Desert Rhapsody - Chapter 47

Chapter 47

And just like that, the priestess who had let greed make her gullible lost her life. As for the people left alive, even with her possessions in hand, they still had a great deal of work to do. Changing clothes was no easy matter, and taking up her scepter to impersonate her was harder still. In the limited time they had, they needed to dress Jiang Yuan up in enough splendor and majesty to make others wary of approaching her. No matter how one looked at it, that was a difficult task. Night was about to fall. Footsteps and shouted orders echoed through the temple from every direction. Even if the Divine Envoy had fled, the priests were probably more inclined to believe she had returned to the heavens, to the side of the god. They still followed custom, lining up to go bathe and purify themselves in the lake beside the temple.

By the light of the setting sun, Jiang Yuan put on the dress with Abal’s help and donned the jewelry. Much of her body was now covered from view, so they had no choice but to conceal any suspicious areas with gold-mixed pigment. Fortunately, the priestess’s attire was ornate enough. Necklaces, bracelets, armlets, rings, a crown-her body was laden with adornments. All that gold was heavy enough to crush a person, but it also effectively concealed a great deal of skin, letting it gleam in the dim firelight of night without making anyone wonder what kind of monster or ghost was hiding beneath. According to Abal, he had hidden donkeys, food, and water behind the temple. As long as they could make it out of Thebes, the rest would depend mostly on Jiang Yuan’s own efforts. After all, if he himself could remain unseen, then the plan was already half a success.

Although he was invisible, Jiang Yuan was surprised to find how familiar she was with him. Perhaps it was precisely because she could not see him that the feeling stood out so sharply. Just from the sound of his voice and the faint stir of air he raised, she could sense his movements and his position. Their coordination was almost too smooth. Even the air seemed to let out a laugh. The moment he opened his mouth, Jiang Yuan knew he was about to say something wicked. Unwilling to let him speak, she cut him off first with another topic.

“You managed to prepare all this in three days?” She still had to admire Abal. His mind was clear enough that the instant he escaped, he had already thought of a way out. This place looked inconspicuous, but it was perfect for hiding. Clothes, food, makeup, and ornaments were all ready. There was no way it had been thrown together in a hurry. Abal, however, did not seem to think much of it. His voice was calm. “An old habit of mine, I suppose.”

Jiang Yuan could not hope to match that seasoned shrewdness. For a bandit chief, scouting escape routes had practically become instinct. Even without deliberately paying attention, he had immediately found a fallback path, and had even identified the people who could be used to break through weak points. Jiang Yuan lifted her chin, feeling his breath and the heat of his fingers press against her face as he dabbed pigment at the corners of her eyes. When his hand drew away, she could see a wisp of color briefly appear in the air before vanishing again. Now, even when Abal wore clothes and became stained with dust and powder, those things vanished along with him. He noticed it too. When he picked up a knife and some gems, they also faintly disappeared.

He smiled, his tone carrying a trace of arrogance. From the moment they had met again until now, this was the first time he had so lightly brushed over the years they had spent apart. It was as if they were still outside the port of Fustat, in the bright morning breeze by the docks, and he was leaning down from his horse, narrowing the blue eyes behind his veiling scarf as he drew close to her cheek.

“If you ask me, there is very little difference between being a governor and being a bandit.”

If anyone asked Jiang Yuan, she would say they had in fact not seen each other for several years before this, and even counting those few days of fleeting intimacy, they could hardly be called acquaintances. She did not respond to that, and Abal said no more. He placed the wig on her head, adjusted it properly, then took a step back to examine her. Her hair and eyebrows had both been shaved clean now. Priests of Egypt revered cleanliness; those who served the gods were meant to be pure and spotless from head to toe, without a single strand of body hair. Jiang Yuan found it somewhat strange that this man had managed to draw her brows and paint her face without laughing. In any case, she had no bronze mirror and could not see what she looked like. She asked, “How is it?”

“Like this, you are at least passable.” Before Jiang Yuan could react, a hot breath in the air leaned close once more. “Passable enough to kiss.”

Jiang Yuan answered him with a kick. He dodged aside with a laugh and said regretfully, “Every time I see you, your heart grows harder than iron.” She shot back, “Every time I see you, you grow more childish and more troublesome.” When they had first met beside Moonlight and those gems, he had merely been a bandit, and she had merely been a captive. The turns of fate were truly impossible to predict. Silence settled between them for a while before Abal said, “Perhaps this is the last time we will meet.” The setting sun was about to sink below the horizon. Outside the window, looking down the slope, all of Thebes was beginning to glow.

