I asked Banban, what does this mean?
Banban was gesturing hesitantly, it turned out that he smelled the death aura on those expedition members!
I even have a premonition that the death energy will spread to us...
Not long after, a fierce quarrel broke out again among the expedition team camping in front, and two figures were vaguely fighting with each other in the tent.
"It's all because of you! You tricked us into coming to the desert to find that tomb..."
"How could you come if it wasn't for that gold bar? Hey, he's a well-known expert, a guy who only sees money." This seemed to be the voice of a translator.
The fight between the two quickly turned into a bloody fight. In the end, the translator desperately pressed the expert on top of him and raised his paratrooper knife fiercely: "Go accompany Lao Wu and the others!"
With a scream, blood splattered in the tent.
"It's dead, it's dead!"
The people outside were frightened by this scene and immediately opened the tent in a panic.
At this moment, the translator Yunzi's eyes were red, and he was strangling the neck of the deceased, and said ferociously: "Die, die, everyone will die anyway."
The person underneath him was obviously no longer breathing, but he was still trapped in the fever just now and couldn't extricate himself for a long time.
At this time, with a 'bang' sound, the translator fell down!
The shooter was the foreigner who was the leader of the expedition. He was so angry that he shot the murderer to death with one shot and warned the others in the team that if they continued to disobey his orders, don't blame the guy in his hand for being rude.
Everyone else immediately didn't dare to say anything.
In just two or three hours, only the seven members of the expedition team were left: the leading foreigner, the northwest guide, the bearded bodyguard, and a Chinese expert.
They finally unanimously decided to continue on their way, but all the water they carried seemed to be finished.
I kindly took off a water bag from the camel and wanted to give it to them. After all, they lent us a tent.
But they seemed not to notice and continued to discuss where to find water. Finally, the Chinese expert went to another direction to find water with a hiking pole.
His lonely figure disappeared into the thick fog and never came back...
I felt a little pitiful and thought about going over to deliver water, but I was worried that I would get lost. At this moment, a vast white mist suddenly floated out of thin air and enveloped the camp in front of us. We couldn't see anything for an instant.
Lao Jiang anxiously gestured for us to move forward immediately!
However, we never expected that when we rushed to the camp location, the tent was still there and the campfire was still there, but the remaining three expedition members had all disappeared!
They were captured by the mist, and no matter how hard we searched, we never saw their shadow again.
A strong sense of uneasiness arose in the team. I asked Lao Jiang what was going on and why the three people disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Lao Jiang's voice became a little hoarse, and he said to everyone: "It's none of our business, let's continue to find Shen Xiaoyu."
While talking, Lao Jiang handed me a piece of white paper.
It turns out that Shen Xiaoyu had just received an unprecedented signal, but there was only one word on the paper: Don't believe it!
Is he reminding us not to trust anyone we see along the way?
I suddenly looked at Lao Jiang. Lao Jiang took out a stick of Hardwood and was about to light it. He seemed reluctant to part with it and only took a deep sniff under his nose.
"Over the years in Qilin, I have encountered too many strange things. Please don't take what happened just now to your heart, so as not to mess up the situation."
The lesson he learned is, don’t look blindly and don’t listen blindly.
We repaired on the spot for a while, and then planned to continue on our way, but before we walked a few steps, I saw a scene that I couldn't believe in my life!
The three expedition members who were captured out of thin air by the mist actually appeared!
They were not injured in any way, and the Chinese expert who went out to look for water appeared at the same time...
But this is not the scariest thing. What is scariest is the other two people who set up a tent in the fog. One is an expert who was stabbed to death at night, and the other is a translator who was shot to death.
At this moment, how could the two of them look like life-or-death enemies?
They actually had their arms around each other and chatted and laughed happily.
"Hello little brother, are you lost too?" A voice came from behind me.
When I met that person's face, my whole soul was almost scared out of my body, let alone how to answer the call.
