At this time, the sky outside was just getting bright, not too hot yet, with a hint of chill from last night.
After the bearded man led the people out of the sunken ship, he first counted the number of camels twice, and saw that there were no less camels. Apart from being a little restless, there was no other condition, so he led the people to climb on the ship.
This sunken ship has been stranded in the desert for a long time. The hull is covered with thick mud and sand. In addition, the slope of the overturned hull is too large. It is not easy for people to climb up. Bearded people hold daggers in both hands and plan to climb up. Climb up with the help of these daggers.
However, even with the help of these daggers, facing such a steep slope, if one is not careful, there is still a risk of falling from a height and causing serious injuries.
After Big Beard and the others were ready to board the ship, they looked at Jin An: "Taoist Master Jin An, you are weak and not as agile as the rest of us. Why don't you just wait in the river bed for our notification and don't follow us up?" "
"I'm afraid I won't be able to take care of you when everyone gets on the ship. If something happens to you, I, the bearded man, will be a broken man and I won't be able to take you to your destination alive."
"God trusts us desert people, so he allows us to walk on His body. Once we don't keep our trust in the desert, we will be abandoned and punished by God. What awaits me next is either lack of water or a storm." ”
Although the bearded man doesn't speak nicely, he has an upright character and his starting point is for Jin'an's safety.
Jin An: "Don't worry, bearded man, I won't show off."
Big Beard knew that he could not stop Jin An, so he reluctantly agreed to Jin An boarding the ship with them.
Although the ship was difficult to climb, it was for ordinary people. The people brought out by Big Beard were all the most skilled masters in the caravan, and they all boarded the ship smoothly in the end.
Because the sunken ship was overturned and stranded at the bottom of the river bed, it was not the sampan that faced the blue sky, but the side of the ship on the other side.
The side of the ship facing the sky was buried under years of wind and sand, and was covered with thicker yellow sand. The wooden boards became fragile after being exposed to the sun. In several places, dark holes were formed by the heavy sand.
Everyone searched around and found no foreign objects on the side of the ship. Someone asked: "Could it have fallen into those ship holes or into the hull?"
Everyone thought this was reasonable and began to look at the dark ship holes one by one. However, the search was not smooth because the sun had not yet fully come out and the view inside the ship was not good. People lay on the edge of the holes and looked in. Looking around, there is nothing but black and black.
Let alone looking for the things that fell in last night, even how deep inside the hull was was a little blurry.
After a little discussion, Big Beard decided that he would take the lead and go down the rope to have a look in person, and let others continue to stay on top and hold on to the rope. Don't let him die in the hands of the sand bandits or the desert, and die first in the hands of his own pigs. In the hands of teammates.
The others, who were still a little worried at first, were immediately amused by the bearded man's humorous words, and the initially depressing atmosphere became much more relaxed.
In fact, Jin An originally wanted to go down with Big Beard, but Big Beard disagreed. Since entering the Western Region, this man in the desert has been protecting Jin An's safety.
Next, the bearded man held a torch and began to search for the boat holes one by one.
At the third boat hole, Big Beard finally made a discovery. He exclaimed, as if he was frightened by something unexpected.
"Boss, are you okay?"
"What do you see down there, Bearded?"
Several people lay at the entrance of the boat and shouted nervously downwards. Among the people brought up by Big Beard, there were both people from his own caravan and other caravan masters.
But before these people could finish shouting, wow, someone was already rushing into the boat cave before their eyes flashed.
"Taoist Master Jin An, why did you come down here too!" The bearded man holding a torch looked at Jin An in surprise.
At this time, other people who were guarding outside also came down one after another, leaving only two or three people outside guarding the rope.
The environment inside the hull was that more than half of the space was filled with sand. There was also a hole in the hull, and the remaining sand poured down from the hole.
It looks like someone once searched the entire sunken ship inside and out, trying to find the cargo in the sunken ship. The ship's side is usually the location of the cargo warehouse, but it doesn't look like they found what they wanted.
Because there are no traces of cargo being stored inside the ship. There are no traces of moving or moving, nor are there signs of heavy objects being piled in the same place all year round.
