Emma said: "When I was studying in the UK, I did research on Chinese cultural relics at the British Museum, and many things could not be said there, not to mention the British in Chinese history, and even Chinese no one dared to say that they were proficient in the inheritance of 5,000 years of culture." www.biquge.info At that time, whether it was materials or cultural relics, what attracted me the most was the culture of the Western Regions, and the most legendary and mysterious was the 36 countries of the Western Regions. The title of the Thirty-six Kingdoms of the Western Regions first originated in the Han Dynasty, and the Protectorate of the Western Regions was also established at that time, but in the end, the Protectorate of the Western Regions disappeared with the disappearance of the Thirty-six Kingdoms, and even some unexplained places appeared, such as the place where we are now, which originally belonged to a mountain civilization, but now they are all melted into this yellow sand, and there are different opinions on how it disappeared, some say that it was because of natural disasters, some say that it was destroyed in war, and the sporadic records in the history books make people wonder whether this country has appeared. It wasn't until the Republic of China that some foreign expeditions came to Xinjiang to explore, and they slowly got some understanding of this place, and some people found traces of the existence of the 36 countries in the Western Regions, but it was only a trace, and the antiquities brought out were inexplicably installed with the name of a country, which made our archaeological work even more difficult. ”

Emma went to show me a small bag, I took it and opened it, inside is a photo album, the photo took a lot of antique relics, the following is made some marks in English, there is a yellowed black and white old photo, the picture on the photo is already very blurry, faintly can also see that it is a city wall in the desert, very tall, there is a small pillar in front of the city wall, and the back is a very large castle, with an extremely strong Western style.

I asked Emma what kind of place is this? What does it mean to have a pillar outside the city wall? Emma said: "This is a person, the distance is too far, the age is too long has been blurred, this photo was taken during the Anti-Japanese War, and then countless organizations have sent people into the desert to explore, but no one has been able to find this place, the photo of this person in the second year after entering the desert, that is, the year the photo was published in the magazine, died at home without warning, the authenticity of this photo also makes many people doubt, some people say that this is not a place that does not exist at all." ”

It turned out that Emma was to find the place that appeared in this photo, and the old port farmer who did not follow us into the desert was listening to Emma's flickering, thinking that they were looking for the same place, and the old port farmer contributed money and efforts to help Emma form this archaeological team, as for the origin of the two of them, it is said that it was because of Emma's grandfather and the old port farmer's old friendship, but later the old port farmer settled in Hong Kong with his family, and later crossed the ocean to the United Kingdom, and the connection between the two families was broken. Emma spent a lot of time in museums and libraries when she was studying in England, and was only interested in the culture of the Western Regions. The old porter farmer never imagined that this little girl would make up her own mind.

After chatting for a long time, Li Guohua also looked a little embarrassed, and he was actually talking about his father. Looking around, looking a little uncomfortable, he walked over to the place where they were resting.

The gas lamps hanging on the beams of the house were swayed by the strong wind that poured in, the light flickered, the broken castle flickered, and several people looked very strange lying in their sleeping bags, and Li Guohua kicked in the direction of me in the sand.

A black thing fell not far from me, and when I got closer, a palm-sized black scorpion was lying on the ground struggling, probably kicked by Li Guohua's kick, the whole body was black, and the poisonous needle on the tail was blood-red, and it was flickered by the light of the gas lamp, and it flashed slightly, and from a distance, it looked like a red gem falling in the sand.

When I saw that it was a scorpion, I raised my foot and stepped on it, and I heard a soft sound of gabba in my ears, and I stepped on it a little bit, and I felt a little strange, this scorpion was much bigger than an ordinary scorpion, and it was much harder.

Looking around, there was air leaking everywhere in the broken castle, I don't know where this scorpion came from, Emma asked me what was wrong, I said nothing is just a desert scorpion, let me trample to death.

Emma went back to rest, I and the fat man continued to sentry in the corner, the fat man had already slept once, the body was tired, I soon fell asleep, when I woke up, the sandstorm outside had not stopped, but it was much smaller than before, it was a whole night, I looked at the watch It was already more than ten o'clock in the morning of the next day, and it was estimated that there would be half a day before the wind and sand should stop.

