Chapter 269 [The yellow sand is long]
The woman stopped, thought for a while, and agreed.
The sky is getting dark, Zeli Road is difficult to walk, and there is indeed a great risk at night. So they went back to the campfire together, found a place to sit down, and looked at each other without saying a word. Only the constantly beating flames reflected the faces of Gongyezhu and Nannan flickeringly on and off.
Gong Yezhu took out the dry food he carried with him, warmed it up by the campfire, and distributed it to the women. Xi Guotou saw it from a distance, and asked the guys to serve a few spoonfuls of millet porridge and some vegetables for the two of them. After the two thanked, they took it and ate everything.
With Fang Chang not disturbing, the man and woman were silent all night, and just snuggled up by the campfire and slept all night.
The next day, while the caravan was still packing up the camp, putting away the tents, and packing up the goods, the two were about to leave.
When Gong Yezhu was about to apologize again, the woman put her finger on her lips and said:
"Needless to say this, I already forgive you for leaving without saying goodbye. But don't say anything like 'I don't want to delay you', I will wait for you in Inozawa, no matter whether you can come back or not."
Then she stepped on the yellow puma gracefully, "drive—" and walked into the distance.
Seeing the opponent's figure disappear into the distance, Gongyezhu looked a little sad. He stood there for a moment, then straightened up, took his bay red horse, thanked Xi Guotou of the caravan, and rose towards the sun. direction.
...
After crossing Daze, the land became dry again.
After walking for many days, I entered the most difficult part of this journey.
The road under your feet is no longer visible here, because the flowing sand will obliterate the traces of humans and camels at any time. The strong wind continued day and night, and the sand was smashed on the face. Only by covering it with gauze could the pain be relieved.
The only things that can be used to mark the direction are the trees that occasionally appear in the desert.
The tree is tilted to one side due to the perennial wind, and is called a knife tree by the locals. Viewed from the side, the crown blown by the wind does look like a curved knife. After walking for a while, you will find the "Sea of Death" where there is no human habitation, no birds above and no animals below.
The landforms on both sides are very strange, because of the erosion of the wind, it presents various beautiful structures.
Skeletons of people and animals can often be seen on the road, which are the predecessors who unfortunately died here.
Among the long desert yellow sand, occasionally there are lakes formed by protruding groundwater, and oases surrounding the lakes, where some human beings live sporadically, living in houses built of earth and rocks. There are also some small animals looming among the reeds, sand bamboo, and white thorns.
Caravans will replenish in these small oases and conduct a little trade to help maintain the life of humans in the oasis. This is a kind of mutual assistance, because only where humans exist can there be replenishment points.
The road was still very chaotic, and I even encountered sand bandits once.
The disgraced bandits were extremely cruel, so the caravan resisted desperately. Seeing that there was nothing they could do, the sand bandits retreated far away. Fortunately, they also know the importance of the oasis supply points, but they just bully the people there, and they don't dare to go too far.
As early as in the last relatively large settlement, the caravan had fostered all the pack horses and rented some camels to go on the road. Because camels have wide hooves, nostrils and eyes that are not afraid of wind and sand, and humps that store enough nutrition and water, only it can smoothly cross the sand sea.
Now, there are sand dunes all around.
Fang Chang said: "It's really magnificent."
Sang Ziping nodded aside: "You can't see this kind of scene in the Central Plains, but it's too lonely here. Compared with it, I still love the smoke from the farmland."
The loud voices of the stewards in the caravan sounded in front, and everyone prepared to spend the night not far ahead.
There is a place sheltered from the wind, relying on some hills of the Yardang landform. Of course, it is not called this name here, and the people in the caravan just call it "heap" like all the people passing by.
Different from the usual impression, there are a lot of firewood that can be picked up in the desert.
Therefore, the caravan does not need to carry fuel, but just send some people to search nearby, and then they can light a bonfire in this small sheltered depression. In the wild, fire is more important than shelter. It can provide hot food, clean drinking water, and can drive away poisonous insect larvae and deter malicious beasts.
During the journey these days, I occasionally encountered other caravans, but due to the problem of forward speed, all I encountered were oncoming teams.
Those teams are often loaded with additional goods from the Western Regions, and the camels in the team leave deep footprints on the sand. Among them, many leaders are familiar with Xi Guotou, and they will say hello and exchange some information.
Sitting by the bonfire, the caravan unloaded the cauldron, opened some water bags, and poured the water into the pot to burn. With the light of the firewood, the pot gradually released heat.
Next, add the boiled water to everyone's portable water bag.
After entering the desert, cooking with water has become a very extravagant behavior. Everyone’s meals are pot helmets, boiled water, pickles, dried meat, etc., especially pay attention to the fact that pickles should be eaten sparingly, not too much at one time, otherwise Too much water consumption.
In the desert, it is very dangerous to consume too much water needlessly.
Fang Chang was sitting with Sang Ziping, like everyone around him, sipping on the boiled water left in the water bag after boiling it last night, gnawing on the pot helmet and side dishes.
At this time, an old man in the caravan, holding a small lamp, came over with a little obsequiousness:
"That...Mr. Fang, can I..."
"Okay." Chang looked at this elderly caravan man with red nose, simple and honest face, untied the gourd from his waist, unscrewed the cap of the horn, poured it slowly, and poured half a cup of sorghum for him. liquor.
"Thank you, Mr. Fang, I really appreciate it..."
The man got half of the wine and thanked him happily.
But when they were traveling together, during the conversation with each other, he learned that the gourd on Fang Chang's waist was used to hold wine, so he came up to keep an eye on it, and always came to drink some wine. This guy, surnamed Zhou, has worked under Xi Tong for many years and is very reliable. His only hobby is wine.
Because there was water in the wine and the price of spirits was quite high, the other party was still a little uneasy, and offered to exchange gold and silver several times, but Fang Chang refused.
Fortunately, this guy never asks for more, so no one has discovered that the gourd on Fang Chang's waist can hold a huge amount of wine—if anyone finds out, he will be suggested to use this treasure gourd to hold water.
"Ah, what a good wine."
He took a sip of the wine, let the hot wine linger around the tip of his tongue a few times, and swallowed it reluctantly until his mouth felt a little numb.
"I have already traveled more than half the distance here, and I can rest in the oasis tomorrow."
(end of this chapter)