As soon as everyone got off the ship, they were startled by a dead body on the ground. The interior of the ship was dark and it was very unlucky to see a dead person suddenly.
"This dead man's body is not covered with yellow sand, and his body is cleaner than the hull of the ship. It should be the sound we heard falling onto the ship last night." Not long after the bearded man came down, he stabbed him with the machete in his hand. Stab the mummy on the ground, and then turn the dead body over with its back facing up.
The mummy's face was distorted, with an expression full of fear, and its mouth was opened wide. It looked like a person who had been greatly frightened and opened his mouth to scream in fear.
"This, this is Hamuti! How could he die here!" Someone shouted in surprise.
When the man called out the name Hamuti, the sound inside the ship suddenly became noisy, and the Western Region businessmen all had expressions of disbelief and surprise.
Only Jin An does not recognize the dead people on the ground.
"Do you all know this person?"
Soon, Jin An learned the identity of the deceased through Big Beard. This Hamuti was from another larger caravan. Hamuti's caravan has more camels than Dabeard, and the caravan is larger than Dabeard. It has many thugs and camels, and it dares a caravan to cross the desert to do business.
The bearded man continued: "Hamuti's caravan set out twenty days earlier than us. It stands to reason that they would have gone deep into the desert long ago. It is impossible for us to catch up with them. Why would they appear near the sunken ship?"
Jin An pondered: "Either they have been wandering near the sunken ship, looking for something, and are in no hurry to move forward. Or they were chased by something for more than ten days, until they passed the sunken ship last night."
At this time, someone wanted to lean over and touch Hamuti's body, but was stopped by another person: "This Hamuti died in a strange way, you just touch his body like this, you will die!"
"If he was bitten to death by a poisonous snake in the desert or stung by a poisonous scorpion in the desert, there would probably be poisonous snakes and poisonous scorpions hiding in his clothes!"
The man who was pulled felt a chill on the back of his neck and subconsciously stayed away from the body.
Jin An, on the other hand, was unmoved and boldly approached the dead man and said: "The death of Hamuti looked like he was frightened to death. His face was ferocious, his expression was twisted with fear, his mouth was wide open, his eyes were The prominence of panic is consistent with the symptoms of people being frightened to death after seeing something scary.”
It's okay if Jin An didn't say this. When he said this, everyone looked around suspiciously, wondering in their hearts, what kind of scary thing could scare a desert man to death?
The panicked voices last night, the fleeing camels, and the corpse of Hamuti this morning have begun to cast a shadow over this supposedly ordinary caravan. Is there something terrible waiting for them in front of them? ?
Next, Jin An took out a yellow talisman and stuck it on Hamuti's body.
That is a plague-repelling talisman.
If Hamuti really had any venomous snakes or insects hidden in his body, he would definitely be frightened away by the plague-repelling talisman.
But the plague-repelling talisman didn't respond.
It shows that Hamuti died cleanly.
His series of operations stunned the people from the Western Regions present. It was not until Jin An put away the yellow talisman and began to search for the dead that they realized. By the time they wanted to say anything to stop it, it was already too late. Jin An Andu comes across the body.
"The person has already developed partial rigor mortis. The person has been dead for at least an hour. The low temperature at night in the desert will delay the onset of rigor mortis. Hamuti's real time of death should be more than three hours. Look at the floating sand on the ground. There were no signs of struggle with hands or feet, indicating that the person was frightened to death before falling into the hole in the boat..."
Jin An finally concluded: "This Hamuti must have been frightened to death on the back of a camel. He lost his balance in an instant and fell off the camel's back, hitting the river bed and sinking the ship."
Ever since he saw the dead person, Jin An's expression was unusually calm and calm, especially Jin An's familiarity with the dead person, which all surprised these Westerners.
"Taoist Master Jin'an, are you a monk from Kangding State?"
"No one is a Taoist priest. I heard that Taoist priests are the guardians of Yizhuang in some places in Kangding Kingdom."
At this time, Jin An had already inspected the body and stood up again. He smiled and explained that he was neither a charlatan nor the body keeper of Yizhuang.
