After saying that, Keli motioned for everyone to look nearby. It was already approaching dusk. After the temperature dropped, many desert wild animals that escaped the heat began to appear near Lop Nur.
Argali sheep, sand foxes, bison, and wild camels came to the water's edge, lowering their heads to sip the lake water near Lop Nur. Although some smaller sand rabbits, gerbils, and sand eagles did not dare to approach the river, they mostly gathered in the small water. By the pond, he was cleaning the sand and soil from his body.
At this time, in order to relieve the heat on their bodies, bison and wild camels walked directly into the lake after drinking water, plopped into the beach, and used the cooling lake water to clean their bodies and cool down their body organs.
Lop Nur is about to dry up, and the water level is not very deep. Even if they are large animals, even if they bury their whole bodies in the lake, it will only be up to their necks. Most of their heads are exposed. They use their legs, feet and hooves to walk leisurely in the water, making countless ripples. , eating the water plants by the water and humming low.
Within a moment, the situation on the lake had changed. These bison and wild camels seemed to sense the danger and swam quickly towards the shore. Some of the fast ones had already walked ashore, while the rest were not so lucky and had not yet walked ashore. , was already dragged backwards by something.
The force under the water was so great that these huge beasts were like fish put on the chopping board, being dragged around by the mysterious things in the water.
Eventually, ripples began to ripple along their heads, forming vortices that rotated downward one by one. Their heads were also pulled under the water. Gulu bubbled and disappeared completely into the lake. The lake surface then returned to calm, as if it had just been Everything is an illusion.
Everyone stood on the shore and watched this scene. Without Keli's explanation, they already understood why he stopped Yue Erpao from entering the water.
In the absence of sand tigers and leopards, bison and wild camels basically belong to a category of animals with infinite strength and are almost not threatened by any desert animals. Such powerful animals are dragged by the mysterious force in the water without any impact. To fight back, I have to say that there are many strange things hidden under the water in Lop Nur.
Yue Guanchao became curious about what was ahead: "The height of the water surface is probably only one meter. What is there under the water that can pull these big men down? How far can they be pulled down in such shallow water?"
Keli looked blankly and frowned slightly: "The Kongque River changed its course again at the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty. It was probably seven or eight hundred years ago from today. Lop Nur has evaporated so much over such a long time, but it still retains such a large amount of evaporation. Aren’t you curious about the area?”
When he mentioned this, his face became mysterious: "Song Qianjin is right about one thing. Without the injection of fresh water, a large amount of salt will accumulate in the water, just like salt water. Because of this, these animals, in order to replenish water, will and salt, I am willing to come to Lop Nur to drink water.”
He paused for a moment and continued to explain: "I have mentioned before that these large swamps that can last for thousands of years without water flow often have underground rivers or caves. After the river water evaporates every year, these The underground caves will also replenish some water sources, which is what allows Lop Nur to persist until now. The danger also comes from these underground rivers!"
These underground rivers come from caves, grottoes, fissures, rock pits, and nests dug by certain animals that were formed tens of millions of years ago. They should have appeared in the dry desert. It was the change of the Kongque River that gradually flooded Lop Nur. These holes are continuously filled with lake water as the lake grows, forming underground rivers hidden under the lake area.
No one knows how many such underground rivers there are, and no one knows where they lead. They only know that these are like plant roots, interconnected to form mysterious waterways under the lake basin.
When the water in Lop Nur rises, the underground river will also pour water downwards. When the water volume is not enough, they will flow out of the lake basin as the groundwater is replenished. As the water level drops and the river is emptied, the underground river will form a vortex, enough to turn any living thing into a whirlpool. Swallowed into things.
Those bison just now were probably sucked into some underground rivers. Maybe they are still alive, but in most cases, as long as they enter the underground river and are washed into some caves, it will be difficult to come out again. What's even worse, It was eaten by something in the underground river.
The many quicksand flats in Secret Orchid used to be such underground rivers. If even these underground rivers dry up in another thousand years, the sand in these underground rivers will gradually loosen and form quicksand pits. When animals walk into them, they will still Swallowed by quicksand.
It can be said that underground river grottoes in the desert, whether they are dry sand, muddy mud or ponds and rivers, are not good places, so stay away if you can.
Keli looked at Yue Erpao. He almost went into the lake to die. Before he could recover from the tiger's mouth, he said: "Just now, I didn't let you go into the river. On the one hand, the salt water here will make you thirsty. , on the other hand, I am afraid that the vortex will also drag you into it, and we will not be able to save you by then."
"If you want to set up camp, go to the nearby plateau. The terrain there is high and it is a plateau, which can eliminate most dangers."
What Keli said was a matter of life and death. They could only set up camp on a wind-eroded plateau far away from Lop Nur.
Knowing the dangers near Lop Nur, everyone felt much better. They lit a bonfire at night, filled the five internal organs temple, and returned to their tents to rest.
Sleeping until midnight, Yue Guanchao felt something fluttering around him. When he woke up, the moonlight filtered through the tent, making the tent gray and white. However, the strange movement disappeared in an instant after he opened his eyes. Behind the silence, it seemed very strange. It was strange, as if something was watching their tent in the dark.
He rolled his eyes and deliberately lay down, breathing steadily to create the rhythm of sleep. In a moment of crisis, he saw a bat with a big face, flapping its wings and lying on the tent, opening its teeth and trying to bite it. tent.
Could it be a black bag?
Yue Guanchao thought of the black bag that Xu Xiake had said. If this thing was really left dead and disabled with its head lying on its head, it would be impossible for only one to appear here.
Wanting to understand this, he quickly turned on the flashlight, and a violent bright light suddenly lit up. The bat was stimulated by the bright light and flew away with flapping wings.
He picked up the shotgun and came out of the tent. At the same time, Keli and the others had also woken up, picked up the shotgun and shot, scaring away all the bats.
"Fortunately, my shooting skills are pretty good and I wounded several of them."
Yue Guanchao and Keli searched along the direction in which the bats had fled. When they came back, they were holding two bats with injured wings in their hands.
Everyone was awakened by several gunshots and had completely lost their sleepiness. They just took this opportunity to observe the details of the bat.
The bodies of these bats are similar to those of two-month-old puppies, which can be hugged with two hands. When the wings are extended, the body can grow to half an arm length. The whole body is covered with a layer of fine black fluff. The fur color of the belly is slightly off. Gray, black when the wings are contracted, and continuously stretched when stretched. The wing membrane will gradually become thinner when stretched, forming a translucent state.
On top of this body is a thin body similar to that of a dog. In order to reduce weight, these bats starved themselves as thin as possible before flying to look for food.
