Chapter 18: Marching towards Death Valley

  There were listeners, and Lu Zonghan was delighted. He stood in the hotel lobby, pacing back and forth, and glanced at Liu Yi, saying:

  But didn't I say that this person who traversed through the dense white bones is the same one your father mentioned?

  Last year we drove into the Death Valley from the entrance of Kumul Depression in Xinjiang. The edge of the Death Valley was like a paradise with birds singing and flowers blooming, lush vegetation and abundant animals. However, once inside, it was a completely different story. It all turned into Gobi Desert, the road was extremely difficult to drive on, seemingly flat but actually hiding pitfalls, our car would often fall into potholes, forcing us to get off and push the car every now and then.

  Later, we simply abandoned the vehicle and walked forward. After walking for about half an hour, the scene in front of us left us stunned. The place was desolate and bleak, with animal carcasses all over the ground, some had been dead for a long time, leaving only white bones, while others had just died and were starting to rot and mold. The air was filled with the smell of death. There were hundreds of bodies of wild yaks, each weighing over a ton, the overlords of the plateau.

  We were extremely curious about this phenomenon and decided to go forward to investigate, just as a loud rumble of thunder came from afar, followed by countless lightning bolts striking down from the sky, and a large mass of dark clouds floated towards us.

  You didn't see that the lightning struck directly at the top of the mountain, roaring towards us, scaring us to run wildly. At that time, there was no place nearby to avoid the thunder, nor did we bring any lightning-proof equipment, so we had to give up that adventure activity. Later, because of other things, I never went again.

  Liu Yi finished listening and said to Lu Zonghan: "The content of the email left by Father should not be so simple. The route Father took back then and the one we are going to take now are completely different, perhaps the secret of Father's email is related to the route taken by Keke Village!"

  "Haha... I just said that, after all, you can only know by experiencing it yourself!" In response to Liu Yi's rebuttal, Lu Zonghan didn't get angry, but instead carefully checked the equipment they had purchased.

  Seeing Liu Yi let Ma Li Ka buy such complete equipment, Lu Zonghan directly praised Liu Yi as a meticulous person. Then he said: "There is one thing missing here that is the most important!"

  "What?" Liu Yi asked.

  "Lightning-proof suit!"

  "It's not that I didn't want to buy, it's just that I couldn't get any. The only store selling lightning-proof suits has gone bankrupt!" Ma Liucao muttered discontentedly by the side.

  "Haha, I knew it would be like this, I've already prepared military-grade lightning-proof protective clothing!" Lu Zonghan said as he walked out of the hotel, went downstairs and pulled a box from the car. He opened the box, revealing several yellow suits and a few pull-ring hand grenades inside. Who knows where he got these things from?

  He picked up a piece of lightning-proof protective clothing, shook it open, and said to everyone: "This is the 'Glass Fiber Insulated Waterproof Lightning-Proof Warm Protective Clothing' that I got from the troops through connections. It's a hat-connected overall garment, extremely light, can be grasped into a ball with your hand and put in your pocket, very useful, even if you're struck by lightning a few times, you won't die!"

  Liu Yi reached into the box and pulled out a suit, which felt almost weightless in his hands: "Although Death Valley has a unique geographical structure with hidden caves everywhere, being careful is not a big problem. But when heaven gets angry, we can't control it. With this protective suit on hand, we don't have to be afraid of thunderstorms!"

  Everyone reorganized their equipment, categorizing and packing it into bags. Even Professor Zhou Tao, who was quite old, had a more than 1.5-meter-high cylindrical mountaineering backpack full of equipment.

  All preparations were made, and after a brief discussion, everyone decided to set off immediately.

  Five people got into Lu Zonghan's black Hummer and after several hours of driving, they arrived at Keke Village before sunset. They stayed overnight there to rest and refresh themselves. The next day, before sunrise, they arrived at the side of the well.

  Kekesi called out "Ou Ou Ou" a few more times, and the little Tibetan antelope Xiao Ke came out of the stone cave with his usual lazy and impatient expression, looking like he hadn't woken up yet.

  "Look, we can step on this stone block in the shape of a 'zhi' character and go down to the rock platform that protrudes from the lower wall of the vertical well!"

  Liu Yi pointed at Xiaoke who was rubbing his sleepy eyes and asked worriedly: "How can this chubby little fellow go down?"

  "Don't worry about it! Xiaoke went down the well much faster than us!"

  As soon as Kork's words fell, Xiaoke seemed to have understood what Kork meant and suddenly jumped down the well.

  The crowd gasped and looked down, only to see Xiaoke's body tightly attached to the wall, four limbs retracted, standing steadily on a stone. Then, in front of everyone's eyes, Xiaoke "ta-ta" ran along the stone wall like the wind, ran down the stone steps, and landed steadily on a huge rock at the bottom of the well. Then it lazily raised its head and bleated twice, as if urging them to hurry up and come down.

  "Unexpectedly, this fat guy is so agile!" Liu Yi exclaimed. He had been worried that the guy was not reliable earlier, but now he completely put his mind at ease.

  The vertical well is five meters away from the ground, not high but not short either. By climbing down through the protruding stone blocks, it's not difficult for everyone except Professor Zhou Tao. The crowd discussed and planned to tie up Professor Zhou Tao and put him directly on the platform below the vertical well. Who would have thought that Professor Zhou Tao immediately opposed: "If you can't overcome this little difficulty, how can you go to the Death Valley! Don't stop me, let me climb down myself!"

