No matter how much Shiyangtou is playing here, the sun should go west or west.

From Shiyangtou to the west, along the most important Hexi corridor of the Silk Road, out of Dunhuang County, the Yumen Pass outside the direct trade route to the Western Regions, here into the White Dragon Pile.

It is said that it is the white dragon pile, but there is no water lake here that these dragon species love. On the contrary, the sand is fine and crushed except for the dry and hot wind, and the footprints left by the caravans driving the camels disappear in a blink of an eye, and the scorching sunlight will make the eyes of the people turn white, and everything looks white and miserable.

Occasionally, these merchants would find signs on the side of the road to guide their way—white bones half-buried in the yellow sand. It was either a camel that died on the side of the road, or an unlucky ghost who died in a sandstorm, in addition to the hard skull that resisted the wind and sand, those slender ribs and leg bones did not know what had become of them.

Even if you are lucky enough to cross the desert outside the White Dragon Pile and enter the center of the White Dragon Pile, it is no better than in the desert. It is full of ridges and veins, like dragons sleeping in the desert, hundreds, thousands, squinting at visitors.

There are occasional horse thieves in Bailongdui, but more often than not, it is a paradise of lost souls and demons in the sand. Upon entering the place, young merchants have to hold their swords in their hands, beware of not only cruel horse thieves, but also rocks that suddenly open their mouths, reptiles that pop out of the shadows, the white light and shadow under the moon at night, and the dried corpses that suddenly crawl out of the dark caves.

Although the name of Bailongdui was set when the Marquis of Bowang carved out the Western Regions, the merchants who spoke Tocharian or Persian preferred to call such a sinister ghost place the Devil's City.

Walking in such a place, even the most determined naïve materialist will become a devout believer. Whether it is the charm of the Zhuguan of the Central Plains with a star map, or the exquisite scripture box of Zoroastrianism, or a small bronze Buddha, it has become an indispensable treasure for merchants.

Zoroastrianism, a religion that had enjoyed centuries of glory in the Empire of Sabbath, began as an empire of Sabbath, expanded westward toward the Mediterranean, and engaged in a war of conversion against the nomadic tribes of Nabataean and Himyar (ancient Arabs).

It may be an exaggeration to say that the war is being held, but the Zoroastrian Order, which has enjoyed the honorable position of the state religion of the Empire of Sabbath for hundreds of years, suddenly burst into great enthusiasm to convey the commandments of Ahura to all nations. In the West, they used scimitars to teach herdsmen who believed in the gods to choose between the gods and the head something more valuable. Where the Persians' scimitars could not reach, they began to proclaim the benefits of their teachings to the governors and taishou of the Roman and Han empires, seemingly humbly.

Of course, humility was only temporary, and where the Sabbatical Empire could control, the only thing that awaited the pagans, Jew, Romans, or whatever, whether they were Jehovahs or Jupiters, was organized plundering under the leadership of Zoroastrian priests. The looting of infidels and the sale of infidels as slaves had become the most popular business in the Sabbath Empire, a shift that terrified even Zoroastrians elsewhere.

In principle, Zoroastrianism has a vast number of sacred texts, commandments left by the sage Zarathustra, numerous rituals of praise, and taboos that can be described for three days and three nights. Only the most knowledgeable priests, who had received a rigorous education from an early age, could grasp these points. But at these times, the self-proclaimed "Wahbiyah" scribes replaced the work of the old priests, and a great deal of the prayers were canceled and replaced with five kinds of work that every believer had to complete. The gods of Ahuramazda are not mentioned much by the scribes, and for many elderly Zoroastrians, what they see is only one thing that still bears the Zoroastrian sign, something else.

For example, at this moment, the caravan leader Gilba, who led his camel caravan into the corner of the White Dragon Pile, as a traditional resting merchant, although he also carried a revised and deleted new version of the scripture box, he was not a believer in the new Zoroastrian sect. But it has to be said that the new version of the prayer is much more concise than the old version, and there are not many ceremonies in life that need to be presided over by priests, and as a die-hard old Zoroastrist, Gilba reluctantly accepted these sudden religious reforms.

After the merchants with their gang and companions had disposed of the makeshift camp, Gilba took out a best felt blanket, carefully spread it on the ground, and began to pray facing the slowly setting sun in the direction of rest.

