a professor of history at Peking University, and finally Sven Heding, a great Swedish explorer.

Inka in the crowd stares at the "Europa" on a camel - a man in his fifties who looks a lot like his father as described by his mother. Back then, my father left Lop Nur and left a photo, which my mother always cherished, and later left it to her daughter. Inga will never forget this face, even after twenty years of age.

In fact, Li Longsheng wanted to jump up and rush into the archaeological expedition, but when he looked at Yingka beside him, he bowed his head in shame.

Suddenly, the sharp Mongolian eyes of the little county king were like goshawks grabbing their prey: "Li Longsheng!" ”

There was nowhere to run, and Sven Hedin saw him too. Li Longsheng walked up to the camel in embarrassment, pretended to be excited, and hugged Xiaojun Wang and Professor Wang.

The archaeological expedition got lost in the desert and walked for seven days and seven nights, and finally came to Lop Naoer.

There is no need to wait, and there is no need to choose, Li Longsheng stepped on the camel, as if he had never known Yingka.

Suddenly, Inka rushed up and grabbed his trouser leg: "You're leaving?" ”

"I'm sorry, it's my job." Li Longsheng buried his head in the hump, and in a voice that he could only hear, "I thought I would never be able to get out of Lop Nur for the rest of my life, but I was wrong." ”

There is a sentence in the great poet Yuan Zhi of the Tang Dynasty in "The Biography of Yingying": "The beginning of chaos is abandoned." "Throughout the ages, there have been countless stories with this stalk. It's just that Li Longsheng and Yingka have reached the end at the beginning, which is inevitably a little too hurried.

The little king recognized Inka: "Hey! Isn't this a girl in a mirage? ”

Sven Hedin also saw her. The rising sun casts a golden glow on her half-race face. It seems familiar, like a person, twenty years ago......

His heart tugged, and he didn't dare to look at Inka's face again. After the archaeological team and the camels finished replenishing the water, he ordered to immediately go deep into the desert and search for the ancient city of Loulan.

Bidding farewell to the sparkling Rob Naoer, Sven Hedin walked in the front, Li Longsheng followed closely behind him, both of them with their heads bowed, as if they would melt in the sun at any time.

Inka rowed her canoe to the end of the lake and looked at the back of the camel caravan – there were two men, her father, whom she had been waiting for for twenty years, and the man she had just entrusted to her life.

It's a pity that they're the same kind of people.

What Li Longsheng didn't know was that Yingka had been looking for his father, not to find his lost father's love, but to kill him with his own hands.

Because his mother hated him, a man from Europa, who had broken his oath and deceived and abandoned his mother, leaving them to live in exile.

Her dream since she was a child was to kill her father and avenge her mother and herself.

The canoe stopped on the reed shallows, and Inka stood on tiptoe and sang a song in the direction where the camel caravan had disappeared. This is the song that her mother taught her, and it is said that it has been passed down in Lop Nur for 2,000 years, and the last Queen of Loulan sang before she died.

Mom said that this song could not be sung easily, because once it was sung, it would make the camel lose its way and enter another world.

To hell with Dad!

To hell with you, my dear!

Yingka sang this song heartily, like a winter reed flying in the desert, geese flying south in the sky falling one after another, the fish of Rob Naoer jumping out of the water, the horses spreading their hooves and running wildly, and the ghosts in the grave chirping......

A tear flew out of the corner of her eye, but only one.

This is the curse of Loulan, and it is also the curse of Yingka.

A mile away, Li Longsheng on the back of a camel heard this melodious and tactful ancient song of Loulan. He couldn't understand the meaning of the lyrics, it seemed to belong to the Loulan language of Tocharian, it seemed to be Inka?

Unexpectedly, this little woman's body contained such a powerful explosive force, and the wind from west to east swept the entire Lop Nur.

The ancient song of Loulan is full of breath, desolate and tragic......

