Chapter 14: Set off

The Jeep convoy sped on the endless vast Gobi Desert. The climate was dry and the car was far away from it to escape the yellow dust raised by the previous car.

I sat in the car, looking out the window, thinking about my previous decision, and knowing if it was correct. At this time, I felt a little too reckless. However, now I have gotten on the pirate ship and have no face to regret it.

Before leaving, Aning told me that I found that it was based on Wenjin's route from Dunhuang, crossing Dachaidan and entering the area of ​​Chaerhan Lake, leaving the road from that place, and entering the unmanned area of ​​the Qaidam Basin. Then, Dingzhu Zhuoma led the way and took the team to the place where she broke up with the expedition team that year.

This route is almost exactly the same as Wen Jin wrote in her notes, and I was very puzzled, where did she get this information. Obviously, he knew Tamudo, Dingzhu Zhuoma, and knew the route. It looked like she had read notes, but the notes were in my pocket.

The convoy replenished supplies all the way and soon arrived in Dunhuang as planned. Someone told me that the route before reaching the Tarkhan area was equivalent to a self-driving tour route, which was relatively safe.

The Yadan landforms along the way made me experience the desolation of the Gobi Desert. This feeling of being boundless at the end of the world makes me feel a strong sense of abandonment. At the beginning, this feeling could be relieved by many ruined settlements on the roadside. However, when we left Dunhuang, we drove on the Chaerkhan Highway and drove directly into the Gobi Desert, and it was impossible to drive it away at all because we drove for more than ten hours in a row, and the scenery around us was almost no different. This feeling was suffocating. Thanks to the huge team of Aning, the noise and hustle and bustle when camping made us feel a little more comfortable.

I was in the same car as the Caucasians, and he drove in turn with another Tibetan driver, on the road. I asked him these questions to see if he could answer them.

However, the Caucasus answered easily. When I heard this, I realized that what I was thinking was too complicated. I always thought it was because I read the notes and then learned that Tamudo, the Master Zhuoma and the route were not like this. Aning took the first measure taken by the videotape. He went to investigate the express delivery company where the express delivery was sent. Through the memories of the express delivery company, they found the sender of the express delivery, and that person was the Master Zhuoma.

Afterwards, when I visited and asked with the express delivery, the routes of these Tamuda, guides and guides were asked. The current plan was done according to the information of the Dingzhu Zhuoma.

I felt relieved after listening to it. To put it this way, the content of the previous paragraph of Wen Jin's notes is not important. What is important is that they broke up with the decisive master Zhuoma and entered Tamutu. Unfortunately, I didn't read that paragraph carefully, so I must find an opportunity to read it secretly again.

Then, the Caucasians told me about the Tamudo he knew.

The Caucasians told me that the concept of Tamud was known only when they found the Dinglor Zhuoma. According to the memory of the Dinglor Zhuoma listening to Wen Jin and his conversation at that time, it seemed that it was Wang Zanghai's last stop. As for where it was, Wen Jin and the others themselves didn't know, so they just went to search for it.

However, the decisive master Zhuoma later made her own judgment based on her experiences and experiences during the journey, and she discovered that the Tamud that Wen Jin and the others were looking for was the Queen Mother Kingdom of the West in their legend. According to the locals, the one should be called Tamusdo, which means the ghost town in the rain. After she discovered this, she was very scared, so she pretended to be unable to find the way and broke up with them.

"The Queen Mother Kingdom of the West?" I was surprised when I heard this: "Isn't that something in the myth?"

"Actually, it is not. The Queen Mother Kingdom of the West really exists. And it is an ancient country with a long history. There was a legend during the Huangdi period. Queen Mother of the West was the queen of the country. Qinghai Lake is called 'Chixue Jiamu' in Qiang language. Jiamu is the queen mother's meaning. We think it is the Queen Mother's Yaochi, and Taermusdo is the capital of the Queen Mother's country. Queen Mother of the West represents sacred power in the legend of the Western Regions. In the legend that Dingzhu Zhuoma heard when he was a child, this city only appeared in heavy rain. If you see it, you will be taken away by your eyes and become blind, so she was very scared."

