Under One Person, the little witch only wants to collect elves

Chapter 363: The Ancient Kingdom of Loulan, the Enemy of the Red Feathered Firebird
Due to the confidentiality of both departments, Yan Huan did not ask. After eating and drinking, the three of them found a hotel to stay in.

This place is hundreds of kilometers away from Lop Nur, and there is also a long drive in between. This made Chen Junyan, who had been traveling for a long time, extremely miserable. He fell into a deep sleep as soon as he lay down on the bed.

Yan Huan memorized all the information provided by the two organizations, "Nadutong" and the Imperial Capital Command Center, washed up simply, and fell asleep.

Of course, this dream was not a simple dream, it was still the dream-making elixir method passed down by the immortal.

The next day, the three of them turned along the ancient Silk Road, headed southwest from Hami, crossed the Gobi Desert, and arrived at that mysterious land.

Lop Nur, a lake in the southeast of the new district, is known as the "Ear of the Earth" because of its shape which resembles a human ear. The "Classic of Mountains and Seas" calls it "Youze".

However, its most impressive name is "Sea of ​​Death". The vast and mysterious desert has attracted countless explorers to risk their lives, and many people have died there. Coupled with the harsh environment of extreme weather and water shortage, this place has become a real forbidden zone for life.

"First of all, this place can be clearly ruled out." Yan Huan pointed to a military restricted area marked on the map.

Lao Meng and Chen Junyan agreed deeply and nodded together.

Even if it is an alien virus, no matter how resilient it is, it is difficult for it to survive in a nuclear test site.

The restricted area is still guarded by troops, and there are vehicles and drones patrolling and investigating back and forth. The Firebird Elves will not hide their tracks under such high-pressure patrols, and the chances of them appearing there are not high.

Yan Huan avoided the tourist hotspots that were officially allowed to pass through and headed straight into the no-man's land.

The temperature was as high as 40 degrees Celsius at this time. I was sweating profusely after just a few steps. The sweat stuck my clothes and skin together. The yellow sand made me itchy.

Yan Huan didn't dislike this kind of experience brought by nature. After all, cold winters and hot summers are all part of being human. However, if you stay in an extreme environment for a long time, you will still feel a little uncomfortable.

"It's better to be more comfortable..." Yan Huan mobilized the five elements in his body to keep the wind, sand and high temperature out of his body.

Chen Junyan wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked towards the endless distant horizon.

"I now understand why I was granted so much funding this time..."

These are all life-threatening jobs!
The wind howls in the vast desert, and the sand dunes are intertwined with the deep sky, overflowing with the most primitive power and vitality of nature.

call--

The wind blew past, and the three of them raised their arms at the same time.

The surroundings were vast and empty, and apart from the sound of the wind, there seemed to be no sign of any life.

Chen Junyan and Lao Meng suddenly felt their footsteps become heavy, with fine sand sliding down from under their feet.

The sky gradually darkened, and the wind carried a slight stinging sensation of sand hitting the cheeks, making people shudder.

The temperature dropped suddenly.

"Water...the water is almost gone..." Chen Junyan stuck out his tongue. He really underestimated this uninhabited area. Even with so much water he brought, it was not enough.

"It's okay. I'll refill your glass." Yan Huan took the empty bottle. Ice crystals condensed in the air, then melted into water in an instant and fell into the bottle.

"Is this the ability you guys have over there!?"

Chen Junyan took the water and took a big gulp. Apart from anything else, it tasted quite good.

"Then let me show you mine. In addition to normal telekinesis, I can also do this!"

After saying that, the boy in the baseball cap suspended the empty bottle in the air.

Click, click, click...
The plastic bottle was twisted together, and when Chen Junyan released his strength, it returned to its original shape.

“I can destroy the shape of things, but I can also fix them over time.”

Yan Huan and Lao Meng stopped to look at him, and raised their arms in unison.

How is this done without the flow of Qi?
It seems like the atmosphere around me has changed...

Just as he was wondering, Chen Junyan, who was wiping the corner of his mouth, suddenly pointed forward.

"What's there?"

In the distance, rows of oddly shaped wooden stakes come into view, densely packed and stretching endlessly, like a shadow forest rooted in the desert.

The wooden stakes are of varying thicknesses and arranged in a disorderly manner, with rotten and mottled surfaces, like a pair of dry hands reaching out from the sand.

As they got closer, the three finally saw clearly that the wooden stakes were not inserted meaninglessly in the sand, but were the markers of graves.

The sand collapsed slightly, revealing a number of curved coffins.

