Datang Demon Sealing Record: True Demon Tribulation

021, weird camel caravan

Guloulan is a Buddhist, and the oasis tribes here continue the beliefs of their ancestors, and each oasis has a Buddhist temple with three or five monks living in it.

In a large Buddhist temple, there are more than 30 monks. For these oasis tribes, it is already quite numerous.

After walking through a few oases, the three of them were a little disappointed, no one had ever seen a large camel caravan of more than 100 people.

Perhaps they relied on their large contingent and sufficient food supplies to carry and forcibly bypassed Puchanghai.

But then it would be a big problem.

There are two roads to the west, one is Shicheng Town, Boxian Town, and Khotan Town, and the other is Yanqi and Anxi, which can lead to the direction of Dashi.

Guo Hua and Duguhuan were very worried.

Yan Jie knew about gold, and he joined the army as a record, so he should naturally be an insider.

He was very confident, coming out of Yangguan, Pu Changhai was the best supply point for a team of camels who wanted to keep a low profile.

There are few garrisons here, management is lax, the people are simple, and they are rarely suspicious of those who have traveled by the merchants.

"It was possible for them to break up the caravans into small groups and replenish the oases in batches. Yan Jie pondered for a moment and said firmly.

His reasoning was very reasonable, and Guo Hua and Dugu Huan were happily convinced.

So they changed their questioning tactics and asked the people if they had seen a caravan from Chang'an speaking Chang'an's official dialect?

Guo Yu simply asked them, do you know any caravan where someone had a strange disease and died purple-black?

Guo Yu judged that the killer must have blended into the camel team and secretly killed people.

If you want the whole camel team to be scattered because of fear, you will inevitably continue to kill people with that evil poison.

During the prosperous years of trade, the people here were accustomed to hearing languages from all over the world, and they had no specific impression of what Chang'an official dialect was.

However, when they heard the words "strange disease" and the like, several people showed great interest, and said something half-concealed and half-mysterious.

More than a month ago, nearly two months later, several camel teams came to Puchanghai one after another and settled down in several oases.

Although there are some small caravans passing by from time to time on weekdays, basically one or two small caravans of seven or eight people can be seen in three or five days.

But that time, only a day or two, eight or nine caravans came one after another, each of which was about thirty people.

Although they lived in different oases and did not interact with each other, an old man with considerable knowledge still believed that it was actually a large caravan, and he did not want to be too eye-catching, so he came in several batches.

Some of them were not camel herders at first glance, but swordsmen who were in charge of guarding the caravans.

The swordsmen and camel drivers are very different in terms of bearing.

When camel drivers encounter horse bandits, they will also kill people, but most of them are out of self-preservation, and the murderous spirit is not so serious, especially their intimacy with camels is incomparable to that of swordsmen, just like brothers.

The full-time guards are more burly and murderous, and they treat camels, cattle and sheep and other animals as if they were animals, and they are ruthless when they are beaten.

The small camel team that runs and sells nearby depends on the ground, the road, and the people.

These small groups know that there are hidden paths, or in valleys, or underground caverns, that can help them get around some of the troubles that are not alight.

Usually, they will also deal with the horse bandits, and even some small caravans will collude with the horse bandits, and if they see a caravan escorting large treasures, they will also sell the news to the horse bandits.

All in all, the small camel team will not be equipped with a special merchant knife guard, and one more person will have more capital. Can't make it.

There is also a point that proves that they are a large caravan, and they drive three cows and a dozen sheep. Dozens of new sheep were bought in the oasis.

Rushing live animals as a reserve of grain is not the way of a small caravan.

As for the "strange disease", the people did not see any symptoms such as "purple and black skin", but there were indeed deaths.

"Seven or eight dead, two teams are dead, the team close to my house, you know it more clearly, more than two hundred steps away from my house, usually talking, no one can hear anyone, early that morning, I just got up to see the livestock, I heard a few screams from the tent where the camel team was stationed in the distance. ”

"The rule of our oasis is that no matter who has an accident, the big guys will rush over to help, not only me, but also many other tribesmen have rushed over to see if there are horse bandits, wolves or something to make trouble. ”

"Instead, we were stopped by the swordsmen, who wouldn't let us come closer, and when I looked at them, they were all murderous, with torches in one hand and long knives in the other. ”

"Those swordsmen are very rude, but they don't dare to really do it, after all, it is on our territory, and then it is still a Han man with a goatee, who looks like their steward, that person can speak our Loulan language, and tell us in a good voice that there are two descendants in their camel team, the first time they walked in the desert, they had nightmares at night, they cut themselves with knives, and kept apologizing to us, saying that they disturbed our rest and so on. ”

The old man paused, his eyes rolled like a fox, and he sold Guanzi, "Guess what happened?"

