A Wandering Youth

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“Then they can find a way to make a living elsewhere; they don’t necessarily have to be bandits!” Shuiying retorted, unconvinced.

“Yes, for you.” Kurada looked at the bandits galloping away in the distance. “You have a higher education, so you won’t have trouble finding work anywhere. But they can’t even read. You see our camp? Do you know what that place used to be?”

"What was that place before?" I asked curiously.

"That used to be a small town on the edge of the desert. The townspeople desperately planted vegetation, trying to stop the desert from swallowing them up, but in the end, the town was still swallowed by the desert. Countless towns in the desert have been swallowed up like that. The last town swallowed by the desert was said to be twenty-five years ago. These bandits used to live in that town; they were just children then. After the town was swallowed by the desert, their relatives died, but they survived. So they begged for a living in other towns on the edge of the desert, but the people in those towns believed they had provoked the devil and refused to let them beg in their towns. They had no choice but to return to the desert. Some of the children died in the desert, and the remaining children became bandits, living there ever since."

Shuiying and I were stunned, unable to utter a single word.

VIII. The Ancient City Reappears

Shuiying and I were both sullen all night.

The bandits gathered rotten bones and withered sea buckthorn in the desert, lit a fire outside the domed stone house, and then sat around the fire drinking and singing.

Shuiying and I sat far from the fire, with our backs against the huge stone pillars under the stone house.

"Ziyue, look at the stars in the sky, they're so bright," Shuiying finally said after a long pause.

"Yes." I looked up at the night sky and suddenly saw a red shooting star streak across the sky. I was about to make a wish when the shooting star disappeared. It was the first time I had ever seen a red shooting star.

“Actually, that Kurada isn’t a bad person.” Shui Ying paused for a moment, then suddenly blurted out a seemingly random sentence.

"Right?" I said uncertainly, "I also think he's not a bad person." As I spoke, I suddenly turned to Shuiying and smiled, as if I had discovered something. "Tell me honestly, have you developed feelings for him?"

"Don't talk nonsense. I think Kurada has some ulterior motives towards you, hehe." Shui Ying said with a wicked smile.

"Tch, he just wants me to lead him to the ancient city." I sniffed.

"It's not just that, is it?" Shui Ying's mischievous smile faded. "My feeling was right. You have no idea how grim his face looked when the hurricane hit that afternoon and he realized you weren't on his camel. He immediately spurred his horse back to look for you. At that time, I was thinking, 'That's it, you two probably won't make it back.' Later, when the hurricane passed and we found you, you were being held tightly in his arms, and he was almost completely buried in sand."

My face turned red, but luckily it was nighttime and Shuiying couldn't see me, so she wouldn't laugh at me. I quickly changed the subject, "So how did you find it?"

"First we saw the horse. It wasn't dead yet; it was struggling under the sand. We saw the sand moving and the horse's tail sticking out, so we pulled the horse out. Then, while pulling the horse, we saw some clothes on the side, and that's how we found you."

"Luckily I didn't suffocate." I was stunned for a moment. Could it be that the suffocating feeling in my dream was a premonition that I would encounter this hurricane in the desert and be buried under the sand?

"Yes, Kurada is a very clever man. He used the gap between the horse and your bodies, and then covered the gap with his clothes to prevent the sand from getting in, thus leaving you room to breathe. I really don't know how he could think of such a thing at that time. If it were me, I would have been scared out of my wits."

“I was terrified too.” I chuckled. “But thank goodness you found us in time, otherwise we might have suffocated too. I woke up once while I was under the sand, but it was too suffocating, so I passed out again. I think that’s when the air in that gap ran out.”

"Ah!" Shuiying exclaimed, "Ziyue, you always have a suffocating feeling in your dreams, could it be because of this?"

"I don't know, but I hope so. I don't want to experience that suffocating feeling again; it's really awful." Shuiying and I were actually thinking the same thing.

The beetle in the crystal box was completely still and quiet. I didn't know if this feeling was good or worse.

The fire outside the stone house gradually went out.

Shuiying and I crawled into our sleeping bags, while the bandits also found a spot in the stone house, wrapped themselves in the blankets they had brought, and went to sleep.