"Then what you mean is that what we are looking for now is actually the ancient capital of the Queen Mother Kingdom of the West?"

"It can be said that according to the current archaeological data analysis, especially in recent years, the existence of Queen Mother of the West has been confirmed." The Caucasians: "In fact, if Tumdo is in the Qaidam Basin, then he must be part of the Queen Mother of the West. This time, he said he was looking for Tumdo, but in fact he was looking for the remains of the Queen Mother of the West. You must know that the land is not that we are looking for the Queen Mother of the West, but that we find the land and we will automatically become the Queen Mother of the West. This is an archaeological expedition."

I smiled bitterly when I heard this, Queen Mother of the West? I remember that thing is not a good thing to mess with. Wang Zanghai's last mission was Queen Mother of the West? Is this reasonable?

After thinking about it, I thought of the legend that descendants sought immortal medicine. I thought it was impossible for Wang Zanghai to ask for medicine that time. I felt it was very outrageous, so I shook my head and got rid of this idea and didn't think about it.

After that, I counted the equipment I got from Aning in the car. Their company has special clothes. My clothes will be sunburned during the day and freeze to death at night. So I changed into desert clothes in the car. When I was wearing them, I was surprised to find that the belt of the clothes actually had a number of 02200059.

I asked the Caucasians this number, which is the barcode number of their company. Their boss was fascinated by this number, and it is said that it was also translated from a Warring States silk book.

I was very surprised. I remembered the password on the box of the Seven Star Lu King, and thought to myself, do this number have any special significance?

In the next two days, we penetrated deep into the next door. Land Rover was very fast. In the past two days, we entered the hinterland of Qaidam.

Aning's people were very unknown. They camped several times. The few people who were in Jilin got along well with me. I became familiar with the others. With my personality, it is quite easy to get along with others. In this way, there is at least one advantage. I don't have to face the expressionless Duo Oil Bottle all day long. And he also doesn't seem to want to pay attention to me.

This is actually a bit abnormal. Because in previous contacts, although the Muyou Bottle was also difficult to get along with, it did not feel so distant this time. I always felt that he was avoiding something. On the contrary, the black glasses seemed to be very interested in me and always came to talk to me.

After the car entered the Gobi Desert, it quickly left the road, and the decisive owner Zhuoma began to lead the way. She was accompanied by her daughter-in-law and a grandson, in the same car with Aning, at the front of the convoy. I didn't know their situation, but only knew that after the old woman started to lead the way, the place where the car was walking began to be difficult to walk. It was either a gravel beach or arid riverbed in a river canyon, and soon the team complained.

The decisive master Zhuoma explained that to find the mountain pass she saw back then, one must first find a village. Their trip that year started from that village, and both Wenjindi horses and camels were bought in the village. The village may be abandoned now, but the ruins should still be there. Only by finding it can we proceed to the next step.

The old woman had a very good memory. Sure enough, in the evening, we came to the small village called "Lancuo". There were still people living in the village, with four families with more than 30 people.

This discovery made us ecstatic. One was to prove the old woman's ability, the other was that things were developing smoothly, and we were always very happy to see where humans gathered. It was getting late at that time. We decided to set up camp in the village.

Unfortunately, an accident occurred when we entered the village. A car overturned into a wind-erosion ditch. The people were fine, but the car was scrapped. At this time, we were already quite far from the nearest road and we could not get any assistance. This means that another car must be left to take care of it.

After this incident happened, Aning began to seem worried. That night we were resting beside the scrapped car. Aning told us her concerns, and she had some concerns. Although it was equipped with first-class off-road vehicles, the conditions around were too bad. If you could not find the mountain pass in the short term, these cars would definitely be scrapped here one by one. Sometimes it may be a very small problem in the repair shop, but it will paralyze the car here.

The further they enter the depths of the basin, the abandoned cars and people on board may not be able to get rescue in time and encounter danger in the Gobi Desert.

Cars and camels and horses are different. Camels will heal themselves if injured, and minor injuries will not affect the movement. However, whenever there is an accident, they are so fragile that it makes people sad. These are civilian vehicles, which are not as strong as military ones.

