Holy Bone

Chapter 387 The Unsettled Desert Night

Walking in the desert is a very boring thing.

Because there are endless sand dunes in front of your eyes, and there are more endless sand dunes after turning over a sand dune.

In the end, you can't even tell the difference between those sand dunes. Anyway, they all look the same. If you don't see some Haloxylon, Nitraria, and Populus euphratica forests from time to time, you feel that you are moving forward. You have the illusion that you are spinning in circles.

Jin'an is fine. There is visceral energy circulation in his five internal organs fairy temple, which brings endless vitality and reduces human body consumption. The number of drinking water on the road is less than those western businessmen who have been dealing with the desert all the year round. These people were quite surprised.

In the beginning, these people often bragged in front of Jin'an, thinking that Jin'an, a thin-skinned and tender-skinned Central Plains native, had never suffered, had no experience in the desert, and would make all the mistakes of people who entered the desert for the first time, and did not control drinking water. I drank a lot of water, but I was quickly slapped in the face on the first day I entered the desert.

The bearded man asked Jin An curiously more than once, was it really his first time entering 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 earthen city. It was said to be an earthen city, but in fact it had been eroded by wind and sand, leaving only a few ruins in the central area.

But the team didn't mean to stay, and continued to move forward in a long line. It's still early, the sun is noon, and there is still half a day before dark. They must not stop for a moment to reach the next Take a break.

The bearded man saw that Jin'an seemed to be interested in the ruins of the ancient city. The enthusiastic foreign man explained: "This earth city used to be a small country called Qibei country. There used to be a source of water here. But it was submerged by sandstorms later. It also dried up, and after countless years, it reappeared from under the desert."

"This is the desert. The weather in the desert is like the gods in the sky. It is always confusing to mortals. No one can say that a storm will bury a country under the sand forever."

"Those who didn't escape in time ended up trapped under the sand with the city, never to see the sun again."

"There are many ruins of small desert countries like this."

The camel team is still going on.

Because sheep hooves are not suitable for carrying heavy loads in the desert, Jin An has changed to riding a camel since he left Yangguan. He sat between the humps, his body was ups and downs, looked at Batur curiously and said: "Big Beard, I see that you speak Chinese very well. Are you of mixed race?"

"Mixed race?" The bearded man didn't understand what he meant.

"It means intermarriage between Han Chinese and Western Regions." Jin An roughly explained.

The bearded man has a sunny smile. These three-dimensional facial features are like the Western Regions people carved by the hands of the gods. They are all handsome men and beautiful women, especially when the bearded man smiles, he has the mature and confident charm of a middle-aged man. In Kangding, he will definitely look like thousands of girls The lover of his dream, the bearded man laughed and said frankly: "My mother is indeed from Kangding. She was hunted down by her enemies because of her family's decline and had to flee to the Western Regions. She passed out in the desert due to lack of water, and was about to die in the sun. At that time, I happened to be rescued by my father, who was not yet an adult at that time, and my mother stayed with my father all the time, never leaving the desert for the rest of her life."

"Because of my mother, I have longed for Kangding since I was a child, and I am particularly interested in Han culture. My Han language was taught by my mother."

Unexpectedly, there are so many twists and turns in this story, Jin An nodded and smiled and said: "It can be seen that your mother is very good to you, and you are very filial to your mother with a beard."

The bearded man became interested: "Master Jin'an, how did you find out?"

Jin An said with a smile: "A filial son is not necessarily a man who is honest, but a man who is honest must be a filial son. It is said that a mother is an enlightenment teacher of a person's character."

Perhaps it was because Jin An exaggerated his mother in a disguised way, and the bearded man became more enthusiastic about Jin An. Along the way, the two of them felt that they had met each other so much that they almost dragged Jin An to cut off the chicken head and drink the chicken blood, and drank blood to form an alliance. Be brothers with different surnames.

The bearded man became enthusiastic and dared to say anything to Jin'an. Men are afraid of their wives, and they don't know how to make all countries and nations unified. In the bearded family, the whole family is very afraid of his mother.Because his mother was a lady before the family failed, she was proficient in piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, and she was smart and business-minded. His father with a big beard was originally just a coolie who couldn't afford to go to the desert with a caravan to endure hardships. After becoming his mother, the family gradually prospered, the business grew bigger and bigger, and in the hands of the bearded man, he also had his own independent caravan.

Their next half-day journey was not going well, and the bearded man suddenly said that he had heard the wind signal, and that the wind was about to blow, so he told everyone to sit still, and they had to speed up to find a shelter from the wind.