Kurada slept not far from Shuiying and me, separating us from the bandits. I dreamt again of riding a white horse at full gallop, until finally the horse stopped at the edge of a cliff, below which lay an endless sea, and behind me, people were closing in.

"No! I don't want to be caught! I'd rather die!" The thought of death arose in my mind, so I spurred the horse hard, and it jumped off the cliff.

The wind whistled past my ears as I plummeted and plummeted through the air...

My legs jerked violently, waking me from a nightmare. It was pitch black all around; I knew I was sleeping in the desert.

I was awake, but why could I still hear the whooshing sound of the wind in my ears as I fell? Was the wind blowing in the desert? I wondered, but soon I fell back into a deep dream.

This time I was already in the sea, and the white horse was swimming in the water. I was still holding tightly to its neck.

"You can actually swim?!" I was both surprised and delighted, and gently rubbed my face against its neck.

Dozens of horses were stopped on the cliff behind them, and the riders watched helplessly as the white horses swam away into the sea. Suddenly, someone took the lead and started chasing along the coast.

"Oh my god!" I was awakened by a scream.

The white horse and the vast sea receded, and I returned to the endless desert of reality.

I opened my sleeping bag and crawled out. I saw Shuiying, Kurada, and the bandits standing by the stone house, as if they were watching something.

"What's wrong?" I asked, rubbing my eyes sleepily.

"Ziyue! Come and see!" Shuiying waved to me.

I walked over to Shuiying and looked outside; I was stunned.

An ancient city appeared outside the stone house!

This ancient city is exactly the same as the one in my dream, with stone houses and streets. It turns out that the stone pavilion where we rested last night is the tallest building in this ancient city, which emerged from the sand during yesterday afternoon's hurricane.

The city wasn't very big, and the sand around it was higher than the city itself, but for some reason, the sand didn't flow into the city.

Our horses and camels were on the sand outside the city; I could see them from afar, and they hadn't run away.

But what I find strange is that the sand in the city disappeared last night, revealing the ancient city.

"The Cursed City!" one of the bandits murmured. "This is the legendary Cursed City. Now that it has appeared, will its curse come true?"

"I don't know. Legend has it that anyone who sees the Cursed City will die or disappear."

"Actually, not necessarily. I saw it appear twenty-five years ago when I was just a few years old. My father was transporting goods with me, and I saw it from afar. But I remember that the city wasn't located here at the time, was it?"

"In any case, since it has reappeared so mysteriously, we should go down and take a look." Kurada smiled. "Don't worry, everyone. Legends aren't necessarily false, but they're not necessarily true either. Let's eat some dry rations quickly; we're going down to investigate."

"I understand," I murmured to myself. So this was the building in the ancient city of my dreams that I thought was a church. "Snap." "Snap."

The street was as long and winding as in my dream, paved with huge stones. Every step I took made my footsteps sound particularly loud, with hollow echoes.

The streets were clean, without any sand. This was the main street of the city, and it was very wide. I knew that this street led to that palace-like complex.

Many houses along the street had their doors half-closed.

I walked towards a house that looked rather large and pushed open the door. Inside, there was a table made of stone slabs, with stone bowls and plates on it. They didn't look clumsy at all; instead, they gave me a sense of antiquity.

When I looked into the bowls and plates, I was startled. They were filled with food, and it seemed as if the food was still steaming, as if the host had prepared a hot meal and was waiting for the guests to enjoy it.

I felt a chill all over my body.

This is an ancient city that has been buried under the sand for countless years. The city is deserted, but the streets are spotless, and there is still warm food in the houses along the street. What a strange place this is.

I wanted to leave, but suddenly I noticed that there was another door on the other side of the room, which probably led inside. There was half a human head sticking out of the doorway.

Could it be that someone still lives here?

I cautiously walked over and peeked into the doorway.

"Ah!" I screamed in terror, the sound as shrill as could be.

"What's wrong?" Kurada appeared behind me without my noticing, his hands on my shoulders. I trembled and pointed to the door.

"Oh!" Kurada was clearly startled as well.