Because the person who spoke was the unlucky guy who was swallowed by the quicksand earlier!
Live, all the dead live.
Am I having a nightmare? Everything in front of me was still real, and the expedition team appeared in front of me alive again.
I was about to cry without tears, my whole body was shaking like a sieve, and I stumbled back. At this time, a hand supported me without leaving any trace behind.
On the shoulder: "Don't be afraid, Master is here!"
Those hands were generous and warm, trying their best to soothe my uneasy emotions.
"Remember, stay the same to cope with all changes!" Lao Jiang said calmly.
Then, like a movie on repeat, we once again have to watch the first man fall into quicksand.
The second person was accidentally killed because of an quarrel, the third person was executed by foreigners, the third person went out to find water, and the remaining people were captured by Bai Wu.
All this is like a script being rehearsed over and over again, repeated over and over again.
The only change is that we are not in this script!
This is a horrific death cycle that haunts us. In an instant, I seemed to figure something out. The clothes on these people were indeed not from this era, but more than ten years ago. The newspaper was not a souvenir in their collection, but the day they set out into the desert.
Lao Jiang seemed to have already known everything I said and was not surprised at all.
Instead, he asked quietly: "Do you still remember that unforgettable night before we entered Yumen Pass?"
"Remember those footprints?"
I felt like I was being struck by lightning, and suddenly showed a horrified expression: "You... you said at the time that we were keeping vigil together and didn't see anyone around at all, but a pair of old shoe prints appeared in the grass the next morning! Then! The shoe prints appear to be from an old leather boot that has been discontinued in the United States.”
Lao Jiang pointed to his feet.
On the sand, the footprints left by the expedition team ahead were exactly the same as the shoe prints that night!
I felt like my brain was about to explode at this moment, and my hands were shaking uncontrollably: "Then, are we going to get stuck in the fog with these non-human and non-ghost things?"
In front of us is another complete expedition team of seven people, but we don't even know whether they are humans, ghosts, corpses or monsters.
Lao Jiang didn't have the fear he had at the beginning. He smiled slightly and said, "My dear disciple, do you know how to break up a good show?"
I frowned, not knowing what Lao Jiang meant.
Yin Ling'er raised her white little hands at this time, and her sweet voice flowed in the air: "If someone is singing on stage, and I go up and find the protagonist and beat him up, won't all the other supporting characters be unable to perform?"
Lao Jiang nodded: "Well, Ling'er is still smart."
"Ximei, everyone's safety is in your hands! Li Jinglan, let's raid the formation for our master." Lao Jiang turned over and jumped off the camel.
He Lanxue did not reply, but was already silently protecting Yin Ling'er, Lin Qiu Sheng, and Crow.
And I subconsciously followed Lao Jiang. I saw Lao Jiang's entire aura exposed. He gently pushed the black knife on his waist half an inch with his thumb, and then rushed into the camp in front of him.
"Whoosh!"
With a dazzling light, the black knife split the fog shrouding the west side of the camp.
I saw the foreigner leading the expedition at a glance.
He stared blankly in our direction, and Lao Jiang's black knife slashed down mercilessly, chopping off his head!
"There is an enemy, go! Go! Go!" The rest of the expedition members were stunned by this scene. The foreign bearded man who looked like a bodyguard, and the northwest guide drew out their paratrooper knives and stabbed him.
I was just about to take out my gun to cover Lao Jiang's back, but by some mistake, I pulled out the god-slaying dagger from my waist.
I don't know why, but although the appearance of this dagger is rusty, it contains an eagerness to fight.
It was as if he had been sealed away for decades, and he finally saw the demons and monsters, and he couldn't help but want to join the battle!
I can even feel the billowing heat flowing to the handle of the knife.
How is this going?
But I didn't have time to think. I saw a bearded foreigner stabbing me with a knife. I quickly parried and waved it sideways subconsciously.