He didn't want to explain more on this issue, so he changed the topic: "If Hamuti was really frightened and fell off the back of a camel, would there be more people who were killed on their escape route last night? Scared to death?"
"Should we send a few people to ride camels and look for him along the way?" Jin An finally looked at the bearded man.
At this time, the people who had been guarding the entrance of the cave outside nervously shouted to the people below: "Exit, what's going on down there? Why don't you come up? Are you okay?"
…
When everyone returned to the ground, the rest of the caravan also learned what had happened. Big Beard asked everyone to feed the camels hay and water. He took this time to take people up to the desert outside the river bed to look for it. Those people in Hamuti fled for their lives last night. Did they leave any clues along the way?
Whatever Hamuti's people encountered in front of them would most likely be encountered by them, so Big Beard wanted to investigate what exactly Hamuti's people encountered in front, so that the entire caravan was exhausted. He can scare a living person to death in order to escape for his life.
Then, the bearded man got on the camel, and took a few good camel riders with him, went up the slope of the river bed, and disappeared in the direction in which Hamuti's people came.
The sun rose quickly in the desert, and it was already dark soon. The fierce sun of the new day continued to bake the people and camels in the desert.
At this time, on the shipwreck side of the river bed, the caravan had already fed the camels and prepared breakfast. After waiting for a quarter of an hour, the bearded men did not arrive.
There was uneasiness in the team.
After waiting for about another quarter of an hour, dust appeared on the cloudless desert. It was the bearded man who brought the people back. Every one of them was there, and everyone came back safely.
As soon as Big Beard came back, he hurriedly summoned the leaders of several caravans to speed up the journey and strive to reach Yueqiang Kingdom within three days.
Hearing that he had to speed up his journey, the young man with premature hair, Keremu, was surprised and said: "From six or seven days to three days, we can reach Yueqiang Kingdom. This is twice as fast as the original speed. It is necessary for us to do this." Are you in a hurry? Did you discover anything?"
Some people also expressed their dissatisfaction and said: "In such a hurry, not only the bumps are unbearable for people, but also the camels can't stand it."
The bearded man said solemnly: "We searched all the way, but we didn't find any clues. We couldn't find any other dead people. We couldn't find the camel tracks of those people in Hamuti. If the wind and sand hadn't wiped out all the traces last night, It’s just that someone deliberately erased all traces before us at dawn, not wanting us to find the truth.”
"Because on my way back, I felt someone was following us!"
Big Beard's last words made everyone present startled.
The bearded man continued to say with a serious look: "We went back several times to look but found nothing. I'm not sure if it was an illusion. Now I can only pray to the gods not to let the sand pirates target us."
"So I want to hurry up and get to Yueqiang Country as soon as possible to find someone to find out if anything special happened in the desert. There was such a big commotion in the desert last night. Someone must know some information."
The news brought by the bearded man was really not good news. The caravan urged the camels and began to hurry on the road.
As for Hamuti's body, just finding a sand pit and burying it can be regarded as the most benevolent thing.
After getting back on the road, the caravan was no longer as relaxed as it was before yesterday. It was said that it was rushing, but it was more like running away and escaping for its life.
Dust billows in the dry riverbed, and camels rush through the desert carrying people, goods, and water.
In the next two days, the caravan traveled smoothly and encountered no accidents.
Even the several waves of people sent out by Big Beard every day to conduct reconnaissance extended to a mile away, no one was found to be following them.
Even Jin An, who has keen senses and is always paying attention to the goings-on around him, did not feel the malicious intent of being spied on.
If someone was really spying on him maliciously and following them, they would definitely notice it because of the four-times-sealed Five Thunder Evil-Slaying Talisman on his body.
The two consecutive days went unexpectedly smoothly. Seeing that they would be able to reach Yueqiang Kingdom tomorrow, the caravan gradually began to relax its vigilance, thinking that the bearded man was too nervous.
On this day, the place they chose to spend the night was still on the river bed. This ancient river bed was very long, and they still hadn't walked out after traveling for so many days.
However, when the river bed reaches here, it is already very shallow and not as deep as before. There is an ancient ruins on the bank. It is a good shelter from the wind. The caravan will rest in the ancient ruins tonight.
