The rain outside the store was getting heavier and heavier, and at first, it was still "crackling", with some raindrops hitting the windows sporadically, but after a while, it was a "whooshing" sound, and the sound of doors and windows being washed by the rain came and went.

The sky seemed to have collapsed, and the rain was pouring down, lightning and thunder were roaring, and the wind was raging.

The people around quietly watched the two of them draw the map, Feng Shuzhu turned his head to look outside the house again, and said: "Such a storm, even the sword immortal can't walk, it seems that this shopkeeper won't be able to come back for a while." ”

When everyone heard this, they knew that what Feng Shuzhu said was that the two of them could draw the picture slowly and in detail, and they didn't have to worry about the shopkeeper coming back to stop them.

Granny Duan also turned her head to look outside the house and said, "I didn't expect that there would be such a heavy rain in such a late autumn season." There was a hint of happiness in his tone.

Feng Shuzhu's gaze moved along the tip of Yi Dingjia's pen, and he whispered in his mouth: "Who is the person who would build a wine shop in such an inaccessible place, isn't it to make money and do business?" His voice was very low, as if he was saying it to himself, and it seemed to be saying it to others.

Granny Duan thought for a moment and said, "When Feng Shaoxia said this, he reminded the old body that when he was cooking in the back kitchen, he didn't see a wine jar. ”

As soon as he finished speaking, Feng Shuzhu became suspicious, even Shui Lingyue, who had not spoken, turned her gaze to Granny Duan, and her cold eyes also blinked and blinked.

At this time, Chu Qing was squatting and carefully looking at Xiao Jiu's drawing, but when she heard the words, she also stood up, walked forward, and joined in the discussion: "It can't be that the shopkeeper drank all the wine and went to a far away place to buy wine." ”

Feng Shuzhu smiled when he heard this, and said, "This kind of situation may really exist, but according to common sense, it is very impossible. ”

Chu Qing thought for a while, and then said, "What's impossible? It is very popular to be able to build a wine shop here. As he spoke, he rolled his eyes, as if he had suddenly remembered something, and turned his gaze to the kitchen again, and said, "Could it be that the shopkeeper has hidden the wine in some cellar, we still haven't looked carefully." ”

Feng Shuzhu thought for a moment and said, "This idea is very good, we really need to take a closer look, maybe there are other secrets in this store." ”

Chu Qing nodded, chose a brighter-looking oil lamp, and turned around and ran to the kitchen.

Hearing that he was going to the kitchen to find a wine jar, the little fat bear bag turned around and followed, looking impatient, and almost overtook Chu Qing several times and ran to the front.

Feng Shuzhu, Shui Lingyue and Granny Duan also understood it, and they each ran in one direction, slowly walked away, and looked up and down carefully.

After a while, the three of them had already looked up and down the store, needless to say, they found nothing, and the three of them returned to Yi Dingjia and Xiao Jiu, and saw that the two were about to finish depicting.

Suddenly, Chu Qing ran out of the kitchen in a hurry, took a very strange thing in his hand, and said while walking towards everyone: "Brother Feng, what do you think this is?"

Feng Shuzhu turned his head and looked at it in his hand, and said with a smile: "This is a sheepskin bag for water, which must be used for long journeys in the desert." ”

Chu Qing took back the sheepskin bag again, looked at it carefully, and said, "The people in this desert are really strange, why do they use sheepskin as a water bag. ”

Feng Shuzhu smiled: "The desert is very hot, and the sheepskin bag can be well insulated and breathable. If you use other objects to fill the water, it will easily stink. ”

Listening to Feng Shuzhu's explanation, Chu Qing suddenly looked through the sheepskin bag in his hand carefully, and pressed it hard with both hands from time to time.

Such a rare object in the Central Plains, even Shui Lingyue, who had never spoken, also looked at it twice.

At this time, I suddenly heard Yi Dingjia say: "Oops." Then he stood up, thumped his back hard, and then groaned, "I'm tired and old, and I'm finally done." ”

Feng Shuzhu stretched out his hand and gently helped Yi Dingjia, and said with a smile: "It's hard work." ”

As soon as the words fell, Xiao Jiu also got up from the ground, looked at the map spread under him, and said, "Brother Feng, I'm done with the drawing." ”

Feng Shuzhu looked over, the maps on the tables were really mixed up, and he couldn't see it clearly, so he turned his head again and said to Yi Dingjia: "Senior, this map is finished." Next, we're all going to rely on you. ”

When Yi Dingjia heard this, he stroked his beard and said, "That's nature, I've been looking at it carefully when I'm drawing, let's go over there and put them together." As he spoke, he pointed to the clearing next to him, turned and staggered over again.

Feng Shuzhu saw that he was walking so hard, and knew that the waist and legs were not good when he was old, so he said to the others: "Let's pull a few tables over and put the pictures on the table, so it looks more convenient." ”

Several people started to put the two tables together, and Yi Dingjia carefully traced the map and spread it on it one by one, and everyone also gathered around.