The coffin has a peculiar shape, with a semi-arc shape all over, and the two sides put together like a small boat. The cowhide is tightly wrapped around the surface of the coffin. The leather has long been cracked, showing an ancient gray-brown color, and exuding a faint smell of corruption.

It is covered with sand, and some strange symbols and patterns are vaguely visible. Some look like animal heads, and some look like human faces, but they are so blurry that it is even impossible to tell whether they are artificial carvings or naturally generated.

"Who designed this thing?" Chen Junyan pointed to a wooden stake next to the tree.

The vertical wooden stake has a peach-shaped round head on top.

"Reproductive cult..." Lao Meng blurted out.

Yan Huan squatted down and gently brushed away a piece of sand on the coffin with his hand. He found that the wood was not ordinary wood. When he scratched it with his fingernail, there was actually fine black powder scattered, like some kind of weathered bone.

The hills were littered with mummies, skeletons, dismembered bodies, huge wooden planks that could trip people up at any time, and fragments of thick woolen fabrics.

The boat-shaped coffin wrapped in cowhide has traces of Qi left behind.

"I'm sorry." Yan Huan said to the coffin.

Just as he was about to open it, there was a sudden "boom" around him.

Yan Huan felt nothing under his feet and the sand dune suddenly collapsed. Lao Meng and Chen Junyan let out a short cry and their bodies fell out of control.

The yellow sand in the sky was like a golden waterfall, roaring into the broken cracks in the sand.

At the critical moment, Yan Huan stretched out two vines from his hands and swung them violently, wrapping around the two people beside him to prevent them from getting separated.

A moment later, with a dull thud, Lao Meng and Chen Junyan fell heavily to the hard ground.

"Sorry, the vine is a bit long." Yan Huan flapped his wings and landed gently.

"By the way, this doesn't look like underground."

Surrounding it are the remains of a large-scale underground ancient city.

In the dim light, dilapidated city walls and broken stone pillars crisscrossed each other, and the city walls were covered with unclear reliefs, including human figures and unknown strange beasts, which were ferocious and grotesque.

The stone pillars were covered with cracks, as if they would collapse at the slightest touch. The ground was a weathered brick road, and many places had sunken or collapsed, revealing unfathomable dark cracks.

Among the broken walls, you can see some remaining building frames, vaguely showing the shape of palaces and altars. It can be seen that this place was once glorious, but now it is just a dead city buried under the yellow sand.

"What are you doing to me?" Chen Junyan muttered in a low voice, looking around warily.

Suddenly, a loud "bang" sound came from the left.

Yan Huan and Meng Shu turned around at the same time and saw a figure flash past from behind the broken stone pillar.

"Is there someone here!?" Chen Junyan shouted in a low voice and ran after him.

"Wait a minute..." Yan Huan wanted to remind him not to be impulsive, but before he could finish his words, he had disappeared among the ruins.

The thing didn't seem to be running very fast. After a few steps, it tripped over a piece of gravel and fell heavily to the ground.

Chen Junyan approached quickly and a flashlight came out of his backpack and shone over there.

The thing slowly struggled to get up, and the light was fixed on her face.

"Shit!" Chen Junyan was so scared that he took a half step back and almost dropped the flashlight in his hand.

The person who fell to the ground turned out to be a mummy!
It was wearing coarse woolen fabric, a worn sheepskin coat, and fur boots sewn with thick thread. Its body was like a dead tree, its face was distorted, and its tightly closed eyes seemed like they would open at any time.

"Uncle Meng! Brother Huan! We've encountered a big one!" Chen Junyan turned around and shouted, "There are zombies!"

Lao Meng hurried over.

The mummy began to speak, with a sweet and soft female voice with a hint of strength, but the pronunciation was a bit stiff and weird.

“Are you Han Chinese?”

She bent her legs inward, knelt down with her knees together, her feet touching the ground, and her hands hung limply on her knees.

"Please don't hurt me... I am willing to give you water and food..."

Her head was slightly lowered, and her long, dry hair was scattered like weeds, covering her hollow, shriveled face. Her bony fingertips lightly touched the ground, and she seemed a little at a loss.

Hey?
Chen Junyan was stunned for a moment, then pointed at the female corpse and said, "Uncle Meng, Brother Huan, first of all, I don't have any special fetishes, but this guy is much more ladylike than the girls in my unit."

"Junyan, come back first, it's dangerous..." Old Meng waved his hand and spread the Qi out. The big-eared little jerboas hiding in the dark jumped out one after another and waited cautiously on the side.

Yan Huan looked at the female corpse. He could not tell any expression from her fucked-dead face, but her voice was indeed trembling.

