Walking in the desert is boring.
Because in front of you there are endless sand dunes as far as the eye can see, and there are even more continuous sand dunes after you turn over one dune.
Later, you can't even tell the difference between the sand dunes. Anyway, they all look the same. If you hadn't seen some thorngrass, white thorns, and poplar groves from time to time, you would feel that you are moving forward. It really felt like I was spinning in circles.
Fortunately for Jin'an, his Five Zang Immortal Temple has a circulation of internal organs, which brings endless vitality and reduces human body consumption. He drinks more water on the road than those businessmen from the Western Regions who deal with the desert all the year round. This way he can keep the bearded people away These people were surprised.
At first, these people were bragging in front of Jin An. They felt that Jin An, a Central Plains man with thin skin and tender flesh, had never suffered any hardships and had no experience in the desert. He would make the same mistakes as all those who enter the desert for the first time and do not control his drinking water. He drank a lot of water, but on the first day he entered the desert, he was quickly slapped in the face.
The bearded man curiously asked him more than once if this was really his first time in the desert, his eyes filled with disbelief.
this day.
It was the sixth day after the camel caravan entered the desert. The team passed by an abandoned earth city. It was said to be an earth city, but in fact it had been eroded by wind and sand, leaving only a few ruins in the central area.
But the team had no intention of stopping and continued to move forward in a long line. It was still early, the sun was at noon, and there was still more than half a day before dark. They had to work hard to get to the next place before dark. Rest point.
The bearded man noticed that Jin An seemed to be interested in the ruins of the ancient city. The enthusiastic foreign man explained: "There used to be water here, and a small country was established, but then it was flooded by sandstorms and the water dried up. Later, countless people passed by Years later, it was revealed again.”
"But this is the desert. The weather in the desert is like the gods in the sky. It always makes it difficult for mortals to figure it out. No one can predict when a storm will come and one will be buried under the sand for the country forever. Those who have not had time to escape will Those who went out were eventually trapped under the sand with the city, never to see the sun again. There are many ruins in small desert countries like this."
The camel team continues to move forward.
Because sheep's hooves are not suitable for carrying heavy objects in the desert, Jin An has switched to riding a camel since leaving Yangguan. He sat between the humps, his body rising and falling, looking at Batur curiously and said: "Big Beard, I see you speak Chinese very well. Are you a mixed race?"
"Mixed?" The bearded man didn't understand what he meant.
"It means intermarriage between Han people and people from the Western Regions." Jin An roughly explained.
The bearded man has a bright smile. These three-dimensional facial features look like people from the Western Regions carved by the hands of gods. They are all handsome men and beauties. Especially the bearded man has a mature and confident charm of a middle-aged man when he smiles. In the Kangding Kingdom, he would definitely be the favorite of thousands of girls. The lover in his dream, the bearded man, laughed and said frankly: "My mother is indeed from Kangding. Because her family was in decline, she was chased by her enemies and had to flee the Western Regions. When she was short of water, she passed out in the desert and was about to die from the sun. When we were in the desert, we happened to be rescued by my father who was not yet an adult at that time, and then my mother stayed with my father and never left the desert again in her life."
"Because of my mother, I have been yearning for Kangding Country since I was a child. My mother taught me the Chinese language."
Unexpectedly, there were so many twists and turns in the story. Jin An nodded and said with a smile: "I can see that your mother is very good to you, and you are also very filial to your mother, Big Beard."
The bearded man became interested: "Taoist Master Jin'an, how did you figure it out?"
Jin An said with a smile: "A filial son may not necessarily be honest in life, but a filial son must be honest in life. Mother is the enlightenment mentor of a person's character."
Perhaps because Jin An was exaggerating about Beard's mother in disguise, Beard became obviously more enthusiastic towards Jin An. Along the way, the two of them felt that they had met each other so late that they almost pulled Jin An to cut off the chicken's head and drink the chicken's blood, forming an alliance through blood. We are brothers with different surnames.