Half-man-high yellow sand has been piled up outside the corner of our sentry wall, and the hole has become much smaller, and it is estimated that this castle will have to be buried deep under the yellow sand after another night's storm, but in this world's second largest mobile desert, burying does not mean disappearing forever, maybe one day a gust of wind will move with the desert, and this castle will see the light of day again.

Emma was directing the others to dig up the bones in the sand, and there were a lot of scattered bones, all of which lacked heads, and Dachun saw that the wind was a little weaker, so he went out to look after the camels in the corner.

I took out the dry food from my bag and watched them dig in the sand while eating, not because I didn't want to help, but because I couldn't help at all, I could only be a bystander with a learning attitude, and give us some experience when we work alone in the future.

The second, third and Gu Tong took turns digging sand and rummaging for the bones, while Tong Qin reassembled the bones and stacked them together, in her own words, even if the head was missing, the human bones could not be faked, whoever was was whomever belonged to whom.

Li Mei saw that I woke up, so she nodded to me slightly, seeing that her face was much better than yesterday, it is estimated that Tong Qin's wonderful rejuvenation has played a role. She has the scorpion I trampled to death yesterday in her hand, and as a biologist she is very interested in this kind of thing, especially creatures that can survive in such extremely harsh conditions.

It didn't take long for a few of them to clean up more than a dozen corpses, and there was a big stone platform at the bottom, the stone platform was loose, the weight and volume were completely disproportionate, one person could carry it, I and the fat man hurriedly went to take the handle, because the stone platform was nearly two meters high from the ground, one person was holding it below, and the three people above were dragged up at different angles.

The stone platform is an octagonal shape, somewhat similar to the gossip we see now, and is engraved with many patterns, like some kind of text. Emma said that these texts were similar to the inscriptions on some of the artifacts found in the Xiaohe cemetery, but no one has been able to explain the contents, and in recent years, as more and more people have studied this area, various speculations are also different, some people think that this is a ciphertext or symbols or something like that, which records some information about ancient religious sacrifices. The stone platform we found and the bones on the stone platform can be considered a sacrificial act. But this is limited to speculation, as there is no factual basis to back it up.

Gu Tong went on to explain: "Archaeology is mostly the result of a combination of speculation and relevant historical facts, and in ancient ritual activities, any kind of behavior is possible..."

When the fat man heard that these heads were big, he pulled my sleeve and whispered, "Hey.. This thing doesn't seem to be heavy, how much is it worth? There are so many camels anyway, how about taking them with you? ”

At this time, Da Chun ran in from the outside in the wind and sand, and told everyone that the sandstorm was almost over, and it would not take more than half an hour, and the sky would be clear, all with the blessing of the Buddha, and the sand would almost cover the entire castle, and at most it would blow for more than three hours, and these exits would be blocked by yellow sand.

I was still a little worried, although the wind was small, but I didn't know when it would stop, with Da Chun's words, a hanging heart fell to the ground. Gu Tong explained the knowledge of these ancient sacrifices, while the fat man sat next to me and kept muttering, since Emma told me about the age of the stone platform, he had made up his mind and was bent on how to take it away. I made a fire on the side, boiled a pot of tea, and prepared everyone to eat and drink before heading out on the road.

As soon as the tea was boiled, we drank two sips, Li Guohua stood against the wall and stepped on the ground hard, and a familiar voice came to my ears, huh... What a familiar sound. Suddenly, someone shouted, "Ah... Scorpion...", and someone shouted, "Oops... It's the same here, it's a big one. ”

I hurriedly went to look, only to see that under the dug sand pit, under the yellow sand that was originally covered by the stone platform, a big bag of sand and soil bulged out, gushing out like a fountain, and countless big scorpions with black bodies and red tails jumped out.

Desert black scorpion is a relatively common thing, in order to avoid the high temperature during the day, it will generally hide under the yellow sand, but I have never heard that there will be such a large group of activities during the day, at first we thought that it was just because of the movement of this big stone platform, which alarmed the black scorpion below, so that the original golden sand particles below, in the blink of an eye, were covered by the red and black big black scorpion, like a volcanic eruption.

Da Chun only glanced at it, turned his head and ran out, the fat man and the others still wanted to take the sapper shovel to shoot, but at this time, there were so many black scorpions around that they couldn't start.