Desert Rhapsody - Chapter 38

Chapter 38

Jiang Yuan chased them all the way, and the farther she went, the more wrong it felt. As a merchant who spent years traveling, she had inevitably dealt with her fair share of bandits. Something about this was deeply suspicious. She just could not say what.

They caught up to a corpse. It had dried into the sand in a bloody, mangled mess, a dagger buried in its chest and its hands full of gold and silver. It was not the first dead body they had seen along the way, nor the first fortune they had picked up. Now, though, the sight looked even more ominous. Gold trailed along the half-buried footprints, winding away like grave goods left to mark a path. The old guide even began to tremble, not daring to look straight at it. He cursed, “Devil! Devil!” Shaking all over, he frantically threw out the gold he had secretly hidden away, as if it were burning coals in his hands. The pieces rolled into the sand. There was not a sound around them.

In the whole vast desert, it seemed there were only him and Jiang Yuan, and this trail of footprints they could never quite catch. That was absolutely not normal. The eeriness of it made even the old guide reluctant to keep going. He tried to persuade Jiang Yuan to turn back, and Jiang Yuan could only continue paying him. But silver ran out eventually. By the time they finally caught sight of a city, seeing the top of a yellow stone city far off on the horizon, his face had gone white.

“Ghost City…” he murmured. “Ghost City. The Devil’s followers! The Devil’s curse!”

Jiang Yuan looked back at him. He sat on the ground in despair, slapping his thighs and sobbing until tears and snot streamed down his face. “None of us can escape now!” His tears had nearly run dry. His graying hair stuck to his deeply creased skin with sweat and sand, making him look especially wretched and miserable.

Jiang Yuan asked him what Ghost City was. He said it was a cursed city from the depths of the desert, and no one could survive there. Anyone who went there was a follower of the Devil. Obviously, they had been following the Devil the whole way.

He spoke as he cried, his words full of regret as he cursed himself for being greedy enough to accept this job. From the look of him, he had given up and no longer kicked up a fuss about leaving as he had before. In any case, as long as he stopped causing trouble, that was a good thing. Jiang Yuan relaxed a little. She planned to go ahead and confirm the kidnappers’ trail, then let him remain where he was as agreed. Unexpectedly, when she woke, it was already noon the next day. Baked by the blazing sun and drenched in sweat, she opened her eyes and had no time to take in her surroundings. Her only thought was to lunge toward the camel and search for a waterskin as fast as she could.

Even with water, she could not drink too much. Her head felt as if it were splitting, and sparks burst before her eyes. She had been dehydrated by the sun. Drinking too fast would only make the heatstroke worse. There were still a few salt stones and some sugar in her pack. She put them in her mouth and slowly licked them, resisting the urge as she carefully sipped water. She was beneath a rock, and its shadow had not yet moved away. In the scorching shade, there was only an old camel sitting and chewing its cud. She swept her gaze around. There was nothing. The money pouch at her side was gone. The old guide had drugged her, stolen her money, and run.

Jiang Yuan pinched the bridge of her nose and swore.

That was as much anger as she had time for. Saving herself mattered more. The shade would vanish as the sun shifted, and she still needed water. She covered her head with a scarf and, sweating all over in the scalding sand, dragged the unwilling camel onward until she found the shade of a tree. Cutting into the trunk there yielded a little sap, and at night it could collect water too. Fortunately, she still had a bit of dry rations left, so Jiang Yuan did not die of hunger even without a fire. She just did not know what drug he had used. Without enough water, she could not flush it out of her system, and by the second day she was still somewhat dizzy and seeing spots.

She realized she could not go on like this. She needed to find the next water source, find food, and enter Ghost City as soon as possible. She barely managed to mount the camel, wrapped her headscarf around herself, and set off again unsteadily.

The eerie thing happened halfway there. Just as Jiang Yuan was about to step into Ghost City, she heard the sound of bells behind her. Black sand rose from the ground, swirling up to block her vision. She thought a sandstorm was coming and turned her head to look. What met her eyes was the calm lead camel emerging through the black sand, bringing with it the stiff old guide. His robe hung open, and his shriveled chest was drenched in blood. The dead man walked slowly past Jiang Yuan with his eyes open. Ding-a-ling, the bells rang, like a funeral procession.

The lead camel was the one that guided the rest. The camel beneath her immediately broke into a trot after it, and Jiang Yuan could not pull it back no matter how she tried.

She glanced at Abal. He was covered in blood, yet still had the leisure to raise an eyebrow at her, so aside from the whip wounds, he seemed to be all right for now. Calmly, she held the camel and stated once more, “I brought the ransom.”

One against ten, carrying money on her, and still hoping to redeem the hostage properly-what a fantasy. She was a woman. If she were captured, she would be better off killing herself first. Without showing a thing, she looked each of them over one by one, judging who would be easiest to deal with once a fight broke out and which direction she should run. In short, she had to find a way to free Abal first and increase their fighting strength.

The strange corpse bought them a little time. Every now and then, black sand rose from the ground and blurred everyone’s sight, while the corpse lay in the sand and the air opposite them seemed temporarily frozen by fear. Everyone’s face was pale, their expressions savage and twisted. They looked as if they wanted to destroy Jiang Yuan and leave no trace of her, but because the corpse lay between them, none dared move rashly.

Expressionless, Jiang Yuan watched Abal stand and retreat into the shadows. He lifted his bound hands and pointed her in a direction.

In the sand-laden wind, she could still hear someone’s teeth chattering. Clack, clack. As the sky darkened and night was about to fall, someone had already begun trembling and venting his fear in a low voice. The sound gradually rose, then was swept away by the sand, blurred and distorted. The dead man on the ground seemed to have become a stone, the blood on his chest gleaming. “Swine! Beast!” That was all she heard of the abuse. “…It’s over! We’re all finished!”

So sleepy. Going to bed.

Thank you to the little angels who voted Overlord Tickets or watered me with nutrient solution~

Thanks to the little angel who cast [Land Mine]: Tao Yuanming Only Loves Chrysanthemums, 2;

Thanks to the little angels who watered [Nutrient Solution]:

Thank you all so much for your support. I will keep working hard!