"That should be enough," I counted, no more, no less, five cactus flat pots filled in total.
Being thirsty is much more uncomfortable than being hungry. We rested against the bottle tree until the sun went down. We took our water bottles and prepared to set off.
After climbing up the sandy slope, Xiaoxuan turned around and looked around and asked me, "Are we going west or east?"
"Let's go west. My intuition tells me we should go west."
I patted the cactus water bottle hanging on my body and said, "With these, we will have enough water for two to three or four days, but we have to be careful. This is our life."
"Xiaoxuan, why are you in such a daze? Are you listening to me?"
She didn't seem to hear me. She looked straight ahead with her eyes blankly, and suddenly said excitedly: "People...! Someone! There is someone there!"
"Human! Where is there!" I looked in the direction of her finger.
I saw two or three small dots appearing a few hundred meters away, moving towards us.
What a person! Could it be that they came here to find the head?
"Hello!"
"Hey! We are here! Here!" I yelled and waved over there.
The people in the distance paused for dozens of seconds. They must have noticed us and were speeding towards us.
Only when I got closer did I see it clearly.
Not the leader, and these people are not from our camel team. There were three people on the other side, two men and one woman. The clothes they wore did not look like modern people, but looked a bit like some nomadic people in Tibetan areas. The two men had shaved heads and pigtails on their temples, and the woman had a blue tie on her head. Cloth strips and a large earring on his left ear. The two men and one woman were also carrying small baskets in their hands. The baskets were covered with cloth, so you couldn't see what was inside.
Are these the Hute people? This was my first thought.
"Hello, hello!" I ran forward and gestured, "We came from a big city and got lost in the desert. We are looking for the Hutte tribe. Are you Hutte people?"
The two men and one woman looked at each other and babbled a lot. I couldn't understand what they were saying. What they spoke was not the local Yinchuan dialect, let alone Mandarin.
After a few minutes, the girl with big earrings pointed at me, then pointed down the sandy slope, stretched out her hand to make a shape in the air, trying to communicate with me.
I thought about her gestures and suddenly realized: "Girl, what you just gestured was a tree!"
"That's right!" I pointed to the bottom of the sandy slope and gestured: "There is a big tree underneath, the bottle tree! That tree can draw water. Are you here to draw water too?"
After that, I took off the homemade cactus kettle and handed it to her.
The girl didn't understand what I was saying. She took the kettle with a puzzled face, dipped her fingers in it and put it in her mouth to taste.
I smiled and said: "How is it? It tastes good, has a nice aroma."
Her face suddenly changed, and she started talking nonsense to the male companion. Her expression became more and more excited, and her face turned red.
After hearing this, the two men suddenly stepped forward with angry faces and grabbed my shoulders from left to right. They were strong and strong in their hands and forced me to go down.
"What are you doing! What are you doing!"
"let me go!"
"Where are you taking me!" By this time I had realized something was wrong, and so was Zhao Xuanxuan. The girl with the earring grabbed her arm and dragged her downhill.
When they arrived at the bottle tree, the men discovered wounds on the bark. I hit the wound with a stone on the ground.
"Pfft!" One of them suddenly knelt down in front of the bottle tree and kept mumbling words. Listening to the tone and looking at the expression on his face, I realized something at this time.
Zhao Xuanxuan and I may have gotten into trouble...
The big bottle tree in front of you was probably planted by them!
The man got up from the ground angrily and raised his hand to hit me!
At this time, the girl with the earring grabbed his hand, looked at him, shook her head, and whispered a few words that I couldn't understand, as if she was trying to persuade him.
The baskets they brought contained dried meat, strips of white cloth, and paper money. The girl signaled me not to move, tied my hands behind my back with white cloth strips, and gave me a push, meaning to let me go on my own.
Zhao Xuanxuan was the same, her hands were tied and she was pushed away.
"Yunfeng, where are these people taking us?"
"How do I know? Just take a step and see."
"Why don't you resist? You are a man."
"I haven't eaten for several days, how can I have the strength," I said with a grimace, "Look at the arms of those two men? Their arms are almost touching your thighs. There may be a chance for one-on-one. But there are many of them.”
"Xiaoxuan, don't be afraid. There is a misunderstanding. Let's see where they take us."
In this way, after being led away for nearly two hours, a small village appeared on the sand in front of them.
There were more than a dozen sheep running outside the small village. A little boy with a round face and a runny nose was driving the sheep with a cane.
Seeing us, the little boy ran back to the small village yelling. Not long after, several elderly people came out of the village.
The girl had a conversation with the old man, and from time to time she turned around to look at me and point.
The leader of the group, the old man, also had a bald head and pigtails. As he listened to the words, his face gradually became gloomy.
Zhao Xuanxuan and I were then pushed into a mud house. They were afraid that we would run away and tied our legs with thick canes.
"It's you!" Someone suddenly spoke from behind.
"It's you!" I turned around and saw that he was here too!
It's Aza! Aza who stole our camels and water!
Aza's feet were now tied, and he was leaning against the corner, looking at me and Zhao Xuanxuan in surprise.
"What a fool!" Recalling the hard journey in the past few days, if we hadn't found the bottle tree by chance, we would be dead now!
I became angry and wanted to rush over, but because my feet were tied with rattan ropes, I fell with a thud.
Seeing this, Aza's face became more playful. He looked like a dead pig that is not afraid of boiling water, and said: "Hey, the three of us are now grasshoppers on the same rope."
"What? Do you want to settle old scores with me now, or wait until we escape and escape?"
"Don't panic, you don't know the details of these people who came to arrest you, but I do. How about I tell you?"
"Pooh!"
I spat at him and cursed: "It's useless for me to call you my friend! This is how you treat your friends! If I had known you were so evil-minded, I should have thrown you into the mine to die!"
"Exactly," Aza said nonchalantly: "I just took some water from you and took away two camels."
"A little?! How much did you take!"
"You kid, you have the guts to say it again!" Hearing the understatement of his words, I became more and more angry as I thought about it. It is very likely that the reason why they are suffering now is because there is no water! They were all taken away overnight by this bastard!
Seeing that I was getting angry again, Zhao Xuanxuan interjected: "Don't panic Yunfeng first, listen to what this man has to say. He is right about one thing. The top priority now is to figure out what's going on. We can't be tied up like this all the time. Are you ready?"
"Tsk tsk... Look, this beauty is sensible and knows how to prioritize."
Next, Aza tells what happened after he stole the camel.
