The buildings in the earthen city have long since collapsed, and the walls built around the city are still standing there tenaciously.

The years of erosion by the wind and sand have exposed the branches of poplar and the reeds in the sand that were used to strengthen the city walls, and also provided ready-made firewood and grass for passing caravans and herdsmen.

In a corner of Tucheng, there are still a few surviving thousand-year-old poplars, swaying their sparse branches and leaves weakly in the setting sun.

There was an old well of bitter water underneath the poplar tree, and the men who arrived first had already begun to pull the twine rope down to the bottom of the well to get the bitter water for the cattle to drink.

The bluestone trough is ready-made, and when the aborigines of the ancient city abandoned this ancient city, they took everything away, leaving only a dozen bluestone troughs, which were scattered in every corner of the city wall.

It seems that my caravan has not been stationed here once or twice, and after all the camels and horses have been unloaded, the cattle do not need to be driven by anyone, and go straight to these stone troughs.

The dry and cold dusk came as promised, and I couldn't help but shiver, feeling that the whole person was alive again.

Fortunately, in the past ten years, I have cultivated an iron-clad body by playing with guns and sticks every day, otherwise I might not have been able to survive the purgatory trip in the past few days.

The men around him were all busy, collecting firewood, burying pots and boiling water to make food, feeding animals and setting up tents, and the division of labor was clear and orderly.

I couldn't get involved like an outsider, and I was bored.

So I called Qin Chong, who was busy, and asked him to accompany me to enjoy the evening scenery of this desert earth city.

There was a tall watchtower made of rammed earth on the sandy slope not far from the city wall, and we climbed smoothly to the top of the tower along the dirt slope next to the tower, and the surrounding scenery was in full view.

The sunset dyes the western sky red, and the endless desert is silent, calm and calm, it is really beautiful!

It was a demon cave just now, but now it has suddenly become a charming fairyland, which is really a creation and trickery!

"Qin Chong, we've been out for ten days, right? I'm a little homesick. ”

I sat cross-legged on the platform, looking at the place where the sunset was setting, and I remembered the breeze and suddenly became sad.

"Young master, don't be discouraged, when you get past this desert and reach our Middle Earth Han land, you promise that you won't be homesick again! That one is prosperous! In the words of the master, it is the picturesque mountains and rivers, and the beautiful women are weaving! Eat, drink, and play! Khotan and Shanshan, these small countries in the Western Regions can't be compared at all! ”

Qin Chong leaned over and picked up a lump of dirt and threw it vigorously into the distance.

"Can't get to it? Is it really that amazing? ”

Although I have heard countless times from my grandfather and grandfather about the prosperity of Middle-earth and the beauty of Jiangnan.

But for me, who has never been far away and has never seen the world, these are legends.

In my eyes, the most beautiful scenery in the world is in the Kunlun Mountains, the most delicious food is in our "Qingfengze" inn, and the most charming beauties come from Rome in the western country of Yunhai.

"It's magical! Capitals like Chang'an and Luoyang have been burned by fire many times, and they are still so prosperous! The official yamen is many times larger than our royal palace in Khotan! The street is so wide! There is room for three or four carriages walking side by side! The signboards of the shops are endless, and there are all kinds of things to sell! ”

Qin Chong was intoxicated and described the grand occasion of Middle-earth to me, and even I suddenly yearned for it.

"Jiankang City, this is where we are going! The silk shops in the city were placed next to each other, all the way to the edge of the river! Have you ever seen a sea boat? The wharf by the river was full of foreign ships, several stories tall and so big! It turns out that you can also go to Zhongtu Jiankang by sea! ”

I have never seen a sea ship, but I have heard from Amika that they first crossed the vast sea in a sea ship and disembarked from the harbor of Canaan.

Qin Chong, who is about the same year as me, has already seen so much of the world at a young age.

And I, the young master of Yimen, still stay in Qingfengze's comfortable nest and sleep a lot!

Looking at Qin Chong, I was deeply ashamed, and I also felt that this trip to Jiankang with the caravan was worth the hardships.

In the face of the cruelty of the desert, no one is exempt.

Qin Chong in front of him had burnt yellow hair, red complexion, chapped lips and white lips, and the eighteen or nineteen-year-old boy already looked like a decadent old man.

I can't imagine what has become of me at this point, only worse than these old fellows.