Jin An looked up at the sky above his head, the sun was scorching hot, like a big sesame seed cake, the sky was so blue that he couldn't even see a cloud, and the weather was very clear.

But people with big beards have dealt with the desert all year round, so they must be right. Jin An followed suit, brandishing his whip, riding a camel and following the others, and began to gallop across the desert.

Riding a camel is no better than riding a horse. A camel is much more bumpy than a horse. Even the businessmen from the Western Regions couldn't stand it because they were waving their whips all the way.

……

Another six days later, the camel team had passed the outer edge of the desert and began to gradually penetrate into the desert. As expected, the occasionally exposed rocks along the road could no longer be seen. Rarely seen, the sand here is finer and drier.

Two days after going deep into the desert, they started walking along a dry riverbed. There were no obvious landmarks for reference. If they wanted to avoid getting lost in the desert, they had to walk along the desert river or riverbed.

The riverbed is full of salt crusts 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 sediments accumulate on the riverbed and are shaped like pieces of upturned turtle shells. , The texture of the salt crust is very dry and hard.

The desert is very boring, except that the sand is always sand. After the camel team walked for half a day, they came across a huge merchant ship that turned over and ran aground in the river bed. as one.

The bearded man looked up at the sky, and the sun above his head was like the most dazzling cross golden light, which made people unable to open their eyes.

The bearded man turned back to the camel team and shouted: "The sun is about to disappear, and the desert at night is not suitable for traveling. Everyone will rest at the sunken ship tonight and continue on the journey tomorrow."

Next, everyone started to get busy in their own way. First, they fed the camels with hay and water, and then they began to prepare food for the people.

In the desert, only camels and water can save your life. When you take good care of the camel, the camel can save your life at a critical moment.

Looking at the sunken ship in the desert, Jin An 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 would be fleets in the desert."

Standing in front of the sunken ship, Jin An asked the bearded man.

The merchants in the Western Regions who were unloading the cloth bags from the camels and taking out hay from the cloth bags to feed the camels laughed loudly when they heard this. A 40-year-old man who had aged prematurely and became the head of the Mediterranean Sea said with a kind smile: "The river under our feet , It was a big river thousands of years ago, and this place was not deep in the desert. Many ancient countries flourished on both sides of the river, and the merchant ship trade was very prosperous. According to legend, a very big storm came later, and more than 100 sand dunes were evacuated overnight. The river was also diverted and dried up, and merchant ships who did not have time to dock were forced to run aground in the river bed and lie here alone for the rest of their lives."

Listening to the strange legends in the desert, Jin An once again opened his eyes.

The prematurely aging businessman's name was Keremu, and Keremu continued jokingly said, "Is Taoist Master Jin'an wondering if there are any treasures in these sunken ships?"

Haha, Keremu said with a smile while feeding the camel hay: "If there are really treasures or goods, these sunken ships have been salvaged by the cargo owners, or dug away by other people. This sunken ship has been lying here for thousands of years. , we are just latecomers.”

These businessmen from the Western Regions have been doing business with Kang Dingguo all year round, so everyone can speak Chinese, but the pronunciation is not as clear as that of the bearded man, and it is not like the bearded man who can occasionally give you a very funny accent of the capital.

But these did not prevent Jin An from communicating with them. He could understand them if he spoke slowly. He had already gotten acquainted with these Western Region businessmen after half a month of being together.

While feeding the camels with hay, Jin An continued to chat with those merchants from the Western Regions, insinuating 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 thirsty and crazy, biting the water bag and pouring water into their stomachs.

If he hadn't taken away the water bag in order to save water, the goat could drink up the water bag.

"Okay, drink less, according to your drinking method, you are not halfway to the next water replenishment point, and you will drink up all the water I brought." Jin An lightly tapped the goat's horns, dumbfounded.

Well, all the water he saved by frugality along the way was saved for this silly sheep.

The goat really suffered a lot from following him this trip. He suffered from hardships and sand along the way, and even lost his fat twice.If the goat could speak human language, Jin An would have been scolded to death long ago.

"Daoist Jin'an, you are so kind to this sheep. We have seen you take good care of it along the way. This trip into the desert is unbearable. Why did Daoist Jin'an bring a sheep into the desert? Is it to save rations? , want to eat some fresh mutton in the desert?" Another Western Region businessman asked curiously.

As a result, he provoked a leer from the goat.

The businessman from the Western Regions was immediately depressed: "Why do I feel that it seems to understand human speech, just now it rolled its eyes at me and called me an idiot?"

