When Yue Guanchao saw Taoist Xu put on such a mysterious look again, he knew that this matter was related to the strange power and chaos, and motioned for him to continue.
Xu Xiake coughed a few times and cleared his throat: "What is Dunhuang? Dun means grand, Huang means brilliant. The word Dunhuang means grand and brilliant. Since the Han Dynasty, the name Dunhuang has existed. It can be a stable place here." The city has been around for two thousand years, and it relies on the desert that seals the devil.”
The desert basin between the Kunlun Mountains and Tianshan Mountains is a devil's desert in the eyes of local people.
The Tianshan Mountains stretch for more than 3,000 miles across the country. Many rivers cut deep into canyons, mountains, basins, oases, and lakes. As the roof of the sky, the Kunlun Mountains also protect Tibet’s thousands of ravines and thousands of shocking snowfield scenery. Only they The basin in between, like a cursed land, became barren and barren, like a land of death.
The poverty here is beyond the imagination of contemporary people!
If you walk dozens of miles outside Dunhuang City, what you will see is an endless desert that is infinitely close to the limit. The total area of the desert here is almost the same as all the territories in the pass. In other words, people can walk in the desert on horseback, with three or four people walking in the desert. The moon may not come to an end.
To this day, no one has successfully crossed the desert. Anyone who wants to do so has to face not only the long journey, but also the threats of dryness, lack of water, loss of direction, desert monsters, geological disasters, and strange forces. .
Let’s talk about dryness and lack of water first.
In this devil's desert, water shortage is the norm. Even though the desert is nourished by rivers such as the Tarim River and Hotan River, it is of no avail in the face of the huge area of the desert. Except for the oases near the rivers, the rest of the place is full of dry sand. .
When walking in the desert, you are losing moisture all the time. Every breath you take is extremely dry. The hot air currents and dry environment cause the moisture in your body to evaporate continuously, causing your lips to become cracked, your throat to be dry, and your face to be red and peeling.
Even the most thirsty camel can only insist on replenishing water for a few days at most, otherwise it will fall to the ground from thirst. As for people who cannot be short of water, they need to replenish water every moment.
Without access to drinking water at any time, the amount of drinking water people can carry is always limited. This also means that once they are short of water, they have to either return the same way they came from, or they can only find water sources to replenish fresh water, and they are destined to not be able to go far.
Let’s talk about being disoriented.
Everyone is afraid of the ocean. What they are afraid of is being completely lost in the deep sea. Looking up to see the sky and looking down to the sea. If you cannot grasp the direction, it is equivalent to being trapped in an endless water prison.
The desert is the same as the ocean, and the sand sea is also the sea. When a person stands on the disoriented sand, the situation he faces is more dangerous than the ocean. If he cannot get out of the desert within three days, he will basically never be able to leave. If you go out, it will probably be covered by yellow sand and become a withered skeleton under the cover of the desert.
Even if a person holds a compass or compass, it will not help. The geological environment of the desert is very special. You can never know what is hidden under the yellow sand. It is precisely because some strange geology is covered by the yellow sand that these strange Geology often causes compass compass failure.
Once such a thing happens, experienced locals will think that it is the devil ghosts in the desert that are disturbing the living people. The way these locals do it is to follow the wild camels in the desert and let the wild camels take them through the desert. , this is the only way to get out of the confusion after getting lost in the desert.
If dryness, lack of water, and disorientation can be solved through manpower and material resources, then desert monsters and geological disasters are unknown disasters that cannot be solved no matter what.
In addition to black bags, there are also animals such as territory tigers, desert wolves, sand foxes, argali sheep, bison, rough-scaled sand boas, striped snakes, giant falcons, golden eagles, man-eating rabbits, desert monitor lizards, etc. These things can survive in the hinterland of the desert where there are no animals above or birds below, which shows how tough and rough their lives are.
They are just like the bloodthirsty plants in the desert. They have gone to great lengths to survive in this barren and dry desert. You never know how the animals you see in the desert will treat you after seeing you as prey. How cruel.
Even, in addition to these animals, there are countless monsters in the desert that people can't even name!
It is said that there are intestine-like death worms in the desert. Their body shape is like that of a cow's intestines. The thickness of a wooden barrel ranges from several meters to tens of meters. They look like earthworms from head to tail, with a round mouth only growing on the head. , with a ring of fangs resembling wolf fangs inside, and the body is covered with tactile organs.
It lurks in the sand and waits for prey to appear. As long as it feels the vibration of the ground, it will stir up the sand and drill out of the ground, pull the emerging prey under the sand and devour it.
For another example, there is a kind of invisible ghost in the desert. They are colorless, odorless, shapeless and formless. They usually wander in the desert. When they see a living person, they will lurk around the living person and shout in the ear of the living person. their names.
People who know how to use strange powers to confuse spirits will pretend to be ignorant and ignore it when they hear a strange voice calling their name in order to avoid the threat of being ignored. If some people don't know how powerful it is, they agree to be ignored. If he calls out, then he is troubled by the lack of response.
From then on, as long as the person is still in the desert, Yingsheng will create various illusions to confuse their minds. If the person wants to drink water at this time, Yingsheng will turn into a fertile and lush oasis in front of him, where the water pools are clear. , melons and fruits are sweet.
If the person feels lonely, Yingsheng will turn into a bustling town in front of him, with hundreds of street vendors and pedestrians. In short, Yingsheng will turn into different mirages according to the person's inner desires, trying to People cheated.
If this person really fell into the trap and walked into the mirage, he would basically have fulfilled his wish to be silenced and become a scapegoat who should not be silenced. He would stay in the desert for them forever, waiting for the next unlucky person to take the bait. This is the same as The ghosts of Han people are similar ghosts.
For another example, in some caves in the desert, there are some rotting corpses controlled by sand vines. These rotting corpses have been dead for a long time and their bodies have rotted. However, under the parasitism of sand vines, the rotting corpses can still move. They will capture all living creatures around them, digest their flesh and blood, and the corpses will continue to serve as puppets to capture the next prey.
These animals or monsters are active in the desert, and together with the dunes, sand pits, cliffs, and quicksand that appear at any time in the desert, they pose a ubiquitous threat.
In the eyes of the local people near the desert basin, the strangeness of the desert is that it is the desert of the devil, a land cursed by the devil. Any animal entering the desert will be transformed into a flesh-devouring puppet by the desert. This mysterious power is It's like the endless yellow sand in the desert, filling every corner of the basin.
This mysterious force is manipulating the desert to move towards the Hexi Corridor all the time, and will not stop until it engulfs the Hexi Corridor.
Dunhuang is located exactly on the edge of the desert, and is the boundary monument that seals these mysterious forces. As long as Dunhuang is along the Hexi Corridor, it can contain the impact of the mysterious forces on the Hexi Corridor, making the power of the desert unable to enter and can only be imprisoned in the basin.