The celebration continued. The people still reveled. Abal had only five days, and she likely had not much more. The distant city gates were only the beginning of their flight-or the end in death.
He couldn’t even see her, and he still talked about meeting. Jiang Yuan sighed. “I truly regret accepting your wife’s letter and crossing the desert to save you.”

A laugh sounded from the empty air. “I only regret that night, when I gave you the knife and the meat and let you leave.” He called to her, “My dear Jia Nan.” Even though he knew her real name now, he still called her Jia Nan. The Abal Emir who had let her escape alone that night seemed almost like a dream. Perhaps he had once acted on instinct, only to wake again now. He was, of course, a bandit down to his bones. From the day they met, whatever he wanted, he took. A faint breeze brushed through the air, and a kiss landed on Jiang Yuan’s lips, leisurely and brief, just like the one they had shared when they parted.

She did not move, only because she was afraid he would smudge her makeup. He did not move either, afraid he would smudge it himself.

Even staring at empty air, Jiang Yuan could imagine those blue eyes. Even narrowed with a smile, they could not hide the cold, cunning cruelty beneath, that wolf-like gaze. They both understood that. More than that, in fact. They had once truly wanted to draw a clean line between them. Abal had gone far away to Bakum, and Jiang Yuan had headed north to Alexandria, yet in the end, they had still come together. But even if they could tumble into bed together or entrust each other with their lives, only under the pressure of death would they be willing to reveal even half a sentence of their true feelings-and even then, it had to be wrapped in verbal sparring.

How strange. They were both rational to the extreme, people who should never have ended up on the same path, and yet they had crossed two thousand years of time for their fates to intersect like this.

“Everything I want to say, you understand. Are all educated women like this, or only women from the future?” he said softly. “No. Even in the future, there must only be one of you. And a woman, at that. Then I should thank and sincerely cherish this gift Heaven has granted me.”

He lowered his head again and bit her lip. So yes, even if he died, he would drag her down with him.

Affection from a man like this was truly something she would rather decline.

When Jiang Yuan walked through the reveling crowds of Thebes draped in cloth, she felt a genuine pang of regret. She could not stay and experience such a magnificent spectacle. Instead, she had to move against the flow of people and make her way outward. Abal had hired two men to watch the donkey, so now they could lead it along behind her. She did not need to speak to them. She only had to show her face. The jewels and cobra on her wig glittered brightly. No one dared look up at her, and no one would suspect she was a Divine Envoy in hiding. She was able to proceed toward the city gates without obstruction.

The invisible man walked beside her, guiding the way, so her steps did not falter. After crossing several streets and leaving the temple district, she was able to mount the donkey instead. Though her limbs ached fiercely, her expression remained calm and her behavior normal. Everyone who saw her along the road stepped aside or lowered their heads in salute, soldiers included. They were being led by others, but who knew what they were actually searching for? Chariots wove through the streets, adding a thread of tension to the festive night. Occasionally someone passed by, jumped down, and bowed to Jiang Yuan. When soldiers stopped them at the gates, all she had to do was open her mouth or reveal her scepter, and a woman’s voice would sound from beside her, answering on her behalf.

After dismissing the fifth group of people, Jiang Yuan asked, “How much farther to the city gate?” Abal sat behind her, helping her hold the reins. The donkey walked slowly, as suited the dignity of a priest. But they also encountered far too many people. Thebes was also known as the City of a Hundred Gates. The entire city had at least twenty or thirty massive gates, expanding outward from the inner city to the outer city, from temples to city walls. They had already passed seven or eight gates along the way, yet still did not seem to have reached the end. Granted, part of the reason was that they had to take many detours. Temples, courts, processions, and garrison posts-any crowded places had to be avoided. Not only because there were too many people, but because roads were constantly being restricted to make way for all kinds of gods.

Abal said, “Soon. The square is ahead. You’ve been there before. We may still have to circle around it, but once we’re past it, we’ll be on the main road to Memphis.”

But there was no time to avoid it. Jiang Yuan was suddenly shoved so hard that she staggered. Her hands and feet were already injured, making it difficult for her to move. A huge wave of people suddenly surged in from the distance, forcing them backward before they could get out of the way. A commotion broke out. Another road closure. Soldiers ran over, driving the crowd to both sides of the street. From far away, they could hear voices shouting, “Prince Thutmose!” In the distance, the Solar Barque glowed with enormous candles and torches, like a burning chariot from the underworld, slowly approaching.

