The sight just now had the white dog yelping in fright. It turned and ran.
The monster chased straight after it, and before long, both had disappeared behind the dunes.
A porter in the rear of the caravan cursed under his breath. With one fewer guest to escort, his wages would be that much lower.
That was how the Coiling Dragon Desert greeted everyone.
The easygoing mood of every group that had witnessed the scene vanished in an instant.
Zeng Feixiong looked away and muttered, "It was his fault. On Red Cliff Road, you have to keep children and dogs on a leash."
"I've never seen a Yellow Flounder this big before," He Lingchuan marveled. His original body had often gone hunting, so he knew Yellow Flounders weren't fish. They were monsters that lurked in deserts and wastelands, lying in wait to ambush small animals passing by.
They could dive beneath the sand and surface again at will, moving faster than any four-legged creature.
But these things were only a little bigger than dogs at most. Even if one had become a demon, it shouldn't have been as enormous as the one they'd just seen!
"But this is the Coiling Dragon Desert." Zeng Feixiong had escorted caravans across it many times and was no longer surprised by such things. "Vengeful spirits affect everything here. Even demons that already have intelligence can be mutated if they stay in the desert too long."
That made sense. So although Sand Leopards also entered the Coiling Dragon Desert to hunt, they normally lived and bred on West Mountain.
The magnificent desert began to look the same after a while.
The journey was peaceful and dull. As long as you didn't take a single step beyond Red Cliff Road, all you had to contend with was the hot wind, blazing sun, and sandstorms.
For a group that was prepared and experienced, all of that was bearable.
After three full days of travel, the caravan finally reached Baiyuan Station.
It was a waystation on Red Cliff Road, where traveling merchants could rest. It had once been an ancient city.
There were more than a dozen ancient cities on the Coiling Dragon Wilderness, but a hundred years later, few remained. Baiyuan City had long since been swallowed by the yellow sands. Later arrivals had excavated its old foundations and built several rows of houses atop them beside Red Cliff Road.
Like Red Cliff Road itself, the area within the ancient city's bounds was free from attacks by vengeful spirits and monsters, making it an ideal resting place for traveling merchants.
As the caravan entered Baiyuan Station, He Chunhua hurried over to negotiate with the station clerk.
That's right, Blackwater City had established a station here and assigned someone to manage it. But the regulations here were lax, nothing like the strict rules in Great Yuan.
In a place like this, at a time like this, money showed its power.
Baiyuan Station allowed passing merchants to pitch tents. Food and water were also for sale, and anyone feeling indulgent could rent a small room.
Of course, the Coiling Dragon Desert had no water sources of its own. All food, clean water, and building materials had to be hauled in from Blackwater City.
Where there was demand, there was business. Anyone looking to trade here first had to get on good terms with the station clerk, then go to a great deal of trouble to haul supplies into this barren land. After stacking up one cost after another, they could sell a basic combo of one steamed bun and one bottle of clean water for thirty coins. Not expensive, right?
A bowl of lamb paomo—with nothing but greasy broth and not a scrap of meat—went for two taels of silver. Not expensive, right?
A small room for the night cost five taels of silver. Once you stepped inside, you'd feel like you'd gotten a bargain. Right?
And if you still wanted a hot bath in the desert, to wash away the dust and fatigue of the journey—
State Preceptor Sun, Commandant Nian, and Young Master He all wanted one, so Governor He had no choice but to pay through the nose.
That one expense alone could buy five acres of prime farmland near Blackwater City—permanent, immovable property.
After his bath, and a few helpings of the deluxe combo meal that left him only half full, He Lingchuan finally began to feel human again.
Even with his sturdy build, the past three days had left him exhausted. Who knew how many hardships lay ahead?
By contrast, He Chunhua still seemed entirely at ease. He clearly wasn't as frail as he appeared.
He Lingchuan also bought several combo meals for Zeng Feixiong. Otherwise, the man would have been too strapped for cash and would've had to chew on cold steamed buns with the soldiers.
Zeng Feixiong felt bad accepting them and refused several times. But he couldn't match Young Master He's persistence, so in the end he could only accept the kindness and thank him again and again.
He Lingchuan knew the man was straightforward but not reckless. Since he was leading the troops into the desert this time, He Lingchuan patted him on the shoulder and said, "Good food and drink give you the strength to work. I'm entrusting my father's and my safety to you."
"Lord He has treated this subordinate with great kindness and even resolved my troubles. I'll repay him, even if it costs me my life!"
"That's a bit much." He Lingchuan laughed. "By the way, I heard your father was the only person to return alive from the Coiling Dragon Ruins?"
Zeng Feixiong's expression darkened. "That's right. Twenty years ago, someone offered him a fortune to serve as a guide. He was the only one to survive. But after that, he lost his mind, and even the Great Shaman couldn't cure him. No one knows what happened to them. He spends every day muttering one word—water."
"Water?" The desert certainly lacked water. What kind of torment had Zeng Feixiong's father endured to keep thinking about water even after going mad?
Just then, Sun Fuping came to summon them. He wanted several of the leaders to meet in his small room.
His guards brought in heaps of yellow sand from outside and poured it onto the table.
A simple sand table was ready.
"We're almost done with Red Cliff Road." Zeng Feixiong pointed things out on the sand table. "The day after tomorrow, we'll leave the main road and enter the desert. That's when the real test begins."
"Red Cliff Road originally led all the way to Coiling Dragon City." It was a military road, after all. At the very least, it had to carry soldiers and provisions to the city's outskirts. "Not long after the Coiling Dragon Wilderness became a desert, the nearby peaks collapsed and buried the road."
He drew a circle on the sand table. "To reach Coiling Dragon City, we'll have to take a detour and enter through the gap in Ying Mountain."
That stretch of road wasn't on Red Cliff Road. The danger they were about to face was far greater.
By comparison, the past three days had been as easy as a vacation.
The group went on to discuss ways to deal with the dangers ahead.
Although the He father and son had their differences with Sun Fuping and Commandant Nian, when their lives were at stake, they joined the discussion with particular focus.
He Lingchuan listened quietly the whole time. Only when the discussion was nearly over did he ask a question that had puzzled him for a long time:
"Coiling Dragon City was an isolated outpost, surrounded by enemies on all sides, yet it held out for thirty-two years. That was incredible. So what finally caused it to fall?" This was one of the mysteries of the Coiling Dragon Desert. Neither history books nor local legends offered any solid explanation. Storytellers had come up with only a far-fetched theory. "Could it really be what the people of Blackwater City say—that Zhong Shengguang died of illness, and Coiling Dragon City lost its heart?"
People tended to find reasonable explanations for unsolved mysteries. Zhong Shengguang had held Coiling Dragon City for more than thirty years, growing from a young man into an old one. Years of warfare would have taken a terrible toll on his mind and body. Of all the stories He Lingchuan had heard, this was the most plausible.
He was curious about the truth.
"From the clues I've gathered, that story does have some merit. Coiling Dragon City really did lose its heart." Sun Fuping poured himself a cup of water—clean water that cost twenty coins a cup. "But it wasn't Zhong Shengguang. It was the Red General!"
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