Chapter 1 The Desert is Ruthless
The yellow sand borders the sky, the footprints of the line when he came, and the plough marks of the wheels, disappeared in the wind and sand, Su Zi led Xiao Beixin to follow the convoy in the wind. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ļ½ļ½ļ½Uļ½Eć ļ½ļ½ļ½ļ½
This ragged and underfed team was the so-called rebel army, with the old, weak, sick and disabled accounting for more than half of them, the afterglow of the setting sun hung on the horizon, and the end of the road awaited the vastness and despair.
She was lucky that the team took her in.
The brim of the hat was lifted, the ink eyes were calm and wise, licking the chapped lips, and the tip of the tongue was stained with sand again. It's been almost a month since I came to this world, and it seems that this desert will never get out. Su Zi didn't specifically inquire about the current era and the name of the country, her outfit was already different, and asking those ignorant questions didn't help her at the moment. Fortunately, the desert people are warm and kind, and a little girl walks alone in the desert, and she is brought with her without too many questions.
Su Zi had no doubt that she had crossed over, although the people here spoke Chinese with a bit of an exotic accent, and although they were forced to dress like a certain ethnic minority, she was sure that she had crossed into some unknown world, and even more, not on Earth. Because, at the moment there are two suns on the horizon!
The two suns rise and set at the same time, in the same direction, but one is close and one is far away. And the moon at night is extremely large, occupying one-third of the sky, as if it can be touched by reaching out, Su Zi thought about it, it was because this satellite was very close.
It's a strange world, but there's nothing special about the people here, but there are many species of animals in the desert that have never been seen before. Like the winged sand wolves that attacked their team the day before yesterday, the mounds that looked like lizards and snakes, the proboscis that burrowed here and there in the sand, and the eagles that flew in the sky and were two or three times larger than the goshawks.
Su Zi is a single-parent family, but her single parent refers to her elderly grandfather. When she was 2 years old, both her parents died in a car accident. Su Zi's grandfather is an academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, and he neither dotes nor indulges her, after graduating from high school with excellent grades, Su Zi's grandfather wanted to send her to study abroad, but Su Zi was reluctant to leave her grandfather, and refused to live or die. Later, I was admitted to a local university and entered my freshman year this year. At the time of the crossing, Su Zi was shopping with her roommates, squeezing around in the crowd, just like that, the people around her suddenly disappeared, and she appeared alone in a desert with a small schoolbag on her back.
The whining horn sounded, and it was time to set up camp and rest. I couldn't make it to the oasis tonight, so I had to camp in the desert.
The night is cold, and Su Zi has been squeezing a tent of twenty or thirty people with Aunt Erran and them these days. She was still wearing the same T-shirt and jeans she wore when she came, and the gray linen cloak on the outside was given to her by her aunt to protect her from the sand.
"Sister, you're hungry. Xiao Beixin shook Su Zi's hand, and after walking for a day, the little girl didn't shout that she was tired, and then she knew that she was hungry. Su Zi squatted down and touched her hair in distress, the beads of sweat on her small forehead mixed with sand and dust turned into a black ash, Su Zi raised her hand to wipe her off: "Good, it's time to eat." ā
"Ah Zi, bring some hay back when you get the buns. ā
Talking to her was Zack, the son-in-law of Aunt Erran, and the father of Little Beixin, who was taking the package from the camel cart, with strong and dark arms and a sturdy body, which was rare in this team.
"Okay. Su Zi led Xiao Beixin to the camel carriage sedan chair, a hand with a flesh and skin bag lifted the curtain from the inside, Aunt Erran lost a lot of teeth, and her speech was indistinct, and her face was full of wrinkles and kindness: "Xinya, come and sit with Mama." Su Zi bent down and picked up Xiao Beixin, who was less than five years old, and put him in the car, Aunt Erran turned around and took out a water bag from the sedan chair and handed it to Su Zi with shaking hands: "Zhuo Ma'er, drink more water, flowers attract butterflies, tender grass and fat horses, Mama is still waiting to be your dowry." ā
Aunt Erran had three sons and one daughter. It's a pity that she had a bad fate, her youngest son died early, and the other two sons died when the desert bandits entered the village, and her daughter married Zack in the same village, and died in childbirth a year after marriage, leaving a grandson, a son-in-law and an old skeleton.
Su Zi pushed back the water bag with a smile and said softly: "Thank you, Aunt Erran, I still have a lot of water, you should drink more when you are sick, I will go to the front to get the bun." ā
The tents next to the camel cart were soon erected one by one, and the procession stretched for two miles, and the food was distributed centrally, and the meal was only eaten at night during the rest, one bun per person.
Su Zishen walked with one shallow foot, and the camp tent surrounded by many people in front of him was the place where the buns were distributed. Although there was no queue, it was not crowded, it seemed that I was tired after a day of walking, and everyone quietly took turns to receive the buns. There were groups of soldiers sitting and lying down and eating, saying that they were soldiers, but in fact they didn't even have uniform clothing, and most of their weapons were hoes and iron rods. Looking at the face covered with sand and dust, scruffy beard, and numb and tired eyes, Su Zi sighed, a typical peasant rebellion, this team of 1,000 people is a rogue according to the official language. She had no choice but to follow the team to the town and then figure it out.
The girl who walked in front of her with two small discernments was the same team of Qila, 15 years old and two years younger than her, thin and small as if the wind blew down. I saw the little girl holding two buns and looking at them, tears falling down in strings, and the sound of gasping could be heard from afar.
Su Zi walked a few steps to her: "Qila, what's wrong, what are you crying about?"
Qila raised her head, the tears in the corners of her eyes were crystal sad, and she said intermittently: "Zhuoma, sister, there are many buns, one." She took out one and handed it to Su Zi: "My brother, he, no need, give it to Zack, uncle, woo." ā
Su Zi pinched the bun in his hand, his heart sank, he took Qi La's hand, lowered his head and looked at Qi La, and asked softly, "Why doesn't your brother use it, what's wrong with him?"
Qila shook her head and continued to choke up: "He, yesterday, fell, quicksand, inside." ā
Yesterday I did hear that a few members of the scout team had been buried in quicksand, so the team was rerouted, and it turned out that there was Kila's brother among them. Thinking of the guy who was always silent around 20 years old, but felt very down-to-earth, although he had never talked, he was still sad in his heart, Su Zi opened his mouth but didn't know how to comfort Qi La. If you lose your only loved one, how to comfort is superfluous, right?
After pulling away, Su Zi silently took the bun, went to Wu Chang to get a bundle of hay, and turned around and walked back. Fang walked a few steps, only to hear the low voice of the soldier next to him talking: "Do you know?
"Huh, when, who did you listen to?"
"The scout party that inquired this morning has returned, and Yuko told me that he saw it with his own eyes. ā
"This, then should we go to Wuzhen to rendezvous?"
"I don't know, the patriarch is now deliberating. You know that the Barbarian Tiger Clan is a wolf in the desert, and the warriors of the clan are very powerful, and they meet officers and soldiers..."
āā¦ā¦ The red sand in the sky blew a few miles away......" As Su Zi walked farther and farther, the voice gradually became inaudible: "...... Mountains of corpses ......"