Tonight, it seemed Thutmose was destined to be connected to the Solar Barque, and that connection would not make Hatshepsut happy. Supposedly, Abal had originally intended to splash some pigment onto Thutmose; the temple had mountains of colored powder ground from gemstones and gold. Who could have expected him to stumble across such a perfect opportunity instead? He had directly forced the bearers of the Solar Barque to their knees, delivering a generous gift to Thutmose and the commoners nearby who were picking up money.
Jiang Yuan deftly pulled the cloth over her head, disguising herself as an ordinary commoner as she moved aside into a corner. The people cheered and waited. Even in Thebes four thousand years ago, news traveled quickly enough; when the Solar Barque passed them, the crowd’s cheers for Prince Thutmose seemed almost powerful enough to shake the ground.

Abal did not need to kneel. He stood among the crowd and observed. When Jiang Yuan rose, he told her, “Thutmose doesn’t seem to have noticed you.”

What did he mean, seem? Jiang Yuan knew he had never been the type to say something so ambiguous-or rather, never in such an uncertain tone. Because there had already been a precedent, Abal could not be sure. Both of them sensed that something was wrong. Abal said, “You shouldn’t have backed away just now.”

Jiang Yuan said, “If I moved forward, I would’ve had to pull down the cloth and kneel.” She had already knelt once, and Thutmose had noticed her then. Besides, the identity she was pretending to have was that of a priest. To avoid making the temporary hired hands behind her suspicious, she should not have knelt in haste here. Though Thutmose was young and constrained, and not decisive enough, his eyes were extremely sharp. Swept along by the crowd, he should not be able to get away that quickly.

Both of them made the same decision. “Leave. Now.”

They mounted their donkeys and sped away.

But things were indeed not as they had imagined. By the time they reached the city gate, soldiers had already sealed it off. Several youths, obviously adorned with luxurious ornaments, were arguing there with someone who, judging by his attire, should have been a high-ranking officer. Cities at this time were still far from being free of their role as military strongholds or defenses against beasts and bandits; there was only one gate. Although the city walls were low enough that they could climb over with some effort, after they got over, who knew whether there would be anywhere nearby for them to steal donkeys and get to Memphis?

Abal gave a soft sound of surprise. “That little brat moves fast.”

Jiang Yuan felt him silently slide down and land beside her. At the same time, the blade at her side was quietly drawn from its sheath by his hand.

From afar, Thutmose’s gaze fell on her.

Writing up to this point, I suddenly feel the need to sigh.

Yuan Yuan and Abal were never truly the same kind of people. The feelings between them before could hardly be called love in the generally accepted sense; they were more a tangle of interests, pleasure, and enjoyment. Both of them are extremely realistic and rational, the kind of people whose reason far outweighs their emotions. When Abal was a bandit, or when he was the Governor of Bakum, the only chain linking them in times of peace was always gold. They could never truly come together. Perhaps they would each find another partner bound to them by interests, like Abal and Fatini. They would not stay together for love, and even after sleeping together, they would still sleep under separate blankets. They were destined to part, because if the two of them joined together, they would hinder and encroach upon each other’s interests, plans, and ideals. They cooperated only because it allowed both of them to live better.

Yet whenever danger came, they could always stand shoulder to shoulder, entrusting the vital places at their backs and their deepest trust to each other. Like when they hunted the lion, like in Baghdad, like with Lady Fatini, like when they chased the messenger, like when Jiang Yuan pursued him across the desert, like when Abal exhausted every scheme and effort to hide within the temple.

All because this one sentence is true for both of them.

“You understand everything I want to say.”

Just as they were once compared to their horses: he is the untamed Night; she is the unbridled Sun. They were never meant to intersect. Even without love, both of them could live perfectly well, and yet they crossed two thousand years of time for their gazes and their fates to meet here.

This truly cannot be called merely love, and yet it is far greater than love a thousand, ten thousand times over.

I hope I am not creating a story. I hope there truly were two people like this. Even if no one knew their story, even if it was only a tiny fragment of a long river buried in time and windblown sand-the former bandit chief who became the Egyptian Governor, and the cross-dressing Great Merchant of Taif-fortunately, I was able to write it down: the story of how they met and came to understand each other.

Thank you to the little angels who sent me Power Stones or watered me with nutrient solution~

Thank you to the little angels who watered me with nutrient solution:

Desert Lover, A Heart Full of Poetry, 3 bottles; Zhou Haha, 1 bottle;

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