Chapter 13 Arrival in Hotan

The journey from Wuhan to the Hotan region of Xinjiang was long, and Zhang Hefang sent people to start transporting the equipment to the Hotan area in the first week, while Fan Peixi and others were divided into four groups, each taking different planes and flights, and arrived in Urumqi first.

Although China's northwest is gradually being developed in recent years, its traffic is still unusually closed, and most of the Xinjiang region is dominated by deserts, and many cities are built near oases, but these oases are dotted and incoherent, so the traffic between them is still very inconvenient.

After arriving in the city of Urumqi at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, the eight of them regrouped, and in the desolate northwestern Gobi, they could not be so cautious. After that, they moved from Urumqi to Aksu Prefecture at the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, and then set off from Aksu Prefecture, passed through Alar City, took Provincial Highway 210, crossed the Taklamakan Desert from north to south, and finally arrived at the Hotan region at the foot of Kunlun Mountain.

Before the adventure began, the eight of them were already exhausted by the hard journey.

Since they set out from Wuhan, they have not stopped their journey, and they have not stopped for nine consecutive days, and the most difficult part of the journey is the journey across the Taklamakan Desert.

Although Provincial Highway 210 runs along a nearly dry inland river in the desert, the desert weather along the way – windy sand and heat – still makes them miserable.

For a long time, people in China have overemphasized the mystique of Tibet, but Xinjiang, located in the desert of the northwest, is also an unknown territory for many. Tibet has the majestic Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, as well as the mysterious and unusual Tibetan Buddhism. The most famous in Xinjiang is the vast desert of the Taklamakan region.

When the Swedish explorer Sven 61 Hedin came to Taklamakan and proudly declared that he was the first white man to set foot here, he took a arrogant posture, and later, his expedition team was almost wiped out in this desert, hence the name "Sea of Death".

In addition, people also have an extremely strong curiosity about the underground realm of the Taklamakan Desert. In the Uyghur language, "Takli" means underground, underground, and "Ramakan" means a place where people once lived, a fertile place, if literally translated, - a rich underground home. But the meaning of Taklamakan has become "once you enter, you can never escape".

A few people had nothing to do during the boring journey, so they turned over these wild historical anecdotes as talking points.

Fan Peixi was no longer interested in those things now, and along the way, he was repeatedly studying the golden mask that he brought out of the old man's cave in Shennongjia.

For this golden mask, Zhang Hefang didn't want to bring it out at first, but Bu Jin repeatedly asked that he must bring a golden mask. According to Long Bujin, the Kunlun Mountains are extremely dangerous, and this golden mask will save people's lives when necessary.

This is also the first time that Fan Peixi has taken a closer look at this golden mask. He didn't know what the golden mask was for, he just saw that on the inside of the golden mask, there were a lot of fine and abnormal words, and there seemed to be something furry growing between them.

Fan Peixi recalled that when he was about to take off the mask on the face of the six imperial attendants in the old man's cave, he found that he could not take the mask off the man's face, because the mask seemed to grow on the man's face. Perhaps these furry things are the cause of that. At the same time, he remembered another thing - why did Ryazan take off the golden mask so effortlessly?

Without further ado, after arriving in the Hotan area, Fan Peixi and others discovered that this place is worthy of being a famous place for producing jade. Walking in the streets and alleys of the Hotan area, there are people doing jade-related business everywhere. There are some signboards with "jade out of Kungang", doing jade wholesale trading, up and down the country, there are many people who have a professional understanding of jade come here to bid for Taobao. Buying the most primitive jade is sometimes equivalent to gambling, and requires excellent eyesight.

Of course, there are also handicraft shops that make jade carvings, and there are countless stalls of all sizes.

Here, Fan Peixi finally understood what it was, and at that time, Boss Lu of the Drunken Stone Hall saw at a glance that Bu Jin's Spirit Extraction Demon Jade came from Hotan, Xinjiang. There are many famous jade species in the Hotan region of Xinjiang, but the most famous of them belongs to the mutton fat jade, this kind of jade is as white as snow throughout, and at first glance, it seems that there is no difference between it and ordinary white jade, but this should put mutton fat jade and ordinary white jade together, and the advantages and disadvantages of the two kinds of jade are clearly visible.