The bearded man became enthusiastic and dared to say anything to Jin An. A man's fear of his wife seemed to work no matter which country or nation he was in. Their whole family was afraid of his mother. Because his mother was a noble lady when the family was in decline. She was proficient in music, chess, calligraphy and painting, and was smart and good at business. His bearded father was originally just a coolie who followed the caravan to the desert to endure hardships because he couldn't afford to eat. Since marrying After marrying Big Beard's mother, the family gradually prospered and the business grew bigger and bigger. In the hands of Big Beard, he also had his own independent caravan.
The next half day of their journey was a bit unsatisfactory. The bearded man suddenly said that he had heard the wind and that the wind was about to pick up. He asked everyone to sit tight and speed up to find shelter from the wind.
Jin An looked up at the sky above his head. The sun was scorching and poisonous, like a big millstone. The sky was blue and not even a cloud could be seen. The weather was very clear.
But these bearded people have been dealing with the desert all year round, and they are definitely not wrong. Jin An waved his whip, followed the others on the camel and started running wildly in the desert.
Riding a camel is no better than riding a horse. A camel is much bumpier than a horse. Even those businessmen from the Western Regions were a little bit overwhelmed by whipping their whips all the way. They felt as if their buttocks were being jolted into four pieces.
…
Another six days later, the camel team had passed through the outer edge of the desert and began to gradually penetrate into the desert. As expected, the occasionally exposed rocks along the road were no longer visible. The top of the head was becoming more and more sinister, and even the desert plants Haloxylon ammodendron and Populus euphratica were growing. Rarely seen, the sand here is finer and drier.
Two days after going deep into the desert, they started walking along a dry river bed. There were no obvious landmarks here for reference. If they didn't want to get lost in the desert, they had to walk along these river beds.
The river bed is filled with pieces of salt crust that look like cracked and upturned land. These salt crusts are sediments and salt that cannot be evaporated away with the water after the river dries up. The sediment accumulates on the river bed, shaped like pieces of upturned turtle shells. , the texture of the salt crust is very hard.
The desert is very boring, except that sand is always sand. After walking for another half a day, the camel team came across a huge merchant ship that had rolled over and stranded on the river bed. The planks of the merchant ship were badly rotted, and the half of the ship that had rolled over had melted into the river bed sediment. One body.
The bearded man raised his head and looked at the sky. At this time, the sun above his head was like the most dazzling cross of golden light, which made people unable to open their eyes.
The bearded man turned back and shouted to the camel team: "The sun will disappear soon. The desert at night is not suitable for traveling. Let's rest at the shipwreck tonight and continue our journey tomorrow."
Next, everyone started to get busy, first feeding the camels hay and water, and then starting to prepare food for them.
In the desert, only camels and water can save your life. Only when you take good care of the camel can the camel save your life at a critical moment.
Jin An looked at the sunken ship in the desert and was a little amazed. The merchant ship in front of him was huge. Even if it turned over and ran aground on the river bed, it still gave people the feeling of a giant lying on its side.
"Big Beard, are there merchant ships in the desert?"
"I always thought that merchants in the Western Regions only had camel caravans, but I never thought there were fleets in the desert."
Jin An stood in front of the sunken ship and asked the bearded man.
The Western businessmen who were unloading the cloth bags from the camels' backs and taking out hay from the cloth bags to feed the camels laughed. A man in his thirties who had prematurely aged a year and had a Mediterranean head said with a kind smile: "This road under our feet is The river was a big river thousands of years ago. This place was not yet deep in the desert. Many ancient countries were built on both sides of the river, and the merchant ship trade was very prosperous. According to legend, a very big storm came and more than a hundred sand dunes were evacuated in one night. Even the rivers were diverted and dried up, and merchant ships that did not have time to dock were stranded in the river bed, lying here alone all their lives."
Listening to the strange legends in the desert, Jin An's eyes were opened again and again.
The prematurely aging businessman's name was Kremu. Kremu continued to joke: "Is Taoist Jin'an wondering if there are any treasures in these sunken ships?"
Kremu said with a smile while feeding the camels hay: "Haha, if there are really treasures or goods, these sunken ships would have been salvaged by the goods of the year, or dug away by others. This sunken ship lies here. For thousands of years, we are just latecomers.”
These merchants from the Western Regions have been doing business with Kang Dingguo all the year round, so everyone can speak Chinese, but their pronunciation is not as clear as the bearded ones, and occasionally they can even give you a funny rhyme.
