Song Siyuan pondered Queenie's words and asked casually: "If Queen Shanshan can really create an oasis out of thin air, how did she overcome the salt-alkali land? As my uncle said, water cannot be stored in the desert, then it How do you create an oasis in a desert?"
Queenie shook her whip and shouted to the camels to continue moving forward. She looked into the distance and gradually said, "We don't know this. Queen Shanshan a thousand years ago is just a legend. Her Shahai King City is not there now." No one has ever discovered it, and it’s hard to say anything until we find him.”
So far, they had only walked a quarter of the way, and everyone stopped discussing fruitless issues and continued on their way on the camels.
After about five or six days of crossing the oasis and trekking across the sand sea, Yue Guanchao and the others arrived deep into the desert under the guidance of the camel team.
Walking along the Kashgar River, the surrounding scenery is indeed similar to what Uncle Quinny described. There is no vegetation on both sides of the turbulent river, leaving only the hard-shell-like salt-alkali tidal flats. Under the action of salt, the river has formed earthy-orange-red saline-alkali land. The horizon continues along the vast yellow sand, seemingly endless.
After the camel team stopped, the old herdsman Queeni walked to the river and took a ladle of water with the ladle he brought with him. The large amount of sediment in the water gradually settled after it stopped and became clearer and clearer. He took the water. A ladle of water was poured into the salt flat. The water surface quickly continued to seep down and quickly became dry under the hot daylight, as if the scoop of water was just an illusion.
Queenie motioned them to look to the southwest. Mazatag Mountain was only ten miles away from them.
This red and white mountain is not considered to be high in altitude but is extremely steep. It is like a spine protruding from the southwest of the desert, supporting the skyline of the desert and dividing the desert into two. Both sides are covered with undulating sand dunes like layers of fish scales, as if The rolling waves on the ocean can't be seen to the edge at a glance, and they look particularly strange and desolate under the blue sky.
Under the sky, above the sea of sand, the peaks are isolated and rise from the flat ground.
Only at this moment did everyone understand why Mazhatage Mountain is the sacred mountain of the desert. As long as you reach the hinterland of the desert, you can see this tall mountain range floating in the boundless sea of sand. It is like an ancient giant silent in the ocean. , silently watching all the creatures that came to the hinterland of the desert, it was easy to regard them as gods in the desert.
They turned into a tributary river along the Hotan River and stopped two hundred meters away from the foot of Hongbai Mountain. This was already the closest saline-alkali land to Hongbai Mountain. Yue Guanchao and each of them unloaded the things on their camels and began to set up a camp.
In camps in the desert, in order to prevent quicksand vortices and sand collapse, interlocking wooden boards are arranged under the tent. These wooden boards are connected to each other. There are also wooden stakes at the bottom to support the wooden boards, which can not only increase the contact area with the sand, but also reduce the risk of damage. The probability of sand collapse can also support and fix the wooden boards.
In one afternoon, seven or eight tents stood up on wooden boards, forming a circle around a huge tent in the center, like a ball-shaped flower, appearing on the sandy salt flats.
After everything was over, they gathered in the main tent. Song Siyuan and the others had already set up a small blackboard, pasting a lot of collected information on Sand Sea King City on it. The intricate lines involved connected each other's photos to form a clue. net.
In front of the blackboard, there is another square table with a sand table of the terrain of the desert area. The outline of the entire desert and the red and white mountains are clearly visible.
Song Siyuan pointed to the desert map in the center of the blackboard and said: "Our location is located two hundred meters at the foot of Hongbai Mountain. This is a tributary of the Hotan River connected to Hongbai Mountain. It is about ten miles away from the Hotan Group river channel. It may be because The Hotan River changed its course and gradually dried up, forming the saline-alkali tidal flat we see now. The location we are currently stationed at is the salt-alkali tidal flat at the end of the river, which is a piece of hardened sand."
She paused and continued: "Today is already evening, and everyone has worked hard for a long time. Let's have a good rest tonight. Starting tomorrow, we will divide into groups to search for nearby ruins."
Mentioning this, Song Siyuan took out a photo and posted it on the blackboard. The photo showed the Shahai King City on the underground palace mural. He clicked on the photo with a ruler: "Most of the images on these ancient paintings and murals will be painted by the painter." The scale is completely different from the scale of the city. If you just rely on the map of the underground palace, you may not be able to calculate the reasonable size of the city."
"Fortunately, the Red and White Mountains are depicted in the murals. Based on the proportions of the Red and White Mountains and the Royal City, we can use three geographical points to determine their distance from the Red and White Mountains and the approximate size of the Royal City."