The body wrapped in dry sheepskin showed signs of being baptized by Qi. It is estimated that the person behind the scenes is proficient in methods such as "Xiangxi Corpse Driving Technique".

Seeing that the three people did not respond, the female corpse trembled and said, "My family is a small shop that replenishes dry food, so we have frequent exchanges with the Han people, and I can speak the language over there..."

"But for some reason, there are very few merchants coming here recently."

Yan Huan and Lao Meng looked at each other and nodded, and the little jerboas around them jumped out one after another.

After checking the surroundings, Lao Meng found nothing unusual except for more than ten extra mummies.

"This may be an extra site of the ancient kingdom of Loulan..." Lao Meng said in a low voice.

The ancient kingdom of Loulan was a small country on the ancient Silk Road, located to the west of Lop Nur and at the hub of the Western Regions. Its territory stretched from the vicinity of ancient Yangguan in the east to the ancient city of Niya in the west, from the Altun Mountains in the south to Hami in the north.

This small country, founded in 176 BC, disappeared inexplicably eight hundred years later.

Yan Huan looked aside and said, "Uncle Meng, you said before that you saw elves in the yellow sand. Are you sure it was in this area?"

"Uh..." Lao Meng thought for a while and was a little unsure.

"Originally there were trees there, but... some bastards came from nowhere and cut them all down. Now it's bare everywhere. I can't explain it..."

"It's not easy to grow a tree in this damn place, but it was cut down for no reason..." Thinking of this, Lao Meng felt indignant. Without any clues, Yan Huan simply chased after the female corpse and asked more questions.

"Do you have any exotic beasts or guardian beasts here?"

The female corpse rested her dry and deformed fingers on her chin and thought for a while.

"Pure Vision Agama."

"what?"

"It's a big black snake. I heard from my grandfather that our king once named it the guardian beast of the country for a period of time." The female corpse explained.

Jingjian Agama is a species of snake with extremely strong vitality. It is said that it can survive for a long time even if cut in half. The bright red poisonous saliva it secretes can corrode stones. There is a ten-step poisonous mist in front and behind it. If you are close to it, you will be poisoned to death. The toxicity is so strong that it is beyond human imagination.

"Is there a Fire Feather Spirit Bird?"

“There are flamingos, but they are not rare.”

"Hmm...are there only a dozen people left here?"

After hearing what Yan Huan said, the female corpse tilted her head in confusion.

"There are people everywhere here. Our Loulan Kingdom is so lively!" She stood up and gestured to the empty space behind her. She ran around a few half-broken pillars and nodded repeatedly at the holes made of rocks.

"Would you like to come to my house for a visit? I will... charge you a few less..."

The female corpse bowed and nodded slightly.

It turns out he was soliciting...
Yan Huan continued to ask: "Is your grandfather still alive?"

"Of course, he is in very good health!"

"Then go and sit down." Yan Huan replied.

"Eh!?" Chen Junyan exclaimed in disbelief, lowering his voice and asking Lao Meng, "Uncle Meng, is this kind of thing common in your place?"

Lao Meng smiled bitterly and said, "You don't understand this. Master Yan is called a sorcerer in our circle. He can communicate with ghosts and gods."

"Our definition of death is different from his, because he knows the existence of the soul."

"Oh oh oh!" Chen Junyan nodded thoughtfully. Although he didn't quite understand, he felt that it seemed very impressive.

Yan Huan, who was walking in front, turned around and said, "What are you wondering about? This guy's grandfather is obviously more knowledgeable than her. Let's go ask him first."

soul?

The female corpse in front of me only has a tiny bit of soul breath in her body.

A little trace of Qi refining, plus a hint of obsession, are the reasons why she can survive now.

The female corpse's movements were stiff, but she walked in front with firm steps, leading Yan Huan and the other two to a ruin.

The so-called "home" is just a simple structure made of a few old rocks, which can't even block the wind and sand.

The sand in the middle was piled up to form rough "tables and chairs", giving off a desolate and eerie atmosphere of life.

After the three of them sat down on the small rocks, the female corpse came out with a plate of "food".

A bright red lizard was lying on the plate, its smooth scales glowing coldly and moistly in the dim light of the sky.

The killer lizard is a notorious predator in this desert.

The female corpse looked down at the lizard, opened her shriveled mouth, and bit its neck to pieces.

The lizard twitched a few times and blood flowed down, staining the worn plate scarlet.

Then, she respectfully placed the headless corpse on the pile of sand, spread her hands gently, and said in a hoarse voice with seriousness: "Ten copper coins will be enough."

Chen Junyan was stunned for two seconds, and then he suppressed the churning in his stomach and raised his voice a little: "Can I not eat?"

