Xinjiang, China

In some ancient villages in the Tarim River valley near the Taklamakan Desert, there is an ancient legend that sounds unbelievable.

It is rumored that in the Taklamakan Desert, there is an ancient tomb that is haunting and moving.

The tombs often move between the upper and lower reaches of the Tarim River, but they never go beyond the desert or too far along the river.

According to the accounts of many people in the villages along the Tarim River, many people have witnessed the scene, including some elderly people, some women who often wash clothes by the river, and some children playing in the water by the river.

In the past years when information exchange was not developed, these rumors were never known to outsiders due to the inconvenient transportation from the northwest to the interior.

It was not until 1977 that Li Dingguo, then vice president of the Chinese Academy of Archaeology, overheard this rumor and was very interested in it, and immediately wrote to his friend Xu Guodong to help inquire about it.

Xu Guodong is Li Dingguo's friend and comrade-in-arms, the two were born and died together on the battlefield to resist US aggression and aid Korea, and both were wounded by each other, which can be described as friends of life and death. After Xu Guodong received a letter of entrustment from his friend Li Dingguo, he did not refuse, and replied that he would definitely help him pay attention to this matter.

Perhaps due to providence, Xu Guodong was working at the National Exploration Administration at the time, and was in charge of energy storage exploration in the Taklamakan Desert region of Xinjiang. So, in his spare time, Xu Dingguo kept inquiring about this matter in some ancient villages in the Tarim River Valley, and finally he got an exciting news.

In September of the same year, Xu Guodong wrote a letter to his friend Li Dingguo, detailing everything he had heard in the past few months, and finally emphasized that half a month ago, near a village called Tumu Village in the Tarim River Valley, some villagers once again witnessed the legendary moving tomb.

Li Dingguo, who received the accurate news, was extremely excited, summoned his colleagues from the Institute of Archaeology overnight, and agreed to set off for Xinjiang immediately a day later.

Half a month later, under the leadership of Li Dingguo, an archaeological team of 15 people came to the vast sand sea of the Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang. Among the remaining fourteen people, there is one person with a special identity, she is the only woman in the entire archaeological team, and she is also Li Dingguo's lover.

Although the archaeological team of fifteen people may seem inconspicuous, if some people who know the archaeological industry very well see this group, I am afraid that they will be shocked and speechless.

Among the 15 people who went to Xinjiang, except for Li Dingguo, vice president of the Institute of Archaeology, who held a pivotal title, all the others were extremely important figures in the field of archaeology at that time, and even some of them made remarkable achievements in their respective fields of research, and could be called the first people in their respective fields of archaeological research. Four or five of them have been featured in newspapers and personally commended by state leaders.

It can even be said that the team of these fifteen people accounted for half of the domestic archaeological industry at that time.

It is such a very important group of people, but at this time they are all gathered in this vast desert, although the personal invitation of Vice President Li Dingguo is part of the reason, but everyone knows it, the biggest reason is that everyone is curious about this moving ancient tomb that exists in the legendary desert.

That night, the group settled down in a small hotel. Early the next morning, the impatient crowd immediately rushed to the village of Tumu according to the location indicated on the map, which is a small village on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, so small that it is almost impossible to find on the map.

Xu Dingguo was responsible for receiving his friends and his party, and under Li Dingguo's repeated requests, he began to help prepare the tools and materials needed for this archaeological research, dry food, water, and gas masks were indispensable. Just in case, Li Dingguo even asked his friends to find as many things as possible for some tomb robbers, such as the black donkey's hooves touching the golden talisman.

Near the desert, Tumu is a Uyghur village populated by Uighur residents. When Xu Guodong left, Li Dingguo arranged for the accompanying archaeologists to rest in the room, and he and his lover found the village chief of Tumu Village, a young man who was only twenty-six or seventeen years old, and asked him to help act as a temporary interpreter in the village.

Subsequently, the young man began to take Li Dingguo to visit some elderly people in the village, hoping to get more news of the ancient tomb from their mouths.

After walking around the village without any gain, the young man finally took Li Dingguo to find an old man named Ayino in the east of the village, and heard an even more terrifying news from his mouth, that ancient tomb would not only move, but also eat people!

Cannibalism? Despite being well-informed, the simple words of the old man Ayino still scared Li Dingguo a lot, after all, this kind of strange thing is unheard of, and the ancient tomb will keep moving, which is already a little confusing. An ancient tomb that moves, and eats people, is it said that this ancient tomb is alive and alive?

Li Dingguo didn't dare to think about it further, this kind of thing, even Li Dingguo, who has been engaged in archaeological work for half his life, is a little uncertain, and even feels a little ridiculous.

After a brief loss of consciousness, the shock in Li Dingguo's eyes disappeared completely, and was replaced by an unprecedented blazing gaze. If what the old man said was true, Li Dingguo could no longer imagine what kind of sensation it would cause when this ancient tomb was excavated and released to the public.