Several corpses lay or sat inside the doorway, adults and children alike, but they were all mummies. The sand had evaporated their moisture, causing the muscles to clung tightly to the bones, the flesh on their bellies to sink deeply, and their eyes to sag as well. Their heads resembled skulls coated with a thin layer of wax, their mouths gaping open, their teeth bared. These mummies were almost all in the same position, their hands tightly gripping their own necks.

How did these people die? How did they all end up dying together in this ancient city?

As I slowly recovered from my shock, I couldn't help but wonder.

Suddenly, the mummies inside the door grinned at me, and I heard that voice again—I couldn't tell if it was tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people—saying, "You're finally back! Ali Duodona!"

"Ah!" I screamed again, turned around and ran out of the house.

The streets remained eerily silent.

Strangely, the bandits who were with me and Kurada just now have disappeared.

After coming down from that domed tower-like building, I had a strong sense of unease. So I suggested that we split everyone into two groups: one group with me to explore towards the city center, and the other group with Shuiying to explore towards the city gate. Then we would leave through the city gate, keeping the horses and camels outside the city under control to prevent them from running away and leaving us unable to return.

The purpose of doing this is actually for their safety.

Kurada insisted on walking with me towards the city center.

The street remained silent. Kurada ran out behind me. Now there was no one else on the street except for Kurada and me.

Where did Kurada's men go? I started to feel uneasy.

The beetle in the crystal box remained motionless, as if it were dead. I took the crystal box down and saw that the beetle with yellow rutile crystals inside had lost the luster and vitality I had seen when I first met it; it had become a lifeless object, and even the yellow rutile crystals inside had a faint grayish hue.

I handed the crystal box to Kurada: "Here, wear this around your neck. If anything happens, get out of there quickly, and remember, don't worry about me!"

"What's wrong? Do you sense that something is going to happen?" Kurada asked anxiously as he took the crystal box.

"No, I can't feel anything."

"Huh, where did they go?" Kurada only then noticed something was wrong; his men were gone.

"I don't know, let's look for it." We continued walking. Suddenly, I saw a drop of blood on the street.

The street was so clean that this tiny drop of blood stood out so much. I crouched down and touched it; the blood wasn't dry yet, and it even felt a little warm. There was another drop of blood near the half-open door next to the street.

My heart sank.

"Something happened to them." Kurada's face also darkened.

Kurada and I carefully approached the door. Through the half-open door, we could only see a corner of a stone table and a stone bench; nothing else.

Kurada cautiously reached out and pushed the door open.

The doors here are all made of thin stone slabs, and when they turn in the grooves below, they make a creaking sound, which seems particularly out of place in this desolate city.

"God!" Kurada exclaimed, "Rufuri!"

A man knelt beside the stone table in the room, his back to us. It was the bandit Rufuri. He was barely keeping from collapsing by leaning against the stone table, but he appeared to be dead. A pool of blood lay on the stone floor, and small drops of blood trickled down, dissolving into the pool.

A person sat at the front of the stone table—no, to be precise, a mummified corpse.

Kurada and I went inside to see if Rufuri could still be saved. But to our horror, we discovered a knife stuck in Rufuri's chest, and the hilt of that knife was being held in the hand of a mummified corpse!

This scene was extremely bizarre.

I felt nauseous, my legs were weak, and I didn't have the strength to take a single step.

Kurada reached under Luffy's nose and tested it, sighed softly, then reached to pull the knife out of Luffy's chest.

"No!" I screamed.

"What's wrong, Ziyue?" Kurada withdrew his hand and looked at me strangely.

"Don't mess with it!" I pointed directly at the mummified corpse. I could almost see it grinning, and I could almost hear it saying to me in a gentle voice, "You're finally back, Aridonna!"

"Do you believe that Rufuri was killed by this mummified corpse?" Kurada looked at me, his brows slightly furrowed.

I shook my head. "I don't know, but when I see them they smile and say to me, 'You're finally back, Aridonna!'"

“Don’t be afraid, Ziyue, believe me, Luffy wasn’t killed by this mummified corpse. There must be a murderer in this city!” Kurada said, reaching out to pull the knife out of Luffy’s chest.