The female corpse raised her head and "stared" at them with her eyes closed. After a moment, she slowly shook her head, with a strange and stubborn tone: "All in the pot..."

"Let's eat later. Where's your grandfather?" Yan Huan asked.

"Oh, wait, let me shout."

The female corpse hurriedly ran to the corner of the street. Taking advantage of this gap, Lao Meng hurriedly sent two jerboas to drag the lizard corpse into the ruins.

After waiting for about twenty minutes, a shriveled old man carrying a fishing rod came back, pulled by the female corpse.

The man had pale hair, a bloodless face, and rough, dry skin. He was no different from the other mummies, but Yan Huan could tell at a glance that he was a living person.

"fishing rod?"

Yan Huan glanced at the gold and silver hooks hanging around the old man's waist. They were shining and had obviously been refined.

"There are outsiders coming into this kind of hellish place..."

"Three boys, what year is it outside now?"

Without even thinking, Chen Junyan replied, "It's already 2015, old man."

“2015…” The old man twisted his stiff neck.

It’s been seventy years...

Seventy years of time...

Yan Huan pointed to the cracks in the air where fine sand was flowing, through which the last bit of sunset light was pouring in.

"With your skills, it shouldn't be difficult to get out. Why are you willing to lock yourself up in a place like this?"

“It’s all about cultivation…” the old man sighed.

"Minor cultivation is in the mountains, and major cultivation is in the world." Yan Huan said.

The old man carrying the fishing rod shook his head and said disdainfully: "You Han people's stuff is too profound. I don't understand it."

"Did you create this mummy?"

“Hehehe… That’s not the case. The old man has no other skills except fishing, and he hasn’t learned the skill of refining corpses. But thanks to this guy, the old man won’t starve to death in this place.”

The old man touched the female corpse's head.

"You're looking for the corpse refiner, then he's waiting for you on the throne... King of Loulan... If you want to call him that, cough cough cough..."

“Ah… cough cough cough…”

The old man walked slowly closer, first took a look at the lizard blood on the sand pile, and then kept glancing at the three people.

One is too old, not good...
The remaining two are of top quality.

"It smells so good, it really smells so good! I don't know how many years it has been since I last had meat..." The old man, who looked like a mummy, swallowed a few times and dug out an exquisitely shaped treasure chest from the bottom of the ruins.

Yan Huan looked at the back and said, "Old man, do you know a fire-feathered spirit bird?"

The old man who was packing the boxes paused for a moment, then suddenly turned his head away angrily, his eyes red with anger.

"What did you say!?"

"Fire Feather Spirit Bird."

"Bird!" The old man hugged his head suddenly, as if he was being torn apart by some invisible force.

"Ah...bird! It's a bird!" He let out a low groan, the sound was intermittent, his body curled up on the ground, and suddenly he straightened up as if he was stabbed, and then slammed into the ground hard.

"Grandpa, are you okay? What happened?" The female corpse hurried forward and asked with concern, but was pushed away by the old man.

"Bird..." The old man scratched his scalp with his fingers, his nails digging into his flesh, his cracked lips bitten until they bled, and his eyes were empty and twisted.

"This guy has gone crazy!" Chen Junyan tried to step forward to stop him, but was stopped by Yan Huan who waved his arm.

There is no doubt that this old man has definitely seen the fire spirit, and the meeting was not a pleasant one.

"Let me see what's hidden in your heart."

A black tortoise and a black snake appeared in Yan Huan's pupils, one on the left and one on the right.

Borrowing the power of the Black Tortoise of the Eight Deceitful Gods, Yan Huan peered into the old man's heart, but his heart was pitch black at this moment, with nothing left except fear.

"This man was frightened out of his mind."

"Go ahead, Chen Junyan." Yan Huan pointed forward.

Chen Junyan scratched his head, feeling that something was not right.

"Fine···"

"Anyway, use telekinesis to control it first..."

Muttering something in his mind, Chen Junyan put his hands together and two invisible hands stretched out.

The old man's eyes narrowed, and before the big hands could restrain his whole body, he grabbed the mental power and pulled it over, as if he had foreseen it.

Chen Junyan only felt his body being pulled forward, and before he could react, a wrinkled old hand slapped him on the chest.

"Old thing!"

Cursing silently, Chen Junyan protected his chest with telekinesis, but the palm that came at him was so overbearing and brutal, and the powerful momentum pushed him directly into the ruins.

"Grandpa, why did you attack the guests? Aren't we open for business?"

The old man turned a deaf ear and stared at Yan Huan: "Young man, I was planning to eat you to improve the food, but now the situation has changed."

"Let's find that bird and kill it!"

(End of this chapter)