Hahaha, the others were amused and laughed.

Talking and laughing, everyone has finished dinner for the camels and people, and the sky is getting dark gradually.

The dusk in the desert is beautiful, and the whole sky is rendered in dazzling gold, burning like a golden flame.

The sunken ship has a large space, which has been cleaned up artificially. Although there is still a lot of sediment, it is not a problem that several cabins can accommodate dozens of people.It can be seen that this shipwreck has become a temporary foothold for many merchants from the Western Regions, and has been cleaned up by passing merchants.

Dark night.

After a day of rushing, people are exhausted and soon fall asleep.

Even the herd of camels outside the sunken ship formed a circle and fell asleep hugging each other to keep warm.

In the desert, not only is there a large temperature difference between day and night, but also the sun is dazzling during the day, and the night is extremely dark. After nightfall, the entire desert is dead silent. This is what the sea of ​​death should look like, a forbidden place for life.

Accustomed to the goat's soft and warm belly as a pillow, Jin An didn't leave the goat outside, but also brought the goat into the cabin for the night.

The most important thing is that this silly sheep doesn't regard itself as a sheep at all, it has completely regarded itself as a human being, has a cleanliness habit, and is only willing to sleep together with people, not with those camels.

The cabin was pitch-black. Except for a few people who took turns to watch the night, everyone else was exhausted and fell asleep. Jin An did not lie down and sleep.

Suddenly, boom boom boom!

dong dong!

In the dark night, it seemed that a large group of camels were running wildly, and the sound was getting closer and closer to them.

Especially in the quiet night, any wind and grass sounded extremely harsh, and immediately woke up everyone in the cabin.

"what happened?"

"Where did the voice come from?"

The first time everyone woke up, they asked about the situation in a panic, thinking that they had encountered the most ferocious sand robber in the desert.

"Hush, don't make a sound, those voices are coming towards us!" The bearded man told everyone to be quiet, and listened carefully to the movement outside.

At this moment, Jin An had already opened his eyes and woke up, listening carefully to the sounds outside the sinking ship.

dong dong!

The sound of the camels running wildly was like raindrops falling on the ground, and it became louder and louder. In the darkness, Jin An and the bearded man looked at each other in surprise. The frenzied camels were approaching them, and they heard the voices of many people.

Is it really a sand robber?

But the two of them hadn't finished being surprised when the herd of camels had already run over their heads, mixed with the sound of whips slamming on the camels crazily, the camels were screaming in pain, and the people were screaming in panic, urging the camels to run faster.

Those people didn't pass by the river bed, but ran from the desert above the river bed, coupled with panic and panic, it seemed that they ran into something and ran for their lives in a panic.

"what happened?"

"What the hell is going on out there?"

"Those people seem to be running for their lives in a panic?"

Several people in the cabin panicked and vented their inner anxiety and fright by making noises. In fact, none of the people present knew what happened outside.

Suddenly, bang!

A loud bang.

from the top of their heads.

Something fell heavily on the wreck in the river bed.

"what!"

Someone screamed in fright, but fortunately the bearded man was close to the man, he hurriedly covered the man's mouth, stared at him, and told everyone to shut up.

But people can shut up, the camels tied outside the sunken ship were frightened and began to make noises restlessly.

"Could it be a sandstorm?" Jin An lowered his voice and asked the bearded man. He had little experience in the desert, so he could only think of this possibility.

The bearded man shook his head, and said solemnly: "It's not a sandstorm, people can't escape a sandstorm, I didn't hear Fengxin's voice!"

"There are other things in the desert chasing people!"

No one in the cabin dared to speak. They all raised their heads and stared nervously at the top of their heads, anxiously guessing what had fallen on top of the sunken ship just now. Originally, Jin An wanted to go out to check the situation, but was held back by the bearded man who cared about his safety.

Jin An thought about it, he might cause trouble if he went out rashly like this. Although he was not afraid of any trouble by himself, after all, there were many ordinary people in this cabin, so he didn't insist on going out anymore.

The camels and people in the desert quickly galloped away, and the pitch-black sand sea became calm again.

But the night was anything but peaceful.

Everyone didn't close their eyes almost all night, and kept staring nervously at the top of their heads and the hole in the cabin, fearing that something scary would suddenly come out in the dark.

Just like this, they persisted until dawn the next day, and there was nothing wrong all night, everyone finally breathed a sigh of relief, and then the bearded man took some people out to check the situation, to see what fell and hit the sunken ship last night?
Jin An also followed curiously.

(End of this chapter)