This year, the climate in Han is getting drier and colder, so take advantage of the turn of summer and autumn to hurry up and walk towards rest. If we don't hurry up, it will be winter, and the water source of the rivers on the Gobi Desert will disappear without a trace, and without water, the caravan will not be able to complete the long journey!

While he was praying earnestly, the light around Gilba suddenly dimmed, and a gang behind him exclaimed: "Chief, look at the dark cloud above us!"

Gilba looked up and saw that there was a dark cloud like a mountain in the originally empty sky, wriggling in the sky like an indescribable monster. The dark shadows cast by the dark clouds, no more, no less, just obscured the area that the caravan saw in front of them. However, the dark cloud was quickly cut open, as if an invisible giant between heaven and earth was kneading the black dough with the canopy as a cutting board.

Under the kneading of this invisible hand, the dark clouds dispersed into hundreds, like cake embryos spread on the cutting board. It's just that these wriggling and writhing jet-black cake embryos did not obey the invisible hand at all, and rolled even more violently, and there was faint thunder and blue fire flowing out of the clouds!

The battle between light and darkness over the white dragon pile seemed so obvious and so tragic. And in the alternation of light and darkness, this caravan seemed so small.

Gilba has led many caravans, seen the ghosts in the desert dancing in the moonlight in the middle of the night, and seen the dead in the abandoned castle leaning against the broken wall to reminisce about the passing years, but he has never seen such a terrifying celestial phenomenon!

He pressed the hood on his head and shouted with all his strength: "Get down for me! Hold the camel's neck tightly, protect your head, and don't look up! Pray to the god you believe in, this is the only thing we can do!"

......

.........

Gilba fell to the ground, his eyes tightly closed, and there was a cacophony of sounds in his ears—the roar of thunder, the angry howls of various animals, the noise of the wind whisking flags, the crackling of burning wood, the crackling of raindrops against the leaves of plants, the clanging of stones and metal, the creaking of the long-dry ground......

A lot of voices shouldn't have appeared in Bailongdui, at this point in time!

Although lying on the ground, his arms protecting his head and face, his ears were not less tossed by the wind and noise, and at first Gilba could still keep a little awake, but after he fell, even he, an old merchant who had taken the old trade road, began to be dizzy. Before he fainted completely, there was only one thought left in his heart: Ahura Mazda, bless me to rest safely, and for the rest of my life I will honestly sacrifice and pray and recite sutras, and my youngest son will send him to the Order to be a priest, and I will not go far in the future!

I don't know how long I was dazed, but the wind gradually stopped, and all kinds of strange noises went away. Gradually, the air was not the kind of dryness that was unique to the Bailongdui place, and it made people sweat out before they could get wet and their clothes were steamed and dried first.

On the contrary, the place where it comes into contact with the skin is a refreshing and cool moisturizing, and the air that pours in the nasal cavity carries a fresh fragrance of plants and trees.

At first, Gilba thought that his nose was blocked by sand and his breath was not breathing, so he shook his head vigorously, lifted his head slightly, looked around, and then couldn't help moaning: "Lord, I believe in you innocently, and my soul bears your mark. If I were dead, I should be hovering by my corpse, waiting for the pull of Faravaha and the Patronus to come to that bridge of judgment...... And where is this?"

According to Zoroastrian teachings, the soul of the deceased remains with the corpse for three days after death, and then is guided by the patron spirit to the underworld, passing through the bridge of judgment, passing through the heavens of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, and finally ascending to the kingdom of Ahuramazda. But what Gilba saw before him had nothing to do with the afterlife.

He was landing on top of a meadow, surrounded by green grass that was not deeper than his feet, and butterflies, purple, and pink wildflowers intertwined on the meadow, stretching to the bottom of the snowy peaks in the distance. On either side of the meadow were low ridges, spruce and cedar, growing so lush that Gilba could not believe that not long ago he had fallen under the ravines of the White Dragon Pile and prayed to Ahura Mazda for his unknown future!

But what is this place?

Just when he lowered his head in some confusion and looked at his hands, his neck suddenly cooled, and his eyes immediately raised a little, only to look at his headless body standing in place!

The last voice he heard in the world was a crow-like voice: "Twenty-eighth, so that the blood and food of our team is settled-brothers, the rest of the raw mouth is let those unlucky ghosts of the White Sheep River Mansion search for it, their lord has committed an accident, and the bad luck has only been in the past two days, and we don't need to get this bad luck." Let's go, go back to the camp to meet our new boss, Jiang Taigong, who has become the master of Heishui River!"