But this was not Aning's mistake, because in this era, it is impossible to let this team of nearly 50 people ride camels into Qaidam. First, it is impossible to find so many camels at one time. 50 people, plus camel luggage and spare camels, it may take nearly 100 peaks. Such a huge camel fleet is really too conspicuous and will definitely be noticed by the government.

The mechanic of the team told her that there was actually no need to worry so much. The Qaidam Basin is not a big place at the speed of "Land Rover". Twenty years ago, Qaidam may have been a sea of ​​death that everyone feared, just like the Taklamakan Desert. Now it can only take more than ten hours to travel through half of the development area, including a large number of exploration bases and industrial bases, so there is no need to worry about so much.

However, this statement was immediately rejected by the grandson of the decisive master Zhuoma. The young man named Tashi said that we trust the power of the machine too much. Although Qaidam has been conquered, the safe place is limited to the places obtained by the highway network radiation, accounting for about 2% of the entire basin. The other 98% of the areas are deserts, swamps, and salt covers. Our more than a dozen cars less than fifty are insignificant for this land that was devouring life tens of millions of years ago.

He said that even along the least dangerous tourist route designed, people will get lost and die in accidents every year. Don’t say that we are now preparing to go deep into the unmanned land.

He also said that the people he met before were travelers who wanted to cross the basin, and these people would not stay in the basin for more than two days, and our purpose was to search in the basin, that is, our journey had no end, and circled around the Gobi Desert was the biggest taboo for the pastors here before. Therefore, Miss Ning's worries are reasonable, so it is better to be careful in everything.

Taxi's words made us silent. Aning thought for a long time and asked Taxi: So what suggestions do you have to give us?

Tashi shook his head and said: Since you are going to enter Qaidam, then the head must be not on the belt, which has been like this since ancient times.

Tashi's statement is always a bit alarmist. I have heard someone say that Tashi was very angry about his grandmother's promise to lead us. He thought this was too dangerous. Aning and the others also used money to convince his grandmother. It was a kind of karma, and we brought danger and sin to his grandmother. But the old lady Zhuoma was very determined. The grandmother's status in the Tibetan family was very high, and Tashi had no choice but to come and take care of him. So he basically didn't give us any good looks along the way, nor did he say anything good.

Despite this, in this village with only a few adobe low houses in the Gobi Desert, I still feel a chill when I think about the distance we are now from the civilized world.

After he finished speaking, we were not interested in talking anymore. Several people sat by the bonfire in silence for a long time, and then went into their own sleeping bags to rest. We were about to set off tomorrow morning. Aning did not set up a tent, but they all had open-air sleeping bags. The temperature here sometimes reached sub-zero at night, so we were all hiding behind the high ridges and approaching the bonfire to keep warm.

Lying there, I felt that many people couldn't sleep, and the whispers were surrounded by the sound of wind. No wonder, this may be the last place marked on the map before entering Qaidam. The veterans of this kind of activity naturally don't care, but a large part of the team was invited by the local people, so of course they would be a little more excited at this time.

I don’t know if I am a veteran or a novice, but I just looked up at the sky and found that the sky here is much closer to the ground and the stars are much clearer. I am in the south and I haven’t seen the scene of stars in the sky for a long time since I became an adult. Now, seeing the bright Milky Way in the sky so clear, I can’t help but lose my sleepiness.

However, long-distance travel always works. After a while, the sounds around gradually became quiet.

Anning and the others arranged for people to watch the night. Because there were many people, these tired jobs were mainly hired by the local people, so we would not be rotated. However, because it was still a village, there was no need to be too alert. Zhaxi also said that only large beasts might appear near Kekexili. There were few grasses here so that even mice were not coming. Not to mention carnivorous beasts, so I didn't hear the night watchmen chatting, and probably they might have fallen asleep. I vaguely heard the sound of animals in the wind, but I didn't care too much. We slept in the middle of the entire camp and it was not our turn to be eaten.

While thinking about things, I looked at the night sky. I don’t know how long it took. Just when I was drowsy, I suddenly felt someone walking in front of me. I shivered and woke up and saw that it was Taxi.
Chapter completed!