At that moment, I clearly saw that even though it was just a simple wave, the God-Slaying Dagger turned into a circle of purple light in the fog!
That light was even stronger than the white light emitted by the Black Saber Qilin!
The purple light cut open the bearded man's body like a ravage. I held the god-slaying dagger and stabbed hard, and the guide was also pierced through the body by the purple light.
They did not spray out plasma like ordinary people, but instead decomposed like sand.
I looked over to Lao Jiang, and the foreigner's head also disappeared into the mist like quicksand...
Because according to the original script of the play, they were the only ones who survived, or in other words, they were the last three to die.
Lao Jiang went in the opposite direction and disrupted this death cycle for the first time. The other expedition members did not attack us. They just stood there like stationary clock hands, as if they did not know how this scene should be played. How to continue acting?
A gust of wind blew and they disappeared into the mist.
I stared at all this with my mouth agape, and I no longer knew how to use words to describe what I saw and heard.
I don’t know if it was an illusion, but the moment Lao Jiang and I put away our swords, the surrounding fog seemed to dissipate a little, and we could see about ten meters away.
Lao Jiang looked at me with a strange look. To be more precise, he glanced at the god-slaying dagger on my waist.
"Little bastard, you are very lucky."
"ah?"
"I thought that since he left, Zhan Shen would rather turn into a pile of scrap metal than recognize a new master..."
I didn't understand what Lao Jiang meant by this, but he had already walked towards He Lanxue.
In this way, our vision became much clearer, and the little black on the crow's back was no longer afraid. But seeing the crow, whose whole body was wrapped tightly in red cloth, he suddenly formed a ring with two fingers and held it under his mouth, and a loud whistle suddenly came out.
“唳!”
At that moment, Xiao Hei spread his wings and flew like a soldier under orders!
After circling around us, it soared towards the sky!
"Xiao Hei is showing us the way." Crow raised his head and said calmly.
We immediately took the camels and started to follow Xiao Hei.
However, not long after we walked, we discovered several blackened and withered mummies lying on the sand in front of us. Those mummies were wrapped in khaki expedition clothes, and their attire was almost exactly the same as that of the expedition team just now.
"Are these three corpses the three people who died last?" I looked at Lao Jiang and asked.
I suspect that after the expedition team died in this foggy restricted area, they may have been manipulated by some mysterious force, which ultimately led to their souls being imprisoned in this place forever.
They don't even know that they are dead, they just repeat what happened in their lifetime over and over again.
What kind of terrible place is this?
Desert of the Dead, is this the origin of the Desert of the Dead?
This is the prison of all life. Any life that steps into this place will turn into a desert undead and will never be reincarnated.
We didn't find anything useful on the three mummies, and even their manuscripts were completely rotten.
The only good thing is that the foreigner had a well-preserved oil paper bag on his chest, and we found a black and white photo in which the ink had faded.
In the photo is the group photo of this Sino-US joint expedition team!
And this team is not only seven people, but a mighty team of three and ten people.
Sitting in the middle is a foreigner with a branched beard, a suit, and a gentleman's hat. He has a high nose and blue eyes. He is about fifty years old.
"This, this is Warner?" I pointed at the photo and exclaimed in surprise.
I saw a picture of Warner in Qilin. Although I know that foreigners all look similar, this man’s nose and eyes are so similar to Warner’s that his profile is carved from the same mold.
Lao Jiang held the photo and shook his head: "No, he is not Warner."
"Remember this photo was taken in 1919, fifteen years ago..."
I suddenly realized that if this man had lived to this day, he would have been at least almost seventy. The only person who could match him was Warner's father or his uncle!
Obviously, the Warner family has been eyeing Dunhuang since the previous generation...
Lao Jiang's eyebrows almost furrowed into the word "Chuan": "Now I suspect that Warner is not just looking for the Dunhuang treasures. There may be a huge ulterior conspiracy hidden behind it!"
