Tuoba Gui and Ling Muyun were similar in age, and the old man had something to say, and the two quickly became familiar with each other.
According to what Tuoba Gui said, he was traveling around like Ling Muyun, with no destination in mind. He encountered a camel caravan on the way and followed him along.
As Ling Muyun guessed, Tuoba Gui was indeed the descendant of the Tuoba clan in Yingchuan and had a glorious time.
Nowadays, Tuoba Dai's country has been destroyed, but Tuoba Gui still uses Tuoba's surname without any hesitation. This alone makes Ling Muyun feel good about him.
It's just that Tuoba Gui's frown and melancholy made him look worried all the time.
After following the camel caravan for half a month, the caravan passed by Yecheng Station and staged a small episode, which caused the caravan to take a short rest, but it set off again after routine supplies.
Although we dodged several sandstorms along the way, things were going smoothly for the camel team.
When they reached the oasis of Parrot Island, Hai Dongqing became restless and kept hovering in the air.
Even though Tuobagui whistled many times, it just passed over his head and never landed quietly.
"Brother Yun."
After spending more than a month together, Tuoba Gui and Ling Muyun became close friends who talked about almost everything.
Ling Muyun was two years older, so Tuoba Gui called him "Brother Yun."
"Hai Dongqing's reaction was too strong, but there was nothing unusual within a ten-mile radius."
"In the sand!"
"underground?"
Ling Muyun nodded.
From the moment he entered the oasis, he smelled the faint smell of decay in the air.
No matter how well the smell of rotten leaves was concealed, it could never escape Ling Muyun's nose.
Ling Muyun was all too familiar with this smell: it was the smell of a large number of corpses buried and dried, which was transmitted through the sand layer.
The numerous bones in Dingbeicheng, no matter how clean they are scrubbed and how deeply they are buried, the rotten smell of corpses still emerges from time to time and penetrates people's nostrils when they are not prepared.
"A warning to Old Man Liu!" Tuoba Gui was straight-tempered and even a little reckless. Before Ling Muyun could stop him, he shouted: "Mr. Liu, be careful!"
Upon hearing Tuoba Gui's reminder, the caravan's crew and escorts all stopped, circled the camels in the middle, and looked around warily.
But after watching it for a long time, there was nothing unusual except for the "chirping" of the eagle.
"Brother Tuoba, what's the matter? But I found something." The old man walked slowly to the end of the team, without any hint of blame in his tone.
In fact, Tuoba Gui himself did nothing wrong, and merchants should be wary of all disturbances. Often small risks can turn into disasters inadvertently.
"Brother Yun said the danger is underground!"
After hearing this, the old man stared at the ground, and then turned his eyes to Ling Muyun with a puzzled expression.
"There are dead bodies under the ground, no less than a hundred." Ling Muyun's words made everyone present take a breath.
As one of the few natural water diversion points in the desert, oasis is an indispensable part of the trade route. Whether it is bandits or officers and soldiers, they will deliberately avoid conflicts in the oasis.
If one of these things disappears, there will be one missing.
Therefore, Ling Muyun's words aroused everyone's doubts, and the guard captain was the first to speak.
"Mr. Ling, are you afraid that if you haven't put in a long line to catch the big fish, it's time to close the net?"
The guard captain didn't talk much, and he never took the initiative to speak when he was doing business. If Ling Muyun hadn't deliberately approached him to talk and ended up chatting away, then he would have thought that the guard captain was mute.
"The captain of the guard talked a lot today, is he guilty of being a thief?" He reminded him kindly, but he was suspected, which made Ling Muyun think of the incident at the inn.
"You can eat randomly, but you can't talk nonsense. If you talk too much, you will lose your head." The guard captain stared at Ling Muyun as if he were staring at a dead body.
"Okay, if what Mr. Ling said is true, there may be something fishy about this oasis!" The old man interjected to stop the verbal dispute: "We won't stop at Parrot Island today and move forward at full speed!"
Ling Muyun and Tuoba Gui had no objections, but the guard captain was a little resistant: "Mr. Liu, the guards are all working hard. If we rush on the road, I'm afraid it will be inappropriate. We can't listen to one person's words and make hasty decisions, for fear of falling into a trap. "
After the guard captain finished speaking, a trace of cruelty flashed in his eyes.
Having been around the market since he was a child, and being looked down upon by the Ling family, how could Ling Muyun not know the murderous intent in his eyes?
"Chief Guard, were you the one who killed the person who disappeared from Yecheng Station?"
A man in his twenties disappeared out of thin air at Yecheng Station.
The escort team searched for several miles around, and Hai Dongqing also patrolled for a long time, but no trace of the man was found.
It stands to reason that there is nowhere to go in this vast desert, and the boy's disappearance is indeed strange.
However, this is not the first time the camel team has encountered this situation.
Last year, a man disappeared from the caravan. The caravan searched for him for a long time but could not find him.
Later, on the way back from the caravan, we met her by chance. After asking, we found out that the man had fallen in love with the girl and married her into his wife.
The caravan has done its best to search, and it will never delay its journey for too long for an insignificant guy.
Maybe, like last time, this guy was chatting at night.
"You are talking nonsense! Don't think that just because you can do some juggling, you are invincible!"
The guard captain's eyes became even sharper, no longer concealing his murderous intent.
"There's something I haven't figured out!" Ling Muyun took a step back, prepared for the guard captain to attack and hurt people: "What did the man hear or see that made you kill him?"
The guard captain narrowed his eyes and glanced at Ling Muyun meaningfully.
Then he put his two little fingers into his mouth and blew a sharper whistle like Tuoba Gui.
When all the team members heard the whistle, as if they had made an agreement, they immediately drew their swords and controlled the nearest caravan man.
"I wanted to do it later to avoid trouble." The guard captain threw away the long knife in his hand and asked Ling Muyun curiously: "How did you find out?"
"While I was talking to you at the inn, the flies on your knife couldn't be driven away. Now think about it, is it human blood?"
When people eat whole grains, their blood becomes more fishy. Once a weapon is contaminated with human blood, the smell of blood cannot be removed by just wiping it.
Therefore, Ling Muyun guessed that most of the guys were the ones who were killed, or the captain of the guard.
After arriving at Parrot Island, the guards began to stand scattered intentionally or unintentionally, and their posture was more like that of a formidable enemy.
Coupled with Hai Dongqing's anomaly, Ling Muyun was sure that the caravan guards would take action in Parrot Island. Apparently, this was not the first time.
After hearing Ling Muyun's speculation, the guard captain couldn't help but applaud: "It's true that heroes have been born from young men since ancient times! Little brother Ling, do you want to join the team? A thousand-man captain who has been working for hundreds of years is not as real as this vote!"
While the two were talking, the old man slowly approached Ling Muyun and Tuoba Gui, but after listening to the guard captain's words, he was afraid that the two would be bewitched and attack him.
"Two little brothers, if Mr. Liu can get help from you two and avoid disaster today, you can share all the harvest from this caravan!"
Before the two of them could reply, the old man said to the guard captain: "Guard An, my words are true to you. If you can avoid harming a certain family's life, you can take this goods."
"Haha!" The guard captain laughed a little unscrupulously: "Zhang Guan, do you really think that your old bones are qualified to covet the treasure map?"
"You!" The old man looked obviously nervous: "How do you know the treasure map?"
The captain of the guard leaned his body on the shaft of the carriage and answered the question: "What a trick to get the golden cicada out of its shell."
