hotmtlnovel Chapter 224 Black Spot
Chapter 224 Black Spot
Sang and Saliwan rode their horses for a week in the desert. The desert was just as Saliwan had said, with sand covering the first 180 miles.
They didn't see a single person along the way. All they could see was the endless yellow sand and the undulating sand dunes. Occasionally, when the weather was calm, Sanger could see one or two unknown large birds flying high in the sky. This was one of his few pastimes.
They didn't chat anymore, and they didn't even exchange glances much. The old man and the young boy just focused on getting on with their journey, because even if Sullivan didn't say it, Sanger knew that the most important thing in such an environment was to conserve physical strength.
This long journey seemed to have no end. In the distance, smoke rose and fell, and the scorching sun hanging high in the sky gradually set in the west. Just when the round sun was almost half buried in the ground, Sullivan suddenly pulled his horse.
"What's wrong, Uncle Sha?" Sang asked Sullivan. In order to get closer to him, he specifically called him "Uncle". He was worried that he would really abandon him. After all, having come this far, he also understood how ridiculous it was for him to rush into the desert.
"Someone is coming... and he's not a good person." Sullivan frowned as he looked at the black spots that appeared on the distant circle. This was the first time that Sang saw Sullivan frown. The yellow sand in the sky could not stop his smile, and the howling wind could not pull down the corners of his mouth, but now, those inconspicuous black spots made him frown.
"Who are they?" Sanger asked curiously, stretching his neck to get a clearer look. Unfortunately, apart from the sun and sand dunes, there were only a few black dots in front of him. He couldn't even count how many there were.
"Don't ask questions that you shouldn't ask. That's not something you should know now." Sullivan shook his head, tightened the reins, and said to Sanger, "Let's go a little to the north. They shouldn't be coming for us."
"Okay!" Sanger agreed, but then asked, "What should we do if they run into us?"
"If you run into this..." This sentence made Sullivan frown even more tightly, "If you run into this, you can only do business, and the interest can't even make back the capital."
After saying that, Sullivan stopped talking and took Sanger around the group of black spots. Fortunately, nothing happened along the way. The sun lost its last ray of light, and the surroundings became pitch black. The temperature also dropped sharply. The originally hot air now became icy cold. Sullivan took out two cloaks and put them on himself and Sanger respectively, and came to a place to rest under the moonlight.
They settled the horses, but because they were worried that the black spots they had just seen would come looking for them, they did not immediately light a fire to keep warm. While waiting, Sullivan prepared dinner while talking to Sanger as if talking to himself:
"We'll probably be able to reach the nearest town tomorrow."
"Is there really a town in this desert?!" Sang asked with some surprise.
"There is no town, so why should I come to this godforsaken place?" Sullivan fiddled with the dry food in his hand. They were all portable foods, which looked like a large bunch of hay kneaded together into a cake, dotted with some ominous spots, which looked like mold spots formed after mildew. But in fact, there is no need to worry about the preservation of this kind of food, but the taste cannot be guaranteed at all, so it can only be used to fill the stomach.
At first, Sanger couldn't eat this kind of thing at all, but after going hungry for two meals and rushing for half a day under the scorching sun, he gradually felt that his vision was losing focus little by little, and even his body perception was about to disappear completely. When Sullivan held the thing in front of him again, he forgot the unpleasant taste of it, took a bite, and even almost bit Sullivan's finger.
"I say, aren't you coming to the desert to look for your family? If no one lives in the desert, do you want your family to sleep on the sand? Ha!" Sullivan laughed again, "Yes, if you were a smart person, oh no, even if you were just a little bit stupid, you wouldn't just lead a horse and go straight into the desert."
"I'm not that stupid. Didn't I walk more than a hundred miles?" Sang retorted sullenly.
"You're lucky. But it's also true that with all the stuff you carry, you shouldn't be able to get there. You're lucky, really lucky." Sullivan said as he handed the dry food in his hand to Sang. It was hard to tell whether Sang's face was happy or painful when he saw the dinner. He hesitated for a while, then silently picked up the dry food and water bag and "drank" the dinner as if he was taking medicine.
"Then since I'm so lucky, can I deal with those 'black spots'? I see you're so afraid of them, it seems they are more powerful than you in the desert."
"..." Sullivan, who was about to stuff the dry food into his mouth, stopped because of Sangger's words. He looked at Sangger with a complicated expression and said with some resentment:
"You know that you can only survive in this desert by relying on me, right? I need to teach you what to say and when to say it to whom, so that you won't ruin my business when I go to town tomorrow."
"But no matter how lucky you are, don't even think about dealing with those guys. They are probably the most dangerous people in the entire desert."
Sullivan chewed some dry food that tasted like hay, raised his head slightly and looked at the sky. Countless twinkling stars together weaved into a magnificent picture. The galaxy across the sky came before his eyes along the flow of history, and will move towards the future with the passage of time.
The sound of chewing could be heard intermittently in this desolate place. After a while, Salivan continued:
"There are immortals in this world, lots of them, but there are no immortals in the desert. Not only are there no immortals, there are no monsters either. I've been out there when I was doing business. It's not as desolate as the desert. You can walk for ten days or half a month without seeing a single person. But it's more dangerous than the desert. Even if you stay in your own room, something might suddenly knock on your door."
Although he didn't know what Salivan meant by this, it all sounded very new to Sang, who had never left the desert. Especially when he didn't understand what danger was, he would automatically filter out the disturbing and even frightening parts, and only the good impressions would be left.
"The deepest part of the desert is the wilderness, a place that everyone knows is there but can never reach."
"Ah, I've heard of that place. My family often mentions it." There was a hint of surprise in Sanger's tone again.
"Oh, I heard that it used to be a good place, but who knows now? No one can find the Great Desert, but the people of the desert, at least people like me who have been doing business in the desert for many years, know that there are no immortals or monsters in the desert, because the Great Desert is in the deepest part of the desert."
"Because the Great Desert is here, no one can practice in the desert, and even the monsters won't appear."
"I said this to tell you that in the desert, don't think you have a talent for magic or anything else. In the desert, the only way to survive is to have a fast knife and a hard fist. And that group of people have the fastest knives. We can't afford to offend them, okay?"
"Maybe..." Sanger said hesitantly.
“No chance of survival!” Seeing that Sanger still had some hope, Sullivan’s tone became serious. “If you really want to talk to them, I’m fine, as long as you don’t reveal my location. Oh, and by the time you’re done talking to them, if you end up being a pile of rotten meat in the sand and get eaten by vultures, don’t blame me for ignoring you.”
Perhaps to make Sullivan's words more convincing, a vulture landed in front of Sanger just as Sullivan finished speaking, with a large piece of rotting meat in its mouth.
Whether it was vultures or carrion, these things would not scare Sanger, but when the two things were combined together, the visual impact would exceed Sanger's expectations.
The vulture also noticed Sanger shortly after landing. Without waiting for Sanger to start vomiting, the vulture flapped its wings and left the temporary camp where Sanger and his friends were resting.