Yellow sand.

The scorching afternoon sun shines unobstructed on the desert, reflecting light that is impossible to look at, and the hot and dry air pours into people's mouths and noses, and even their throats are dry as if they have been burned by fire. A group of ragged slaves walked under the scorching sun with heavy jugs on their backs, their eyes glazed and their lips chapped, stepping on the sand step deep and shallow, slowly moving south.

Minna was walking through the group, gasping for air, tired and her eyes aching from the sunlight reflected off the sand, she still squinted, carefully observing the terrain around her, especially any rock or animal skeleton that could be used as a signpost.

Suddenly, there was a sound in the air, and she immediately reacted, falling to the ground following the sound, avoiding the serious damage of the whip, but there was still a bloody mark on her arm.

"What are you seeing?! Don't go yet! The overseer cursed. Minna was used to it, and quietly got up and continued walking, and behind her came the screams of other slaves being whipped.

They walked for more than an hour before returning to the campsite. It's a red-rocked low mountain, with red, red, and even crimson sandstones that have been battered by windblown sand for decades and given the mountain a terrifying lore.

It is located in the southwest of the border town of Turi on the border between Noga and Wisha, more than 10 kilometers away, and there is no oasis or water source. No one knows why people chose this place as a settlement, but in the last decade, more and more people have come here for a long time. Most of them are Weisha, and a few of them are from Noga, but there are also many people from other countries, but these people have a more or less unkind atmosphere.

Minna walked through the camp with her head down, and in her ears were a few **** big men who were laughing maliciously at a few young female slaves, she turned a deaf ear, passed a large tent, and came to a row of caves dug on the red rock slope that were specially used to store food and water.

The slaves lined up in several lines and poured the water they had brought back into vats and jugs. When Minna poured the water, she caught a glimpse of a few droplets of water that bounced up after falling into the jar, and with a flash in her eyes, the droplets disappeared in an instant, and no one else present noticed it.

"What are you doing?!" There was a burst of angry scolding from the side, and then a little girl of seven or eight years old was kicked to the ground, and the overseer viciously added two lashes: "You dare to steal water to drink?!" See if I don't kill you! ”

"Don't fight, don't fight, I won't dare in the future, I won't dare......" The little girl cried and avoided the poison of the whip, and finally received seven or eight lashes before being let go. Everyone around just watched, and no one stopped the overseer.

Minna bit her lip and didn't make a sound. This kind of thing happens every day, and she once tried to help the person who was beaten, but the result was that the two of them were beaten more together, and the person she helped might not thank her.

After pouring water, all slaves were inspected by the overseers before they were released, to make sure that they had not stolen water to drink. The overseer saw that everyone's lips were chapped, so he nodded with satisfaction: "Okay, I'll give you water at night, but if I find out that you come to steal water, hum ......" He sneered and didn't say what would happen, but everyone shivered, lowered their heads and went out obediently.

Minna also lowered her eyebrows and returned to her "master's" tent, which was farther away from the other tents, and when she walked to a place that others could not see, her fingers moved, her mouth opened slightly, and a dozen small droplets of water suddenly appeared and burrowed into her mouth, moistening her originally thirsty throat.

She touched her lips with her fingers to make sure that she didn't reveal her hands and feet, and then approached the tent, suddenly realized, turned her head sharply, and dodged a wine bottle thrown out of the tent: "Where's the dead girl?!" How dare you be lazy and not work?! Don't get in yet! ”

A hint of disgust flashed in Minna's eyes, and she quickly covered it up. When she got into the tent, she saw the "master" crooked on the felt, leaning against a few mats, his face flushed, his whole body smelling of wine, and he knew that he was drunk again, and that he had seven or eight glass flasks in his hand, and only a plate of minced bacon remained.

"Where did you go?! I've got a lot of work to do here! I spent so much money on you, and you were lazy?! Beware of me selling you to a brothel! "My cloudy eyes were a little confused, but the words that came out of my mouth were still so ugly.

Minna didn't answer, she knew that even if she did, the drunkard wouldn't listen, he just wanted to curse. She pursed her lips to clean up the mess, but just wiped the stains with a cloth, the water here is precious, and of course it is impossible to clean the blanket stained with wine and oil, anyway, when the "master" can't stand it, he will use the cleaning charm.

Sure enough, the drunkard didn't pursue the answer to the question, but just scolded and talked about how much money he spent when he bought her, and how uneconomical the result was, and then scolded those Shaonan people who had no eyes and beads, and actually looked down on his skills, and so on, and then snored in the drunkenness.

Minna gave him a cold look, walked over to the cauldron on the other side of the tent, stirred the potion that was boiling inside, reduced the fire a little, and began to cut the roots of the grass and peel the fig shells. After a while, she saw that the drunkard had completely fallen asleep and would not wake up for the time being, so she hurriedly put down the fig shell in her hand, quickly took a small crucible, put in the ingredients, and carefully put it on the stove to boil, while keeping an eye on the drunkard's condition.