Li Dingguo, who got this bombshell news, no longer had the heart to continue to inquire in the village, and after saying goodbye to the old and young people of Ayino, he returned to the archaeological team's station. Just ten minutes later, the archaeological team gathered again in Li Dingguo's tent.

"What? And the tomb will still eat people? How is this possible? Sure enough, when Li Dingguo told the news he heard from the old man Aino, all the members of the archaeological team were deeply shocked without exception.

"Dean Li, could it be that you heard it wrong, the ancient tomb is not alive, how can it be possible to eat people?"

The person who spoke was called Jia Fang, not tall and very thin, and always wore a pair of myopic glasses with thick lenses on weekdays, giving people the first impression of being a weak scholar with a polite and powerless image. Not only Jia Fang, but the rest of the archaeological team also looked at Li Dingguo with expectant eyes, obviously waiting for Li Dingguo's reply.

"I'm not wrong, and you didn't hear me wrong, that's exactly what Old Man Aino told me." Li Dingguo shook his head, and after a slight pause, he continued: "Actually, like you, I was so shocked that I couldn't speak when I first heard the news. ”

The atmosphere in the tent suddenly became quiet, and only the rapid breathing of the archaeological team members could be heard in the entire tent.

"Based on all the information we have heard so far, what do you think of this unknown and mysterious tomb?" Seeing that everyone in the archaeological team fell silent, Li Dingguo had to ask again.

"Dean Li, I think there are two possibilities for the ancient tomb. The first is that the tomb does move, but none of us have ever seen it, and I don't dare to say for sure. The second is that the strange appearance and disappearance of the ancient tombs witnessed by the villagers will be a mirage phenomenon in the desert? We can assume that the real location of the ancient tomb is located somewhere in the desert, and finally because of the mirage phenomenon, it continues to appear near some villages, which is only fortunate to be witnessed by the villagers of some villages, and finally it is spread by ten to hundreds, and gradually spread to the gods. "It's still the archaeological team member named Jia Fang who is talking.

"Although I also think that the second scenario mentioned by Comrade Jia Fang is more likely, how to explain that the ancient tomb will eat people? According to the old man of Aino, there were a few bold villagers in this village who approached the tomb out of curiosity, and all of them disappeared strangely. If the appearance of the ancient tomb was just a mirage, the mysterious disappearance of those villagers would not be explained. After speaking, Li Dingguo's brows were almost furrowed.

The atmosphere in the tent fell silent again, and Jia Fang's explanation of the mirage seemed to be very reasonable, and it was easiest to use modern science to explain the strange phenomenon that the ancient tomb would move and change position, which could not be explained by common sense. It's just that the old man Aino's sentence that the tomb will eat people makes the mirage's explanation a little unconvincing.

But no one knew that even more creepy things were yet to come.

Early in the morning two days later, Xu Guodong returned to Tumu Village again and brought over the archaeological materials prepared by Li Dingguo. Except for the Luoyang shovel and the black donkey's hooves touching the golden talisman that Li Dingguo proposed later, most of the necessary materials are basically gathered.

Because he was worried about the ancient tomb, Li Dingguo did not have the heart to continue to stay in Tumu Village, and after having a brief lunch with his friends and the archaeological team, he immediately set off to look for the ancient tomb along the Tarim River further downstream.

"Take care!" Xu Guodong didn't say much, but simply said two words as a goodbye with a complicated expression.

Watching the backs of the archaeological team gradually drift away, Xu Guodong had a faint bad premonition in his heart, and always felt that there would be problems with the archaeological team's desert archaeological operation.

Soon, Xu Guodong's hunch became a reality. Just ten days after the archaeological team left Tumu Village, Li Dingguo was admitted to a hospital in a small county town. Except for him, the rest of the archaeological team, including his lover, were nowhere to be found, and remained forever in the desert of Taklamakan forever.

"Grimace, cannibalistic grimace!" On the hospital bed, Li Dingguo, whose eyes were hollow like walking corpses, shouted hysterically, and his voice had become completely hoarse.

"I really don't know what it is that can scare a person like this." In the ward, a doctor in a white coat shook his head, looking very sorry.

"Dingguo, what exactly did you encounter in the desert? Did you find the tomb? In the ward, seeing his friend who suddenly became like this, Xu Guodong's face was full of sadness, but he couldn't help but ask softly.

"Grimace, cannibalistic grimace!" Hearing the word ancient tomb, Li Dingguo's expression became extremely distorted and terrifying, but what came out of his mouth was still this sentence that was repeated countless times after being sent to the hospital, which made people a little confused.

Xu Guodong didn't ask anymore, he knew that with Li Dingguo's sudden madness and the collective disappearance of the archaeological team, perhaps the secret of the ancient tomb in the desert had been buried in the yellow sand, and it was difficult for outsiders to know it anymore.