Das Leben der Landbevölkerung in der Stadt während der Song-Dynastie

Kapitel 50

Actually, if I hadn't had any ulterior motives, I think this trip would have been quite enjoyable for me. After all, I don't often have the opportunity to come to a country like this, especially to a small town like this. The exotic customs and atmosphere were enough to satisfy someone as curious as me.

As Shuiying had predicted, we didn't find much more information. Some records only mentioned when and who saw the ancient city in the desert, and what happened to those people afterward. Even the people who claimed to have seen the ancient city couldn't pinpoint its exact location. Some said it was in the middle of the desert, some said it was on the south or north side, and others said it was just a few miles from the town—their accounts varied wildly.

Shuiying and I went to a camel rental place on the outskirts of town and found two young men to be our guides. We agreed on a price and set a departure date for the day after tomorrow.

With the remaining day in the town, Shuiying and I needed to rest well and prepare ourselves.

While I was in the hotel, Shuiying carefully inspected the gun and taught me how to use it. Of course, I couldn't go to the shooting range to practice on the spot, so I could only pray to all the gods and spirits to bless me so that I would dare to fire the gun and, ideally, hit it on the first try.

In the afternoon, Shuiying and I went to find Sasha because we needed to leave some things with her.

Sasha happily told us that a caravan had just arrived in town and she had already told them to take us into the desert.

"That's great!" Shuiying patted Sasha's shoulder lightly.

"You don't need to worry about storing your things. Just leave them in that room. I'll keep the room for you. Business isn't great right now, so there's always room available."

"That would be too much trouble for you."

“It’s alright, just be careful. I think you know the legend of that ancient city, which we call ‘Cursed City’ here.” Sasha said, putting her arms around Shuiying and me. “Actually, I really admire your courage. Many men don’t have that kind of guts.”

Suddenly I noticed that Sasha's hand, which was around Shuiying's shoulder, had a silver ring on its index finger. That ring was exactly the same as the one worn by the man who bumped into me in the third-floor corridor!

Is this kind of ring a popular accessory in this small town? Or, what is Sasha's relationship with that man?

V. Encountering Robbers

At the agreed time the next day, our guide arrived at the hotel entrance on time with several camels.

Sasha led us to the caravan that had also set off to cross the desert that day, and introduced us to the caravan leader, a middle-aged man named Mo and Zola.

So we, along with two guides and a caravan of more than a dozen people, set off towards the desert.

Our two guides walked ahead with the caravan's guides, while Shuiying and I were placed in the middle of the caravan.

As I entered the desert, I suddenly felt the beetle in the crystal box I was wearing around my neck become restless, as if it was desperately trying to escape from the crystal box.

I took the crystal box down, opened the small box, and in the sunlight, the beetle's body emitted a yellow light. Its claws were frantically flailing. I stared blankly at this strange sight.

"When you feel the little insects in the box are restless, it means you are in danger." I remembered what the woman in black who gave me this necklace said that night.

Is it dangerous for me to enter the desert? What kind of danger awaits me?

The intense desert sun made me feel thirsty and dizzy from time to time. I think it might be because I don't exercise much. Luckily, I was riding a camel, otherwise, I think I would have fainted in the desert long ago.

I was sweating, the sweat crawling down my back like worms, but it evaporated quickly. It was unbearably itchy, but I was too embarrassed to scratch it.

Traveling in the vast desert is torture for an overly active person like me. All I see is yellow sand, nothing else. The sky is blue enough, but at this moment it feels blinding.

Shuiying also seemed listless; I saw her almost fall asleep on the camel.

At noon, the caravan stopped to rest and eat dry rations. Shuiying and I sat in the shadow of the camels to avoid the strong sunlight.

"Do you think we're on the right route with the caravan? I mean, do you feel that the ancient city is in the direction we're headed?" Shuiying asked me.

"I was so sunburnt that I couldn't feel anything."

"Oh my god!" Shui Ying slapped her forehead. "If you don't have any sense of it and don't know the location, how are we supposed to find the ancient city?"

"I don't know. Maybe it will summon me at the right time, or appear in front of me." I was also a little confused. "At worst, we can just follow the caravan across the desert and treat it as a life experience."

"I'm really fed up with you!" Shui Ying rolled her eyes, giving her an expression that said, "I can't do anything with you."

Lunchtime is when I'm most sleepy, but Mur and Zorah urged everyone to hurry on their way.