God knows why this drunkard would be a magician? More precisely, it was the Potions Master who was removed from both the Shaonan Magicians Association and the Potions Masters Association. The reason for the removal is unknown, but according to the private accounts of others in the camp, it seems that he concocted some kind of potion with a strong psychedelic effect, which can make people act according to the instructions of others in a delirious way, and successfully defrauded several noble ladies of money, causing a great panic in high society.

Although it is not known how he came to this place, he still has some status here. Every month he would make a large number of forbidden potions, which the camp leader would sell to a merchant in Turi for a large amount of money. In this camp, he was a well-known rich man, but at the same time the object of taboo because everyone was afraid that he would ****** medicine for himself.

Thanks to him, although Minna was beaten and scolded every day, no one dared to seriously injure her, for fear of angering the former potionsman.

More than a year has passed since she fell into the hands of slave traders in the fall of the year she was nine years old. When the slave traders brought her back from a coma, fearing that she would cause trouble, they gave up selling people in Port Matt, took all the girls to other cities overnight, and drugged Minna along the way, leaving her in a daze and unable to resist them.

When Minna comes to her senses, she finds herself in a strange place. Judging by the clothes and accents of the people around her, she roughly judged that she should still be in East. She tried to escape several times, and once almost succeeded, but was found at the last minute, and after a desperate struggle, she was brought back again.

The slave traders finally found out that she had practiced martial arts, and because they were afraid that her escape would threaten the survival of the entire sales team, they were ruthless, and they tried to lose money, discounted her legs, and poured dumb medicine on her, just to deceive unsuspecting customers, and they let her be cured of her superficial wounds. At that time, her legs seemed to be fine, but once she stood for a long time or did strenuous exercise, the pain would be unbearable, and she could not speak, and there was nowhere to turn for help, which was really despair.

At that time, Minna finally couldn't help but resent, resentful of her mother who ignored her shouts, resentful of her father who had not come to see her for many years, resentful of her grandfather who left her to go back to his own world, resentful of Yutan and Sibylla who deceived her into taking away the storage ring, and resentful of Corbin who refused to let her go, and most resentful of the person who drove him away in front of his grandfather's house that day.

I don't know how many beatings and scoldings, I don't know how many slave traders she changed, she was regarded as the most troublesome goods, and she was sold to Weisha, where she was sent to this place along with more than a dozen other male and female slaves, and then because she was found to have magical fluctuations on her body, she became the servant of this drunkard and potion master.

Perhaps it was because of the loss she suffered in the past that she learned to be obedient, Minna never let the slave traders know that she knew that she could do magic, and when she came to the hands of drunkards, she was not exposed, and even behaved very clumsily when learning to cut potion materials. Although this was in exchange for the drunkard's scolding, he didn't take her to heart, and just regarded her as a little ghost with some magical talent but no knowledge, and asked her to help him guard the fire or handle potion materials.

He had been drunk all day, but Minna found an opportunity to quietly hide some magical materials to heal her foot and throat. In the past six months, a lot of progress has been made. She had been walking for two or three hours now, her feet didn't hurt as much as they used to, and her throat could make sounds. However, she was afraid that others would be suspicious, so she continued to pretend to be dumb and often walked with a limp.

The liquid in the cauldron gave off a faint medicinal aroma, and Minna quickly threw away the last of the ingredients, stirred it, removed the pot, and took out a broken glass bottle from the corner of the cupboard—the drunkard discarded what he didn't want—and carefully poured the potion into it, plugged the mouth of the bottle with a wooden stopper, and hid it in her pocket.

The drunkard rolled over, and Minna turned her head to see if he was awake, and quickly wiped the residue from the crucible with a cloth and put it back in its place. While the Cleansing Spell could have been more successful, she didn't want to take the risk of casting her spell so close to a mage, and if she was discovered, what she had done would be exposed.

The scent of potions still lingered in the air, even from her pocket. Minna fanned the air around her, and seeing that it didn't have much effect, she simply grabbed a handful of sneezing grass and threw it into the cauldron of the drunkard's medicine, and the original psychedelic potion quickly emitted a strong aroma, covering the original smell of wine in the tent, and the faint medicinal fragrance was naturally not a problem.

Smelling the aroma, the drunkard jerked up, rushed to the cauldron to check, and kicked Minna a few times before putting in a few other herbs to offset the side effects of sneezing roots. He wouldn't do such a thing as a potion to pour out the wrong thing, and in this kind of hellish place, every potion material is extremely precious.

Minna endured the pain in her body and carefully protected the medicine in her pocket. It didn't take long for the drunkard to become addicted to alcohol again, and when he turned around, he didn't find the wine, and there was no water to drink, so he dropped a sentence: "Watch the fire well!" If you make a mistake, you won't be able to eat! "It's out.