  Everyone saw him insist, agreed to come down, Liu Yi took the lead in descending the well, and then everyone tied a safety rope on Professor Zhou Tao's body, letting him climb down by himself. Liu Yi stood on the stone platform below, subconsciously opening his hands to guard against accidents.

  In fact, even if he didn't do so, falling down wouldn't kill him, as there was water below and at most he would just drink a few mouthfuls of water.

  One after another, all members of the expedition team arrived at the top of the stone platform.

  Liu Yi carried an inflatable rubber raft, thinking to himself: "This rubber raft can hold a person, but if it's carrying that fat little raccoon dog, it might be a bit too much. So how did Keke and Xiao Ke go to the sacrificial site? Ah, they must have had a boat!"

  Thinking so, he indeed found a wooden wedge embedded in the stone wall, with a rope tied to it. He stretched out his hand to pull the rope, and it didn't feel very heavy, so the end should be a wooden boat. Then he reached out and pulled it up, and as expected, a black boat was pulled out of the dark cave.

  Liu Yi looked at this black ship with two ends raised like a crescent moon, and found that there was a lifelike blood dragon carved around the hull. At the bow of the ship, there was a creature with its lower body embedded in the interior of the bow, made of a material that seemed to be neither iron nor wood, less than half a meter high, with the body of a sheep and the head of a human. The chest of the creature was carved with the pattern of the Big Dipper.

  Generally speaking, sheep are gentle animals, but the sheep's head on this statue is ferocious and gives people a sense of fear. When everyone sees the statue, they feel an ancient mysterious aura penetrating into their bones, and with the cold air rising from the icy river water, it makes people involuntarily break out in goosebumps all over their body.

  "This ship is a sacred object passed down through generations within our tribe. When I was young, my father told me that this ship has at least 400 to 500 years of history. The carved image on the bow of the ship is the guardian deity of our tribe, the Seven-Star Goat God!" Kekemu pointed at the carved image and said: "He can protect us, lead us through darkness and bring us to light! Legend has it that he is one of the twelve zodiac gods beside the Sun Goddess!"

  Professor Zhou raised his camera and snapped away, "Click click click", then observed the statue for a while and said: "The statue is actually made of ebony, not to mention its cultural value, but judging from its craftsmanship and age, this statue could be worth tens of millions!"

  He continued: "The formation of ebony and crystal both require a specific geographical environment. For example, the formation of ebony generally requires trees on land to be buried underground by mudslides, earthquakes and other natural disasters, and then undergo microbial action in an oxygen-free, high-pressure state for thousands or even tens of thousands of years before becoming ebony, also known as carbonized wood. In ancient times, there was a saying that having half a piece of ebony at home was worth more than a box of treasure, which shows just how valuable it is."

  Malacca heard the money and came in a hurry, preparing to reach out and touch the "ebony sheep carving", but was rushed over by Keke Mu and hit once, saying: "The sacred object of the clan, profanity is not allowed, if the gods blame us, we can't even get through this underground dark river!"

  After being frightened by him, Ma Liuji immediately withdrew his hand. Since seeing the foreign witch doctor practice and communicate with the spirit world in Keke Village, this atheist had become suspicious of gods and ghosts.

  Liu Yi's eyebrows furrowed as he said, "As far as I know, ebony was called 'yin shen mu' in ancient times and is a sacred object for warding off evil. This ship is the tool that Keke Village's Da Shi Bi uses to travel to the land of sacrifice, so it's not good for this carving to appear on the bow of the ship!"

  Everyone asked the reason, Liu Yi said: "Although I have never seen the Dabi Shifa method, but thinking about it, it is not much different from those foreign witches. If even they need to use the evil-repelling sacred object when passing through this underground dark river, then this road is extremely dangerous!"

  After Liu Yi's hint, everyone felt it made sense.

  Malacca anxiously asked: "Do you think there will be water ghosts or something inside?"

  "Be careful as you go, heaven knows if there are any ghosts or monsters!" Liu Yi said, taking out a handful of talismans from his pocket and handing them to the crowd: "These are Taoist talismans for warding off evil spirits, stick them on your chest!"

  When handed over to Korksi, he was directly rejected. Then saw Korksi patting his chest, proudly and confidently saying: "With the blood dragon opening the way for the ship's body, the sheep god protecting the law, how dare the demons and monsters come to offend!"

  Everyone saw that he was still childish but pretended to be mature, and after a slight smile, they thought: "A little kid isn't even afraid, let's not bother ourselves, maybe there's nothing scary in the dark river either!"

  As they spoke, the little Tibetan antelope had already jumped onto the boat and knew it was going to the holy land of its tribe. It was extremely excited and bounced around on the boat for a while. The crowd on the stone platform watched as the small boat bobbed up and down, worried that Little Ke would capsize the boat.

  But Xiao Ke just stirred for a moment, then stopped and lay down at the bow of the boat, staring blankly at the dark river.

  They too got on board and cast off the mooring ropes. The wooden boat then slowly drifted away with the current.

  As soon as the ship sailed into the black hole, a huge sense of oppression surged forth.