"Young master, this place is haunted at night, you have to be careful, you must call me in the middle of the night!"

Seeing that I was silent, Qin Chong said mysteriously in my ear.

"Haunted?" My hair stood on end.

"Yes, I heard that a hundred years ago, this was still a key pass of the Great Han Tun Army, and there were many veterans stationed here all their lives, and they never returned to their hometowns, and the soil bags around the city wall were the graves of these veterans."

As far as I could see, there were countless graves, large and small, scattered in the sand outside the city.

"If you listen carefully in the middle of the night, you can still hear the cries of these lonely ghosts. Listening to the old fellows, these lonely souls know that the caravan is going to Han and want us to bring them back to their hometown. So if you go out alone in the middle of the night, these spirits will be attached to you, and you're done! ”

"Have you heard such cries?" I grabbed Qin Chong in fear and asked in surprise.

In this world, I am not afraid of heaven and earth, but I am afraid of this ghost and god thing.

"I've heard it, don't worry, young master, we people are yang, and ghosts can't get in."

Qin Chong smiled and turned around and comforted, and I felt like I had met a soul, and the smiling face that looked like a dry corpse was too terrifying.

"Let's go down!"

With that, I hurriedly got up and walked downhill without looking back.

Dinner was ready on the other side of the tent, and two men were looking around calling out to us.

Tonight's meal was a bit hearty, with bitter boiled oatmeal paste, plus a piece of naan and half a piece of bacon.

"Good! I can still hang around, and it seems that I can still survive, hehe! ”

Standing on the ruins by the tulou, my grandfather patted me on the shoulder happily when he saw us coming down, and resumed his kind and loving attitude towards me.

"Grandpa, I heard Qin Chong say that this area is haunted at night, we have to be careful!"

I followed behind my grandfather and said with a little humility.

"Qin Chong, this little ghost! Ha ha! Grandpa looked back at the two of us and laughed.

"What is there to be afraid of lonely souls and wild ghosts! There are clouds in Buddhism, and the bad things done by a powerful ghost for thousands of years are not worth the sins committed by a wicked person in one day, and the worst thing in the world is the human heart! But you're right, the next time I go back to Khotan, I'm going to ask the monks of Zanmo Monastery for some spiritualist tapes. In the future, when I pass by this place, I will have people put some on the side of the graves around me. They are all the ancestors of the Han family, if you can really bring these lonely souls back to their homeland, it will also be an immeasurable merit! ”

Speaking of this, Grandpa touched his long gray beard a little sadly, put his hand on the pergola, and took a careful look at the surrounding wilderness with a wooden stick.

Under the sunset, this old man who has experienced the prosperity of his family and country, survived in troubled times, and can start from scratch and dominate the world, in my eyes, my grandfather is a saint.

When I went to bed at night, I specially let Qin Chong sleep next to me to give me courage.

I was so tired, and after a few words, I wrapped my wool sleeping bag tightly and fell asleep.

"Young master, young master! You listen! Come on! ”

In my sleep, Qin Chong whispered in my ear, and I woke up all of a sudden.

All around was the undulating snoring of tired men, and the night wind swept the floating sand in the wilderness outside the wall, making a terrible clattering and whining sound.

Behind all these voices, a strange human whisper came faintly from far and near.

Like weeping, like a wail, or looking up to the sky and sighing, or ascending to the top and shouting.

The voice gets closer and closer, and at last it is like a shadowless person speaking in your ear.

At this time, even the horses not far away were frightened and began to howl restlessly.

I was so frightened that all my cold hairs stood on end, and I buried my head in my sleeping bag at once.

"Young master, don't be afraid, the voice is far away!"

It was Qin Chong's voice, and he also turned me with his elbow, and my soul returned to my body, and I crawled out of the sleeping bag with sweat.

The biting cold, the open-air tent, and the cold sweat that broke out, I was really scared.

There was silence except for the popular snoring.

A full moon was in the sky, and silver glow sprinkled every corner of the ruins of the earth city.

The experience just now was like a nightmare, but it did happen, and Qin Chong beside him could testify to it.

"Young master, sleep, I have to hurry tomorrow." After Qin Chong finished speaking, he turned over, and instantly snored loudly.

Fear eventually didn't resist the fatigue, and after some struggle, I fell asleep again.