Minna saw him enter another tent, and knew that he was looking for someone to drink, so she immediately turned around and took the kettle and water bag, ran to the place where the water was stored, and under the pretext that the "master" asked for water, filled it with water, and then poured out most of the cup with a cup, and carefully carried it to her own nest in the corner of the tent, turned over the bed, brushed away the sand, and lifted the wooden plank underneath, and inside was a broken crockpot with a closed lid, and in the jar there was a water bag, and a few half pieces of dry bread. This kind of food, as long as it is stored well, will not go bad for a month.

She poured the water from the cup into the water bag, took out the potion bottle, drank the potion, put it in the jar together, buried it again, and filled the cup with the water she had just filled it and put it on the drunkard's table, before returning to the fire to look after the large pot of potions.

She could feel the pain in her body slowly disappearing. The bottle of potion was specially used to condition her body, as long as she continued to drink it, she would soon regain her strength, plus she had already figured out the surrounding terrain, food and water would be ready in a few days, and it wouldn't take long...... It won't take long...... She'll be able to get out of here......

She still remembers the map of the country's cities that her grandfather told her, and in school, she also studied geography. There was less than three days between Turi and Monri, but nearby Turi had a deep relationship with the camp owner, and there had been cases of escaped slaves who had been captured there, so she had to go straight to Monri.

Although the road was in the desert, she had the experience of crossing the desert with her grandfather, and for several months on a row with other slaves to the oasis in the north to carry the water, she would definitely be able to walk down. As long as you arrive in Mengli, there is a grandfather's house there, and maybe there are people from the Xiao family's trading house. Soon, she'll be able to go home!

It was as if she saw her father smiling at her, her mother hugging her and crying, Grandpa Marshall saying that he would make her something to eat, and Winnie babbling about making her new clothes......

"Dead girl, what are you doing in a daze?!" A roar woke her up, and when she looked up, it was the drunkard who had returned. He was anxiously stirring the liquid in the pot, and angrily raised his foot and kicked: "Look at the good things you have done!" You've ruined all my medicines! No food to eat tonight! ! ”

Minna pouted, that kind of harmful medicine, it's a good thing to make less pot, and, if he really values that medicine so much, why would he go out and find someone to drink? If you don't have food, you can't eat, and he is not the only one in this camp.

She climbed out of the tent with the drunkard's roar and walked towards the slaves' "dining room", a broken felt tent. Originally, a slave like her, who had an exclusive "master", did not need to go there to eat, but she did not want to go hungry, so she ran to grab food from a large group of men, women and children, and quietly hid half a piece of dry bread and brought it back to the tent to hide.

She slept in her own nest, and when she thought of what was hidden under the bed, she couldn't tell her excitement: soon, soon, just endure it for a few more days......

In the middle of the night, she was woken up by the neighing of horses, and then she heard the drunkard cursing loudly, and a man came outside, calling the drunkard to go out, whispering something.

Minna crept up and listened intently, hearing what seemed to be an important guest coming, and asked him to accompany him. The drunkard followed, and Minna was a little curious, I don't know who it was?

The next morning, when she went to get water, she finally saw the visitor. It was a strange young man in his twenties, with sword eyebrows and starry eyes, very handsome appearance, and an indescribable noble bearing. Looking at the way he was dressed, although it was just a simple and simple Noga civilian costume, it was just out of place with other people, as if a prince had run into a beggar's den.

He spoke kindly to a slave girl and asked her to get him a basin of washing water. The slave girl entered the cave in a trance, and Minna heard several slave girls joke about her, saying that if she was taken away by the nobleman, she would not have to suffer any more.

When Minna heard this, her heart moved, and she lowered her head and picked up the jug and walked back, secretly thinking about whether to ask the guest for help. He looked like a good guy......

However, many people she thinks are good people have done things to hurt her, can this "good person" be trusted?

She just lowered her head and pondered, didn't pay attention for a while, bumped into a fat man, fell to the ground, but the fat man glared at her: "You stinky girl, you dare to hit me?!" See if I don't kill you! With that, he kicked it over.

Minna secretly screamed that it was not good, this person was the enemy of the drunkard, and he never bought his account, maybe he would really beat himself to death. She hurriedly dodged, but the other party also brought two accomplices to surround her together, she took a few punches, and she couldn't care about the jug in her hand, and saw that there was a gap between the three of them, so she rushed out. Who knew that she didn't run a few steps, but someone stretched out a foot from the side and knocked her to the ground, and in a blink of an eye, four people surrounded her.

She gritted her teeth secretly, ready to take this beating, no matter what, she couldn't ruin her escape plan.

"Stop!" A male voice sounded, faintly majestic, and the fat man and his accomplices couldn't help but stop moving, but they were annoyed and angry: "Who is meddling?!" ”

When I looked back, it was the young guest, staring at them sternly: "Let go of that little girl!" ”

(Minna is eleven years old...... Jumping the New Year Again ~~~)