Wang Yangming saw that the people in the mission and the ordinary soldiers of the Eagle Yang Army were exhausted one by one, and they must not have the strength to go out to find horses again, but because the people of Guozijian had martial arts, their physical strength could still support them. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info He said to Chen Baxian, Lu Fengxian, Shen Qingdai, Wang Panpan, and Su Mu: "I think those horses shouldn't be able to run far, even if they are buried in the sand, there should still be some traces on the ground." Let's go out and look for it, if we can find water and food, we will be saved. ”

Although Gu Xifeng's physical strength is amazing, but because the internal strength is not thick, he is exhausted at the moment, he saw that Wang Yangming and the others were about to go out to find horses, and warned them earnestly: "Now the weather is still unstable, you must go together, you must not be separated, if you find that the weather is not right, come back immediately, we will wait in place." ”

Wang Yangming knew that Gu Xifeng was an expert in desert survival, so he agreed to his request at the moment, and led the Guozijian group out to find the horses. The men searched all the places within a radius of ten miles, but there was no trace of horses, and they came back dejected.

When Gu Xifeng saw their expressions, he knew that he had found nothing. It's lunch time, but there's no rice to cook. Originally, the Yingyang soldiers were all tied to rice bags, but in that sandstorm, everyone was beaten by the sand and their heads were bleeding, and the rice bags had already been leaked by the sand, and all the rice grains that leaked were buried in the yellow sand, where could they be found. Gu Xifeng said to Wang Yangming: "The three armies can't go without food for a day, they can't say it, so they have to kill the horses." ”

Wang Yangming saw that there were more than ten horses left, and these horses were all excellent war horses that had traveled thousands of miles with the people of the Eagle Yang Army, he couldn't bear it in his heart, and said, "Is there no other way?"

Gu Xifeng shook his head: "Except for these horses, we have nothing to eat." These horses still have to consume grain and grass, and at the moment we only have a little grain and grass left, which cannot support their consumption. Let's kill three horses first and feed them for the whole army, and we'll talk about the rest in the evening. ”

Wang Yangming had no choice but to agree and ordered the Huotou Army to kill the horses. The horse seemed to know that he was about to be in trouble, but he didn't make a fuss, but looked at the firehead with teary eyes. Huotou Jun scolded his mother, tears came out of his eyes, gently stroked the horse's neck, and murmured: "Good horse, I hope you will be born as a human in the next life, and you will not suffer this sin again." He raised his knife and stabbed the horse to death, so that it would not suffer more. When everyone saw it, they couldn't bear it in their hearts and sighed one after another.

The firehead roasted the horse's flesh and put the horse's blood in a bowl and distributed it among the people. Wang Yangming said to everyone: "At the moment, our situation is in danger, half a bowl of this horse blood per person, and we will have no water after drinking." Before sunset today, we need to find a way to find a water source. ”

The crowd was silent, each eating a few pieces of horse meat and drinking a few mouthfuls of horse blood, and they all sat still in despair. Wang Yangming invited Zhang Qian and reported the current situation to him. He called Gu Xifeng over, took out the map, and the two studied it together, and came to a conclusion: there are no oases within a radius of 100 miles, and it is estimated that it is difficult to find a water source.

It turns out that wherever there is an oasis in the desert, towns are often formed, and there will be garrisons if there are towns, Wang Yangming in order to avoid the garrison, the selected marching route is far away from the oasis, and now he has tasted the bitter fruit, and regrets it in his heart, but it is too late. At this moment, he finally knew what the responsibility of the general was, and the lives of all of the people became unpredictable because of one of his decisions.

Wang Yangming said to Gu Xifeng: "Your method of digging incense to get water may be useful?"

Gu Xifeng frowned and said, "That method must be in a place where there is an underground river." I don't think there is ever a river in this place, so there should be no river. Anyway, give it a try. "At that moment, I took a dozen incense sticks, lit them and buried them in a dozen different places, hoping that there would be a place where smoke would come out. Wang Yangming used the Tianyan Tong and saw the ground within a radius of 100 meters clearly, until the incense stick burned out, and he didn't see any smoke coming out. He lowered his head and said to Gu Xifeng: "It seems that there is no water to dig up around here." We'll have to go to the oasis. ”

Gu Xifeng said: "If we ride horses, we can quickly march to the nearby oasis to get water, but now there are only five horses left, and everyone else has to walk, and trekking through the desert is tantamount to looking for death." ”

Wang Yangming said: "Then send five people to ride out, find the water source and bring the water back, everyone replenish the water and then go to the nearest oasis." ”

Gu Xifeng said: "That's it." ”

Wang Yangming selected five of the most experienced in the desert march in the Eagle Yang Army, and said to them: "You ride our remaining horses and go north, if the map is correct, there is a small oasis a hundred miles to the north, you fill your skin with water, and then look for some food to come back, and be sure to come back before dark." The five of them got down and got on their horses.

Wang Yangming and others waited in place, and everyone did not dare to move, for fear of consuming water, and waited until late at night, and did not see the five people come back. Wang Yangming wondered: "A hundred miles away, an hour of horseback riding should have arrived anyway, but now that we have been gone for six hours, why haven't we come back?"

Gu Xifeng also guessed the reason, but now everyone was already hungry. Wang Yangming advised everyone to go to bed and rest quickly, and no longer march tonight, and wait until tomorrow morning. But he himself could not sleep, and lay there worrying until the third watch, when he heard light footsteps approaching him. Wang Yangming opened his eyes and saw that it was Su Mu who walked to his side. He turned over and sat up, and said to Su Mu, "Why don't you sleep?"

Su Mu sat beside him and said softly, "I can't sleep." ”

After saying this, she glanced at Wang Yangming silently, and stopped talking, Wang Yangming waited for her to speak, staring at her eyes, but saw that she seemed to be a little scared in her eyes.

Since I met Su Mu until now, I have never seen her afraid of anything. Wang Yangming was curious, and was about to inquire in detail, but he heard Su Mu whisper: "You say, will we die of thirst here?"

Wang Yangming heard her say this, and knew that although Su Mu was strong in martial arts, he was still a teenager after all, after all, he was afraid of death, especially the death of such a blunt knife cutting flesh. He listened with a heavy heart, but pretended to persuade her easily: "You and I are both masters of the six grades, are you still afraid that this small desert will not succeed?"

Su Mu sighed softly: "You don't need to comfort me, I know that our situation is very critical now." How the power of heaven and earth is something that mortals can fight against, people are sometimes too easy to overestimate themselves. ”

Wang Yangming listened to Su Mu's words, faintly despairing, but he didn't know how to persuade her. I heard Su Mu continue: "That **** forcibly opened the Eight Gates Dunjia and fought a decisive battle with the black robe, and the arm bones were broken, and a few of us went to the Tianshan Mountain to find you Snow Lotus, and encountered an avalanche." The avalanche was even more terrifying than the sandstorm, and I thought at the time that maybe I would die on the snowy mountain. But at that time, I still had a wish in my heart, thinking that even if I died, I would bring this snow lotus to you before I died. There was such a thought that supported me, and I escaped unharmed. This time, I encountered a desperate situation in the desert, but I felt that I had no concern, and I couldn't even get the energy up. ”