bad seeds - Chapter 4
I took one last look back at the small hill that had turned yellow from sand. The dark red marks seemed to indicate that there was indeed some rust left on the surface of the hill.
The only interesting thing about this trip was that I found a fallen cement monument on the northeast corner of Baigong Mountain. A small part of the monument was buried in the sand, but I could still make out the red-painted Wei-style characters engraved on it.
It said on it:
"Delingha City Alien Site".
We used to jokingly call "Beijing Foreign Studies University" the "Alien Ruins of the Northern Hemisphere"—but unexpectedly, someone actually carved the last five characters on a monument and erected it.
After returning to Shanghai, I told my colleagues about it as a joke.
"You said you really saw that monument?" our arts and culture reporter Zhang Ying asked.
"Absolutely true!"
"Then come and look at this."
——Xinhua News Agency, Delingha, June 16 (Reporters Wang Jun and Qian Ling) The controversial "alien site" in Qinghai will welcome its first batch of experts and scholars to conduct in-depth research on it.
Reporters learned from the Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture government in Qinghai Province that nine experts and scholars in aerospace, meteorology, astronomy, and other fields, organized by the Beijing UFO Research Association and other organizations, plan to visit the "alien ruins" in the Qaidam Basin this month to investigate whether extraterrestrials have truly visited the area. This legendary "alien ruins" is located on Baigong Mountain, more than 40 kilometers southwest of Delingha City, the capital of the Qaidam Basin. Baigong Mountain is bordered to the north by Kulu Lake and Tosu Lake, a famous pair of twin lakes in the area, one freshwater and one saltwater, known as the "Lover's Lakes," with beautiful and moving legends associated with them. The "alien ruins" are situated on the southern shore of the saltwater Tosu Lake. From a distance, the yellowish-gray cliffs, rising fifty to sixty meters above the ground, resemble a pyramid. On the front of the mountain are three distinct triangular caves, the largest in the middle, more than 2 meters above the ground, about 6 meters deep, and nearly 8 meters high at its highest point.
I quickly checked the relevant links. During my week-long trip to Qinghai, almost all influential online media outlets rushed to report on this almost absurd "alien ruins." Portals like Sina even dedicated large sections to in-depth reports. At one point, major authoritative print media began unanimously condemning the "rumors" about the "alien ruins." Frankly, for a time, no one could distinguish right from wrong. However, while the evidence regarding the "alien ruins" seemed quite dubious, the claim in the "debunking" that iron pipes embedded in the mountains were a common natural phenomenon in Northwest China was simply absurd. If that were true, iron pipes would already be scattered across the Gobi Desert, and Baosteel wouldn't need to import iron ore from Australia.
"Hehe, Delingha must be crazy to want to develop tourism resources, to come up with something so outrageous."
"If this is just a baseless rumor, then why seal off Mount Baigong?"
I didn't answer Zhang Ying's question because I had the same question in my mind. My smile remained on my face, but I think my heart had already wavered to some extent.
The following days of hectic and tedious workdays gradually buried the question in dust, and my press release about the excavation of the ancient village ruins at Lake Kruk failed to generate the expected sensation—not only in Shanghai, but also elsewhere, the media seemed indifferent to the event—which surprised me somewhat, probably because there had been too many explosive news stories lately. Just when I was almost ready to put the matter out of my mind, things took a turn.
This turning point came from an unexpected visit from a friend of mine.
I met Ye Tong about three or four months ago at a boring press conference.
We met because we were sitting very close to each other, I mean, right next to each other, and more importantly, we were both reading the same book—The Lord of the Rings.
We were both very curious people, and sharing this interest, we quickly became acquainted. Her interest in strange events...
Her obsession was so extreme that no word could better describe it than "supernatural and bizarre." What surprised me was that she worked for a dull, bureaucratic media outlet, the name of which I still can't remember.
Ye Tong is a pretty girl, at least that's what I think.
Her beauty wasn't the delicate kind; the distinct lines of her face gave her a look that was both soft and strong.
She was born in Qinghai. Yes, if you remember the friend I mentioned who was born in a place prone to earthquakes and where hailstorms can be deadly, that's her. It's said she's not Han Chinese, but belongs to a small tribe long forgotten by history. She herself is very secretive about this, and none of us can say for sure which ethnicity she belongs to. This adds to her mystique.
However, if you met a girl like this on the streets of Shanghai, you would never have imagined these things—she left her hometown at a very young age to make her way in Shanghai on her own. To be honest, I admire her greatly for that.
As you might expect, her visit changed my life.
"Na Duo!" she shouted my name loudly in the office, as if everyone's eyes were not on her but rather looking through her body and onto the wall behind her.
"Don't be so loud, I can hear you! What is it?" I peeked out from the corner of the cubicle.
"Come out here, I need to talk to you urgently!" Her voice didn't soften at all.
Perhaps because the office was perpetually shrouded in smoke, obstructing our view of each other, I raised my voice eight octaves: "What's the matter? Come over here and talk!"
Ye Tong walked straight through my office, grabbed my arm and dragged me out, leaving everyone's laughter and chatter behind.
"What are you doing?" I was getting a little angry.
Are you free lately?
"not busy."
"I heard you recently went to Delingha?"
A week ago.
"I'm afraid you'll have to go again."
"Why?"
I invite you to come with me.
"Are you crazy? What are you doing there?"
“I’m perfectly fine!” She waved the paper in her hand. “I just received an urgent notice from my clan, asking me to go back. My tribe is currently in a small village near Delingha.”
"What does that have to do with me?"
“I’ll explain it to you again in another place,” she said, grabbing my arm and dragging me outside.
"Wait, let me pack my things first..."
However, I still couldn't leisurely pack my things before leaving get off work. After I was forcibly dragged out of the office, I could hear my colleagues bursting into laughter behind me.
In a teahouse near the newspaper office.
The hall was filled with the shouts and noises of people playing cards, which forced me to get very close to Ye Tong to hear what we were saying. This made Ye Tong and I look like a couple, but what we were talking about had nothing to do with romance. This situation made me feel a little ridiculous.
While sipping her bubble tea, Ye Tong recounted the whole story to me:
"Three days ago, I received an urgent registered letter from my hometown, no, to be precise, from my family. The letter asked me to rush back to my clan in Delingha, which is quite rare."
"Although our tribe is small in number, we are elusive and still wander around. Even finding my own people is not an easy task for me. In ancient times, our tribe was called 'Demilshi.' Do you know what that word means to us?"
"have no idea."