Well, I had no choice but to sit on the camel's back again and enjoy the desert sunbathing.

The camel swayed gently, which had a more hypnotic effect. I started to doze off on the camel's back, and my body slowly leaned towards the hump. If the sun hadn't been so strong, it would have been quite comfortable.

"Welcome back! Ali Duodona! Welcome back! Ali Duodona!" In a semi-dazed state, I suddenly heard those voices again, I couldn't tell if it was tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even just a few hundred people. Then I seemed to fall asleep, and in my dream, I saw that ancient city again, its streets filled with people. Everyone's face was blurry, like a stage backdrop, these people like negligible props. But walking in front of me was a person completely different from the people on the street. He was clear, so clear that it made me a little afraid. He was a hunched-over person, wearing a black short robe that looked like a sack with a cut-out opening, and on his head was a very tall metal hat, domed, with two wings on either side like bull horns, the whole hat decorated with all sorts of gems. As the man walked, he suddenly turned around and grinned at me. I was startled. His face was like a mummy's, with deep-set eyes and a toothless mouth, like a giant black hole. He said to me, "Welcome back, Ari Dordona!" "Bang!" I was suddenly awakened from my dream by a gunshot.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a dozen or so people riding horses galloping towards me not far ahead, with the man in the lead holding a gun high in his right hand.

The caravan was somewhat agitated.

Before I could even process what was happening, I rubbed my eyes. Shuiying caught up with me from behind and whispered, "We're doomed, we've run into robbers."

"What did you say?" I turned around and asked her in surprise.

Shuiying raised her right index finger, gesturing for me to be quiet.

"Oh my god, it's like something out of a movie, how could something like this happen to me?" I muttered to myself.

A dozen or so horses quickly formed a semi-encirclement, blocking the caravan. I noticed that the caravan members' right hands were hanging down, resting on something resembling a bag hanging in front of the camels' necks.

"Everyone in this caravan has a gun. If a fight breaks out later, remember to lie down," Shuiying said to me in a very low voice. I felt like she was a female bandit at that moment, while I felt nothing but dizziness.

The man at the very front rode up to the caravan; he was clearly the leader of the bandits. The dozen or so men surrounding the caravan all had guns pointed at them, but it was clear that most of the guns were aimed at Mur and Zorah.

"There's a woman." I heard someone in the bandit group say excitedly in the local language, and I had a bad feeling.

"Leave all the goods and women; the rest of you may leave," the bandit leader said to Mer and Zorah, then waved his gun.

“Wait a minute,” Mer and Zora said calmly. “Look back, what’s that over there?”

The bandit leader turned around with some confusion, and I followed the direction that Mo and Zorah had indicated, only to see a rolling cloud of yellow sand swirling toward us from afar.

The yellow sand rushed over quickly, and it turned out to be a group of people on horseback. From a distance, it was clear that each of them was carrying a gun.

"What's going on?" I asked Shuiying, somewhat puzzled.

"I don't know. Judging from the man leading the group, are they here to rescue us? Did the caravan hire bodyguards?" Shuiying looked at Mo and Suola with confusion.

"Boss, what do we do?" the dozen or so bandits cried out.

"Damn it, it looks like Black Camel and his gang." The bandit leader scratched the back of his neck with his gun.

"So... we're just going to give it to them like this?" asked one of the bandits next to the bandit leader.

“We found it first, so the black camel should at least share with us,” the robber said evasively. “The black camel has never tried to steal our goods before.”

Oh no, it turns out a group of even more powerful bandits have arrived. Shuiying and I looked at each other in fear.

The group quickly arrived, surrounding the first group of bandits and the caravan. It was clearly a larger bandit gang, at least forty or fifty people.

The sand kicked up by the horse's hooves choked me, and I couldn't help but cough carelessly, completely ignoring Shuiying's gaze.

Apart from my carefree coughing, there was complete silence around me.

"You can leave now," one of the second group of bandits said, addressing the leader of the first group.

"We were the first to discover it," the leader of the first group of bandits said, clearly lacking confidence.

"Hahahaha..." Someone in the second group of bandits laughed, and then all the bandits in the second group laughed. "Do you think you have the right to negotiate?" another member of the second group of bandits retorted.

"..." The first group of bandit leaders were speechless, but could only grit their teeth and say, "Fine, fine! Let's go!"