Yan Jie hurriedly asked curiously, begging the uncle to continue.

"People themselves say it's okay, why bother with that idle business, the sea in this oasis is clean, but the people who come and go in this oasis, but there are so many people whose hearts are black, they don't believe in the Buddha, and the Buddha will not bless them, we have long been used to turning a blind eye. ”

"Not long after we had dispersed, three horses ran out of their camp, and behind each of them a large cloth bag was held with a rope, and it was tightly wrapped, so that anyone who looked at it could tell that it was a dead man, and later he heard that there were also dead men in other caravans. ”

"I sold a few sheep to them, and when I bought them, I heard that they would leave after a two-day rest, but they were delayed for more than ten days. ”

"Ten days?" Yan Jie repeated the old man's words many times in Loulan and Tang.

Guo Hua and Dugu Huan glanced at each other, happy in their hearts, and delayed their trip for more than ten days, but it was good news.

"Ten days, how can it be so long?" asked Yan Jie in Loulan.

The old man shook his head desperately, "I don't know, the goatee's steward let out the wind, saying that there were too many posteriors in the team, and they were not adapted to the water and soil, so it sounded reasonable to trim for a few more days, but then a strange thing happened." ”

"That night I heard the dog barking in the sheepfold, and I was afraid that a wolf would come and steal the sheep, so I hurried out of the tent to look, but there was no wolf, but I saw that the lights were very bright in a big tent in the middle of the caravan, and it was very strange in the middle of the night. ”

"I crept over and hid behind a grassy slope, where I could see the shadow of the tent very clearly. ”

"There were two people on their knees, as if they were still arguing in a low voice, and they seemed to be speaking in Sogdian, and I could understand a sentence or two, and I heard the two kneeling men say, "It's not me, boss, it's really not me, and the big man is a rough man, crying, as if he is defending himself." ”

"I wondered if they were lynching, and the man who was questioning him, with his mustache cocked, looked like the goatee of the steward, and the man spoke Sogdian, and the back and forth conversation between the two sides was very intense. ”

Then the goatee let out a low roar, and with a wave of his hand, two men struck out, grabbed the heads of the two kneeling men, and slashed their throats with daggers, to see that the posture must be right. ”

"But I was frightened by the old man, this is a bad person, and I don't know if they will bring any catastrophe to our oasis, so I just lay down and watched honestly, and after a while, someone dragged the corpse out, and did not dare to ride a horse, so the two of them carried the corpse and trotted to transport the corpse away. ”

"You didn't report to the official?" asked Yan Jie.

"No, how can you report to the official? Those more than 200 people, even the 100 or so veterans in the official office, are not their opponents, and besides, this is an internal matter of their camel team, and the official office has always turned a blind eye. ”

The three of them borrowed the old man's dog, followed the direction he pointed all the way to the south, walked about seven or eight miles, and really found the corpses.

There were seven bodies in total, except for the linen cloth in which the corpse was shrouded, and the inside was naked, purple and black.

The two bodies that were lynched were not found, perhaps because the night was dark and windy, and they were walking, so they didn't throw too far, or they may have tied up heavy objects and thrown them into the sea.

But that doesn't matter.

Seven purple-black corpses indicate that the killer is still continuing.

As for the delay of more than ten days, two more Sogdians were lynched, and it should be the camel team boss who was investigating the hidden killer.

The other party is ruthless and in the dark, and once the road reaches the desert, the danger will be magnified exponentially.

Even if the other party secretly destroys the water bladder, or even poisons the water, it will bury the entire camel team.

It's much safer to find the killer in the oasis.

The hidden killer should be limited in number, or even only one person, otherwise, he would not have used this kind of inferior means.

The old man also said that the camel caravan was to the southwest along the end of the river all the way, passing through Shicheng Town, Boxian Town, along the foot of the Snow Mountain to walk a section, can go to Khotan Town, after Khotan, and then through Shule City, over the Green Ridge, and then walk for a few days, it is the territory of the Great Food.

"Do you think those two Sogdians were poisoned killers?" asked Dugu Huan.

"It's possible, but it's also possible that the killer deliberately provoked their civil strife and made them suspicious of each other, a deadly killer who could appear at any time, suspicion and distrust between partners, and soon disintegrated that team. ”

"If you say so, I hope the killer isn't dead, maybe the golden camel team is already killing each other in Stone Town, or Boxian Town, waiting for us to move the gold. Guo Yu laughed.

"Hehe, if a person has the ability to play with more than 200 people, it is definitely not a person to deal with, don't forget that he still has that weird poison in his hands. ”

"Hehe, don't be afraid, we'll see, we'll hurry up tomorrow and chase them." ”