The corners of Li Longsheng's eyes couldn't help but get wet, I don't know if he was infected by a certain breath out of guilt. The camels no longer obeyed, and knelt collectively in the desert, looking up to the sky and screaming, as if to accompany the song of Inka.

At the end of the song, the local camel drivers looked frightened, and they all said that once they remembered this song, something big would happen, and suggested that the archaeological team immediately return to Luo Bu Naoer.

Sven Hedin was furious and forced everyone to move on, and they must spend the night in the ancient city of Loulan tonight. In fact, he refused to return to the village of the Rob people because he did not dare to see Inka's face again.

The Swedes alternately said in German and English: "Twenty years ago, on March 28, 1900, I was surveying in Lop Nur, and my guide was a local man named Aldik, who wanted to find the lost pickaxe, and followed the moonlight to find the stupa and the ruins - this is Loulan. ”

Professor Wang Jiawei told the truth: "Sometimes, archaeological excavations are driven by chance and luck. ”

"Aldick forgot how lucky the pickaxe was! Otherwise, I would never have been able to return to this ancient city, an important discovery that brought new light to the ancient history of Central Asia, which may not have been completed to this day. This quote from Sven Hedin comes from his memoirs, "I have unearthed countless treasures in the city of Loulan, including the five-baht coins of the Han Dynasty, silk fabrics, glassware, weapons, copper and iron tools, bronze mirrors, ornaments, and Gandhara style works of art in the Han and Jin dynasties. There are also Han and Jin wooden tablets, paper documents......"

"Mr. Hedin, not long after you left, Stein also came to Loulan and also unearthed a large number of treasures and documents."

The little king added, the subtext is - you are all a raccoon dog.

"There are endless secrets and treasures in Loulan, even if I come ten more times, I may not be able to dig them all." The great Swedish explorer did not understand the Mongolian prince's words, "We must carry forward the brave and fearless adventurous spirit of the Europeans!" ”

The camel caravan once again passed through a wasteland, and circled all day, but did not find a shadow of the ancient city of Loulan. Sven Hedin and Wang Jiawei kept checking the map and were surprised to find that they had circled the "big ear" area of Lop Nur at least twice.

Lost?

Panic infected the archaeological expedition, and the camel drivers exchanged heads and ears - camels are human animals, and the ancient song of Loulan seems to hypnotize the camel's brain, making these animals lose their way, and even deliberately go in the wrong direction.

As the sun sets, an earthy yellow forest gradually rises on the large white salt marshes.

"Yadan landform again?"

Li Longsheng muttered to himself, "Yadan" comes from the local language of Xinjiang, which means a small mountain with a steep wall. Ever since European explorers came to Lop Nur, they have brought the name of this landform to the world.

The little king had the eagle eye vision of the Mongols, and grabbed the telescope to turn it up: "My God, it's a city!" ”

A city in Lop Nur?

In the wilderness a kilometer away, there stands a row of towering city walls, interspersed with tall pagodas and city towers, which are by no means naturally formed Yadan landforms, but the ruins of an ancient city.

But twenty years ago, Sven Hedin discovered the ruins of Loulan, which was nothing more than a ruin, without such a complete city wall.

The Swedish explorer whistled twice, as if fate had once again favored him. The discovery that shocked the world is just around the corner, like the ancient city of Petra in the Jordanian desert. He ordered all the camels to march briskly until they were faced with a gate that was as good as new.

Incredibly, this is not an ancient ruin, but a living city. The plate partitions of the rammed earth walls are clearly recognizable. The wooden city tower is in the style of the Han Dynasty, and there are tall Han Que on both sides. The pagoda is also in the style of the Western Regions, and the city gate hole is carved with a Gandhara pattern, which is a typical Silk Road city.

Sven Hedin lifted the frame of his glasses, and a cloud of black smoke rose from inside the city gate.

"Don't go in."

The little king issued an English warning, and the camels under his crotch trembled.

The Swedes drew their horsewhips and shouted furiously: "Enter the city!" ”