The first group of bandits turned their horses around. The bandit leader gave everyone present a fierce look, then led his men away. Soon, the bandits disappeared from sight.

One of the second group of bandits stepped out. He rode his horse around the caravan once, then stopped in front of Shuiying and me. Looking at him, I almost cried out! He was the man who had mocked me when we asked for directions in town, the same man who had almost knocked me over later in the third-floor corridor of the inn.

"Leave these two women and their belongings; the rest of you may leave." The man waved his hand.

Mer and Sora bowed to the man with their right hands raised over their left shoulders, then ordered the caravan to abandon us and continue on their way. Our two guides hesitated for a moment, then mounted their camels and galloped off in the direction we were heading back. I was stunned; it was the first time I'd ever seen camels run so fast.

Shuiying and I exchanged a glance, not understanding why the robbers wanted to take two of us women. Did they not have any wives and wanted to take two wives back with them?

I glared at the man angrily, but he still smiled nonchalantly.

I really wanted to pull out the gun Shuiying had prepared for me and shoot him in the face, blow his head off, and see how he'd still laugh then! But Shuiying kept signaling to me with her eyes not to be impulsive. Sigh, well, it seems my years of chastity are in jeopardy.

The man rode up to another man, said something, and then that man led a group of bandits away.

The remaining bandits, led by that despicable man, dragged Shuiying and me in another direction. The bandits on horseback surrounded Shuiying and me, and the ropes of our camels were tied to the back of another horse.

"Shuiying." I called Shuiying softly in our native Chinese. Shuiying turned to look at me. "That man is the one who bumped into me in the hotel corridor the night we arrived."

"You mean that leader?" Shuiying looked at me strangely.

“Yes.” I nodded. “I suspect that he tampered with our things.”

"But why would he do that? We don't seem to have anything valuable," Shuiying asked me, puzzled.

“I haven’t figured it out either. There’s something else I haven’t told you yet.” I pondered for a moment and decided to tell Shuiying what I had discovered. “Look at this man. He’s wearing a silver ring on the index finger of his left hand. It’s a very peculiar silver skull design. I noticed the other day that Sasha was also wearing the exact same ring on the index finger of her left hand.”

"Really?" Shuiying looked at me. "I just remembered that Sasha was wearing a ring, but I didn't pay attention to what style it was, nor did I notice that the man also had one."

"Seriously, I don't know if it's a fashion accessory or some kind of symbol. But if it's a fashion accessory, isn't it a bit childish for a robber and a hotel owner to both be wearing it?"

After I spoke, Shuiying also began to ponder.

"What are you two ladies talking about? Why don't you do as the Romans do and speak in our language?" The man had appeared beside Shuiying and me from somewhere, smiling as he looked at Shuiying.

"That's none of your business." I said that in English.

"Ha, you've got some nerve. Don't you know we're ruthless bandits? How dare you talk to me like that?" The man was still speaking the local language, but he clearly understood English. Strange, how could a bandit understand English? I was suspicious, but I couldn't find a reason why a bandit would never learn English, a language that's practically universal.

"You worthless scoundrel!" Shui Ying cursed disdainfully.

"What did she say?" the man turned to me, puzzled.

“She said you’re a ‘boring scoundrel’,” I explained to him in English with a laugh, and then ignored him.

"Oh!" The man made an exaggerated expression.

Shuiying and I turned our heads away, ignoring the bandit leader.

"Alright, alright, let's not be sullen. Now that we know each other, we can be friends, right? My name is Kurada, what's yours?" After a while, the man couldn't help but put on a reconciliation expression.

"Can a cat and a mouse be friends?" Shuiying said dismissively.

"Hey! He's the old cat and we're the mice?" I said to Shui Ying with a look of disdain.

“That’s true. So, can we say that a weasel and a chicken be friends?” Shui Ying said again.

"Hey hey hey! You're the chicken!" I yelled. The man looked at me with a puzzled expression as I argued with Shuiying.

"Then tell me, tell me how to make a good analogy?" Shui Ying retorted, unconvinced.

"You have to say that wolves and lambs can be friends, right? He's a wolf, and we're kind lambs!" I rolled my eyes and finally came up with a good analogy.

"Alright, alright, he's the wolf, and you're the lamb, okay?" Shuiying looked disdainful of continuing the argument with me.

"Then what are you? Aren't you a sheep?" I retorted.

"I am a shepherd!"

"Pah!" Shuiying burst out laughing.