Zhang Hefang led everyone to wander aimlessly through a jade market, surrounded by shouts and shouts. After walking for a while, Zhang Hefang came to a jade stall, and as soon as the person at the stall looked up, he immediately recognized Zhang Hefang, and quickly invited Zhang Hefang into his house, this person with a standard Uyghur face was the person Zhang Hefang arranged here.

As soon as we entered his house, he took out the equipment and gave it to us, and warned us to be careful, because the recent crackdown on terrorists in Xinjiang has been very strong, and we have guns in our equipment bags, and it will be difficult to deal with the situation if anyone finds out.

Zhang Hefang asked the man a few words about his recent movements, and the man sighed lightly and said, "There is no trace of the people in the organization. ”

After that, in order not to arouse suspicion, Zhang Hefang hurriedly left the jade market with us.

Fan Peixi was a little unsure of the formation in front of him, and he asked Zhang Hefangdao: "Mr. Zhang, you just said that the source of the Spirit Demon Jade is in the ancient country of Yu Yu at the foot of the northern foot of Kunlun Mountain, and the last magic weapon we are looking for is hidden in this Kunlun Mountain, but the Kunlun Mountain Range is so big, isn't it equivalent to looking for a needle in a haystack if we look for it aimlessly." ”

Zhang Hefang smiled and said: "There must be strange things in the mysterious place, the Kunlun Mountains are narrow in the west and wide in the east, and the location we are in now happens to be the narrowest area of the Kunlun Mountains. Towering Kunlun, the ancestor of ten thousand mountains, in the history of China, Kunlun Mountain is actually not mysterious, many novel wild things have been well-known, and we Nanwu naturally have long studied this, you can rest assured, just follow us. ”

Fan Peixi nodded, and said in his heart that he was also worried, Zhang Hefang was doing things, he should rest assured, not to mention that there were old people like the one-eyed old man, they would definitely not be running around like headless flies.

However, the road in the mountains is difficult, and the informants arranged by Zhang Hefang here are not old people in the mountains after all, and in some places, they do not have people who have lived here for a long time as guides, so they may not be able to reach the place we want to go at all.

It's also easy to find a guide in this area, because there are a lot of people from the mainland who come here and want some experienced local jade collectors to provide them with a good place to collect jade, and as long as the price is reasonable, some local quarrymans will take outsiders into the Kunlun Mountains.

However, few people are willing to go to the places where Zhang Hefang and others are going.

According to Zhang, the place they were going to was known as the "Devil's Valley" or "Gate of Hell" among the locals, and although the name was cliché, most locals were afraid to avoid it when they heard it.

A few quarrymen were quite affordable, and they told us bluntly that there were indeed many high-quality jade stones in the Devil's Valley, and even some jade did not need to be mined directly, and that there were many protruding rocks that often shone with a little light, and that was the primordial jade.

In addition, the Devil's Valley area is surrounded by abundant pasture resources, which is definitely a good place for herders in the arid Xinjiang region to graze, but the local people would rather starve their cattle and horses to death than take them into the Devil's Valley.

Zhang Hefang suggested that we go and find out for ourselves, but the one-eyed old man disagreed. Although the people of Nanwu had a general understanding of the location of the Devil's Valley, after all, this was their first time coming, and the Kunlun Mountains were towering, and without a professional guide, they would probably get lost in the valleys.

In the end, Zhang Hefang and others could only hire guides by raising the price.

Those old quarrymen were extremely stubborn, no matter how high the price Zhang Hefang and the others offered, they were reluctant to go, and they also dissuaded Zhang Hefang and the others from dispelling the idea of going to the Devil's Valley as soon as possible. On the contrary, it is the young people who are more courageous and have a hard time refusing in the face of a good pay.

Eventually, a young Uyghur named Alabati agreed to lead them to the Devil's Valley for 3,000 yuan.

Alabati looked very young, in his early twenties, with dark skin, a hooked nose, thick eyebrows, and a terrible Mandarin speaker, but he was very enthusiastic, and even more so passionate about money.

Zhang Hefang was not at ease at first to let such a hairy little ghost lead the way, but then Alabati told Zhang Hefang a lot about the terrain of the Devil's Valley and many things about the local area, and finally moved Zhang Hefang.

In this way, a group of Nanwu people, led by Alabati, began to move south into the Devil's Valley in the Kunlun Mountains.