The north wind howled as if mixed with icy blade edges, withering everything in its path.
Only on the desolate little paths of the valley, cluttered with rocks, did Yu Ziqing tighten the large cloak made of several layers of black cloth stitched together, wrapping his head in a black dog-skin hat, revealing only a pair of squinting eyes, shrinking into the middle of the group, quietly glancing up.
Behind the group followed one hundred seventy or eighty sheep, most of them skin and bones, and, in addition, there were six yaks burdened with supplies.
On both sides of the group, seven or eight dark, withered men, shoulders hunched slightly, listlessly watched over the flock.
At the very front of the group, four robust men with dark, shiny skin and felt-like hair, riding tall horses, wore only Beast Skin Kan over their bodies, still steaming in the freezing weather.
Just getting a bit closer, Ziqing felt as if it wasn't so cold anymore.
The man with snake tattoo pattern on his right cheek seemed to notice Ziqing approaching, glanced back, and said something in a heavily accented Alien Clan dialect to his companions.
Ziqing lowered his head, pretending not to understand. Anyway, it was obvious even to his heels that these guys wouldn't have anything nice to say.
After a few sentences, the four strongmen shifted the topic away from Ziqing and chatted among themselves.
Ziqing kept his head down, as if afraid of cold, closely following behind the four strongmen.
After about half an hour, as snow began to fall from the sky, the man with the snake tattoo on his right cheek finally turned his head and stared at Ziqing, speaking in Mandarin with a slightly stiff accent.
"Hungry, roast meat."
"Oh." Ziqing responded, thinking to himself how lucky he was to have learned Mandarin quickly, otherwise, he wouldn't have understood such simple words with a slight accent.
Reaching a wind-sheltered valley, the four strongmen dismounted to pitch a tent, herded the cattle and sheep to the very back of the valley, then turned to look at Ziqing.
With an expressionless face, Ziqing busied himself by looking for some dry grass among the rocks to start a fire.
After a short while, Ziqing took out a chunk of meat frozen so hard it could be a rock, shaved it with a cleaver into slices, and laid them on a heated stone slab. Soon, the sizzling of fat and aroma began to spread.
The four burly men, greedily stuffing their cheeks, quickly devoured everything Ziqing had grilled in less time than it takes to drink half a cup of tea.
After a satisfying meal, drinking cheap wine from their Beast Skin pouches, the strongmen continued to speak in their tongue-heavy Alien Clan dialect.
With their bellies full and slightly tipsy from the drink, three of the strongmen collapsed beside the tent, wrapped up in Beast Skins and slept soundly, their snores loud as thunder. Only the snake-tattooed strongman remained seated by the campfire.
Ziqing, looking at the empty stone slab, silently stepped aside, took out a piece of dried naan from his bosom, heated some water to soften it, and slowly began to swallow it.
The few swarthy men quietly approached, scraping the leftover fat and crumbs from the stone slab with their dry naan, gulping it down greedily.
Ziqing sighed inwardly, said nothing, covered his belly, and stood up; the snake-tattooed strongman, seeing this, waved his hand impatiently.
Stepping out of the valley to a downwind spot, after relieving himself, Ziqing looked around and sighed silently.
This was really bad luck.
To be honest, when he first arrived in this world and realized it was an ancient setting, Ziqing was quite worried—not for himself, but for others.
He feared that one wrong Stool on his part could unleash an epidemic capable of wiping out an entire city.
Then, he worried too much.
He never even saw a city.
He had been on the ground for less than three days when he saw what seemed like a new sun slowly rising on the horizon, its blinding light expanding exponentially.
Lucky for him, he reacted quickly and found cover immediately, otherwise, he would have been blinded by the intense light on the spot.
And then, disaster struck.
Having barely survived a month without finding the so-called cities, and when he finally came across a village, it too was desolate, without a single living soul.
Surviving over a month without dying of thirst or hunger was already no small feat.
When he finally met living beings, they were four kidnappers.
After traveling with the group for a month, the old scholar who had taught him Mandarin was gone.
Those who wanted to ingratiate themselves with the strongmen, hoping to cling to their legs, were gone too.
Even a few women disappeared after Ziqing woke up from a night's sleep.
According to what the snake-tattooed strongman said, anyone who wanted to run was free to do so, but within a radius of three to four hundred li, it was all desolation, and with the weather so cold, without the resources from the strongmen, one might not live for three days.
Ziqing had no intention of running. The old scholar who had taught him Mandarin also casually taught him a bit of the Alien Clan language, and since Ziqing was starting from scratch and listening carefully, he could almost understand it now.
He eavesdropped on the idle chatter of the strongmen, concluding that these strongmen trafficked people to the mines, and this year's climate was abnormal, with cold setting in unusually early, getting colder by the day.
There had been some disaster in the previous months, and by now, let alone within a radius of five hundred li, even a thousand li would be hard pressed to find a village.
Telling these trafficked people that within three to four hundred li there was no one, Ziqing reckoned that these fellows were definitely setting a trap, giving people a shred of hope for escape.
Judging from experience, the temperature was already close to negative twenty degrees Celsius, and getting colder. He wasn't confident that in such conditions he could wander aimlessly through a completely unfamiliar territory of a thousand... no, possibly an even larger desolate area.