I saw Yi Dingjia holding an oil lamp, looking at it for a long time, selecting a map from it, placing it at the bottom, and looking at everyone: "Here, it is the entrance to the desert." ”

Everyone looked at the map at the same time, only to see that at the bottom of the map were a few tiled houses, but behind them were two hills, and then up, there was a blank piece, and on a piece of paper, a large piece was actually blank.

Yi Dingjia seemed to see everyone's doubts, and after his gaze fell back on the map, he pointed to the blank space, and said, "From here, it's the desert." ”

After listening to his explanation, Xiao Jiu also returned to the ground, selected the picture he had drawn, found the same one, spread it on the ground, and lightly clicked a dot with a brush in the blank space.

Seeing that everyone had understood, Yi Dingjia picked up the oil lamp, looked at it for a while, and selected a map from it again, put it down close to the first map, and said, "This one depicts the passage from the Central Plains to the entrance. ”

The crowd once again looked at the map, and saw that the position almost parallel to the tiled houses was almost parallel to the two thin lines, and a road was depicted in two thin lines, and the beginning of the road was not seen, but it was seen passing through a region with many small dots, and then it was connected to the first map.

Yi Dingjia's fingers moved along the two thin lines, stopping in the area full of dots, tapping the little dots with his fingertips, and said, "But here is a large meadow." And these two thin lines are only a rough indication of the direction, and there will be no road above the grass. ”

Hearing this, everyone suddenly realized that those small dots originally meant that the grass was growing on the grass.

After Xiao Jiu listened, he also selected the same one according to the appearance, and after carefully placing it, he used a brush to point two small dots in the blank space, which were counted as sequential records.

The little chubby bear bag seemed to be quite interested in these maps, and somewhere he got a thin brush, circled and dotted on a small piece of paper, and drew something that no one could understand, as if he had made a miniature version of the map.

At this time, Yi Dingjia selected the third map and put it on the first map, and everyone could see clearly that this map was no longer a blank area, but many more circles, large circles were set around small circles, and the color between the circles seemed to be a little darker, and next to the circles, there was another pattern like a star.

Yi Dingjia pointed to the picture, combined with the first picture, and explained: "These two pictures, although they are close together, are actually more than thousands of miles away in the desert, these circles should represent the peaks composed of weathered rocks, and this pattern next to them is a water intake point. ”

Feng Shuzhu said: "In this way, this is the first point of water that can be taken after entering the desert from the entrance. ”

Yi Dingjia glanced at Feng Shuzhu, nodded, but said: "The water intake point in the desert is always a mark, and it often happens that you have traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles, and then you are about to die of thirst before you find the water intake point, but when you lie at the mouth of the well and look inside, you find that it has become a dry well." As he spoke, Yi Dingjia licked his lips, as if he was already hungry and thirsty at the moment.

Hearing this, everyone fell silent, because everyone knew that the horror of not drinking water for many days was more terrible than not being able to find food.

Feng Shuzhu saw that the atmosphere was so depressing, so he turned around and brought a bowl of tea, handed it to Yi Dingjia, and said with a smile: "At this time, we are not yet in the desert, this tea can still be drunk casually, and the mouth is dry as the predecessor said, it is better to drink saliva and moisten the throat before continuing." ”

Yi Dingjia happily took the tea and said with a joking smile: "By what you said, the old man is really a little thirsty." As he spoke, he picked up the tea bowl and drank it all.

Next, it took a lot of time for Yi Dingjia to put all the maps together, and during this time, he explained some special terrain, and inevitably mentioned the storms in the desert, mirages and other strange phenomena again.

Turning his head to see that the oil lamp on the table had burned most of it, Yi Dingjia let out a sigh of relief, as if he had completed a difficult task. And everyone also breathed a sigh of relief, not because of fatigue, but deeply touched the vastness of the desert and the magic and strangeness inside.

After everyone breathed a sigh of relief, they turned their eyes back to the table, but the patched map was composed of seven small maps, and one was obviously missing at the top, which looked very incongruous and uncomfortable to look at.

Chu Qing spoke first: "Isn't this map incomplete, it seems that there is a piece missing." ”

Yi Dingjia forced his eyes to open tiredly, and sighed, "Yes, a picture is missing." ”

Chu Qing glanced at Feng Shuzhu and said, "What is missing, isn't it the most important?"

Yi Dingjia shook his head lightly and said, "What is missing is not the most important thing, but the specific location of the Heavenly Hell. ”

When Chu Qing heard this, his face was full of doubts: "What is missing is the Heavenly Hell? What is that place? That is the hinterland of the Western Regions Desert, isn't that the most important?"

Yi Dingjia glanced at Chu Qing, stretched out his five fingers, slapped it on the table, pressed his hand on one of the pictures, and said: "In the desert, if you can't find water, every place can kill people, so every picture on this table is about life, and it is just as important." ”

Chu Qing thought for a while, and then said, "Without the location of the Heavenly Hell, what is the use of wandering in the desert, no matter how abundant the water is?"