Having said this, Song Siyuan picked up a circular town model from her backpack. This model was about the size of a palm and half a finger high. She blew it a few times and placed it on the sand table at the foot of the Red and White Mountain. She said, "I have already done this before coming here." After three points of positioning reasoning, it can be roughly judged that the distance between Shahai King City and Hongbai Mountain is about half a mile to one mile. This is the reliable distance between the King City and Hongbai Mountain."
"At the same time, if we infer the area of the royal city based on this distance, I can roughly infer that the entire royal city is about an oval square city with a length and width of about five miles. Based on the city area, the geographical location of the royal city can be limited to The desert is six miles long and wide.”
Song Siyuan knew that just talking about these data would make them feel obscure and difficult to understand. She motioned everyone to look at the ancient city in the sand table: "In layman's terms, as you can see, the foot of the Red and White Mountain is the westernmost end of the city, and then Expand about six miles to the east, take the east and west endpoints of this line as the center, and extend a distance of about three miles to the north and south sides, so as to form a square area of about six miles in length and width."
"This desert area can probably be judged as the ruins of the Sand Sea King City. If we want to find the ruins, we must search from this area. Except for the desert in this area, the search is not particularly meaningful."
Yue Guanchao stared at the sand table: "Then according to what you said, our location should be the westernmost end of the royal city."
After saying that, Song Siyuan picked up a few wooden figures and placed them on the west side of the circular mandala: "You are right, our location is the westernmost end of the city. The area of this area is not big or small. It’s not too small. We must divide the work and cooperate and move forward together. I suggest that we work in groups of two or three to search for the ruins of the Sand Sea King City from four directions. Whoever finds the ruins first will release smoke bombs to notify the rest of the people. After making a mark, we can proceed to the next step collectively.”
Yue Guanchao had no confidence in this point and asked: "What if we don't find the ruins of Shahai King City? Do we need to expand the scope?"
Song Siyuan lowered her head and thought for a moment, shook her head at them, pointed to the Shahai King City in the sand table and said: "According to the information we have obtained, the Shahai King City cannot be located on the east bank of the Hotan River. At least all the areas on the east bank can be abandoned. Then, the most likely place for them to appear is actually the area from the river to the Red and White Mountains."
"The length of this area is about ten miles, which means that our search area is an area of ten miles long and wide starting from the current moment. Looking for ruins does not mean that the bigger the area, the better, and the core area is screened. It is more efficient than casting a wide net. We certainly cannot completely search an area of ten miles. If we are really unlucky and cannot find any ruins at all, it means that the Sand Sea King City has completely disappeared and gone to other dimensions. We have to think things through beforehand.”
Regarding this conjecture, they had already discussed it before coming. At that time, Song Siyuan believed that the jade pendant might have connected to the mirror world, causing the Sand Sea King City to be sent to the mirror world. If they really did not find the Sand Sea King City, this conjecture would be very difficult. It could become a reality. "
After discussing the action plan for tomorrow, the sky had completely darkened. Kerosene lamps were lit in front of the tents everywhere, and the flames were very clear in the dark night.
After leaving the town, they had abandoned most of the interference of bright lights. The moment they looked up, they could immediately see stars shining like pearls hanging on the dark sky. The contrast between the black and white of the night stars made the sky clear and crystal clear, like the Milky Way. Covering the desert, occasionally there are a few streams of light hanging on the horizon, and finally disappear.
After all, the climate in the desert was still dry. In the afternoon, they each carried a bucket of water into the tent. When they returned, 30% of the bucket of water had evaporated. There was a little moisture in the tent, but it was finally not that dry.
After eating and drinking, they took a rest. After setting up the tent, they were so tired that they didn't want to move anymore. They each hid in the tent to rest. When they woke up, it was already a red sun.
According to the plan last night, Yue Guanchao, Song Siyuan, and Yue Erpao formed a team, Xu Xiake and Kelinayi formed a team, and then Wang Yuanlu, brothers and sisters Gu Hengxi and Gu Baiyue formed a team, and the last remaining team was Kui. Nick and his guys.
The four teams were just divided into southeast and northwest directions, making it easier to search for traces of Sand Sea King City along their established routes in a fan-shaped manner. This allowed for division of labor, cooperation, and fan-shaped searches.
After the team assignments were completed, everyone took their tools and set off. Yue Guanchao and Song Siyuan took Yue Erpao to the direction they had set, and began to search for the existence of the ruins along the way.
In one morning, they each walked three or four miles. In the desert, there were only sand dunes and sand. Coupled with the hot and dry climate, they were already thirsty after walking for only half a day!
This dryness is as if the throat is cracked. No matter how much water you drink or how much saliva you swallow, it doesn't work. It feels like the water in your body is being dried by the high temperature of the outside world. Unknowingly, your face has turned red. It was so hot that the exposed skin even had a layer of skin on it.