But these did not hinder Jin An's communication with them. He would be able to understand them if he spoke slowly. After spending half a month together along the way, he had already become familiar with these Western businessmen.
While Jin An took out hay to feed the camels, he continued to chat with the merchants from the Western Regions, gleaning some useful information in the desert.
After feeding the three camels, he took out the water bag to feed the goats. The goats were already going crazy with thirst. They bit into the water bag and poured water into their stomachs.
If he hadn't taken away the water bag in order to save water, the goat would have drank all the water bag.
"Okay, drink less. According to the way you drink, you will drink up all the water I brought before you are halfway to the next water replenishment point." Jin An said in a dumbfounded voice.
Yes, all the water he saved through frugality along the way was saved for this silly sheep.
The goat followed him on this trip and really endured hardships. He had to eat hardships and sand along the way, and even lost two laps of fat. If this goat could speak human language, he would probably scold Jin An to death.
"Taoist Master Jin'an, you are so kind to the sheep. We saw you taking good care of it along the way. This trip into the desert is unbearable for people. Why did Taoist Jin'an bring a sheep into the desert? Is it to preserve food rations?" , Want to eat fresh mutton in the desert?" Another Western businessman asked curiously.
As a result, he earned a sideways look from the goat.
The Western Region businessman suddenly became depressed: "Why do I feel like it can understand human speech? Just now it rolled its eyes at me and called me a fool?"
Hahaha, the others laughed in amusement.
While talking and laughing, everyone had finished dinner for the camels and people, and it was getting dark.
The sunset in the desert is beautiful, and the entire sky is painted with a dazzling golden color, burning like a golden flame.
The space in the sunken ship is large and has been manually cleaned. Although there is still a lot of sediment, it is not a problem to accommodate at least dozens of people in several cabins. It can be seen that this sunken ship has become a temporary foothold for many merchants from the Western Regions, and has been specially cleaned up by passing merchants.
The night is dark.
After traveling for a day, the people on the sunken ship were exhausted and quickly fell asleep.
Even the camels outside the sunken ship formed a circle and fell asleep hugging each other for warmth.
There is a big temperature difference between day and night in the desert. The sunlight is dazzling during the day, and the night is extremely dark. Once night falls, the entire desert falls into deathly silence. This is what the Sea of Death should be like, a forbidden land for life.
Being accustomed to the soft and warm belly of the goat, Jin An did not leave the goat outside, but also brought the goat into the cabin to spend the night together.
The most important thing is that this stupid sheep doesn't regard itself as a sheep at all, but completely regards itself as a human being. It has a mysophobia and is only willing to sleep in a crowd with people, not with those camels.
The cabin was dark. Except for a few people who were responsible for taking turns to watch the night, everyone else had fallen asleep due to exhaustion. Jin An did not fall asleep. He was cultivating the Five Zang Immortal Temple with all his heart in order to restore his body functions.
Suddenly, bang bang bang!
Bang bang!
It was like a large group of camels running wildly, and the sound was getting closer and closer to them.
Especially in the quiet night, any movement is particularly harsh. This sudden movement immediately wakes up everyone sleeping in the cabin.
"what happened?"
"Where's the sound coming from?"
The first time everyone woke up, they frantically asked about the situation, thinking they had encountered the most ferocious sand bandit in the desert.
"Shh, don't make any noise, those noises are coming towards us!" The bearded man told everyone to be quiet and listen carefully to what was going on outside.
At this time, Jin An had also opened his eyes and woke up, listening carefully to the sounds outside the sunken ship.
Bang bang!
The sound of the camels running wildly was like raindrops falling to the ground, getting louder and louder. In the darkness, Jin An and Big Beard looked at each other in surprise. The crazy camels were actually approaching them, and they heard the voices of many people.
Are there really sand pirates here?
But before the two of them were surprised, the herds of camels were already running over their heads, and the whips were beating wildly on the camels. The camels screamed in pain, and people were screaming in fear, urging the camels to run faster.
It turned out that those people did not pass through the river bed, but ran across the desert above the river bed. Coupled with the frightened screams, they seemed to have encountered something and were running for their lives in a panic.
