The passage under the crystal coffin was dark and deep, with a chill that could penetrate into the cracks of human bones.
My mind was in a daze, and I didn't even know what I was thinking. It seemed that there were thousands of chaotic thoughts, and it seemed that my mind was blank...
Cao Yuan... just watched herself go out right under my nose?
Until now, I still feel a little dreamy, and the things I experienced when I was with her flashed through my mind like a slide show.
I can't forget that night when I watched the blue moon over the desert with her. It had nothing to do with love between men and women, but just an invisible spiritual communication between friends in the dead of night.
I like the feeling when I get along with her. Today's society is too impetuous. The so-called friends are just people who go out to eat, drink, go shopping, and watch a movie together, and then become friends. These two words have suddenly become less valuable. But it's different with Cao Yuan. She's very quiet, and I'm not a talkative person. Our communication has nothing to do with romance, but only the darkness and scars hidden in our hearts. Perhaps the so-called confidant refers to the relationship between her and me. I cherish this quiet and heavy relationship.
But now it's lost after all.
Could it be... in this damn world, can good people really not survive?
There was Zhang Bowen in front, and Cao Yuan in the back...
How much more will I lose on this road? I tried hard to grab everything, but in the end I couldn't keep anything. Everything is like sand. The harder I hold it, the faster it flows away. The harder I try, the more painful my heart is.
I closed my eyes tiredly. The strong feeling of weightlessness while falling shocked my nerves. I didn't know how deep this exit was. It seemed that it was chiseled vertically into the ground. After two or three minutes, I fell into the water with a plop. The passage seemed to be connected to underground water veins, but I fell from a great height and was in a daze. I didn't take any self-protection actions, so before entering the water, I was completely flat on the water surface. The impact force generated in an instant almost killed me. In an instant, black blood came out of my mouth, and then my whole body was frozen. The underground water enveloped me, and I choked on a lot of water between my mouth, nose, and lungs. I was powerless even if I wanted to struggle. Moreover, I didn't know which underground water vein in the Taklimakan Desert this was. The water flow was very fast and the momentum was very strong. As soon as I fell into the water, I was swept forward and gradually lost consciousness...
When I woke up again, I found myself lying on a not very soft bed. The bedding was not made of particularly good material, but it was washed very clean and I could smell the refreshing smell of detergent, which was much more reassuring than the current detergents that add too many spices and are much more expensive.
My body still hasn't recovered, and my whole body aches.
I opened my eyes and looked around, and found that I was in a wooden house, a very simple one, a bit like the shed built by lumberjacks in the deep mountains and forests.
Where is this place?
I remember that I completely lost consciousness after falling into the underground river, and I don't remember what happened afterwards.
Squeak...
Just as I was thinking, the door of the wooden house was suddenly pushed open, and a man wearing a torn leather coat walked in. He was about 40 years old, with very strong Hui features on his face, deep eye sockets, high nose bridge, and looked particularly deep.
"Thank you, Hu Da, you finally woke up!"
The middle-aged man was obviously surprised when he saw me, and said with a smile: "You have slept for three days and three nights. The tribe leader said several times that you are no longer able to do it, but I didn't expect you to persist."
"You are..."
I was a little stunned. We went deep into the desert Gobi and walked through three ancient countries in the Western Regions. I didn't expect to meet a living person? So I asked about the identity of this man.
This middle-aged man looked very talkative. He sat next to me and told me what happened during my coma.
He had a particularly strong tea fragrance on him. As soon as I smelled it, I had a guess about his identity and let down my guard against him - I thought he should be a decent person. Judging from his facial features, he didn't look like the kind of evil person who could commit crimes for money and kill people.
According to the slow narration of this middle-aged man, I finally knew what happened after I fell into a coma.
The middle-aged man's name is Rafael, which is taken from the Koran. It roughly means talented and respected. He is a Hui Muslim and an out-and-out Muslim. He is a traveling merchant in this area.
To be precise, he is actually a member of a Hui Muslim traveling tribe.
There were many Hui tribes in ancient times, and they continued until the 1970s and 1980s. With the reform and opening up, they gradually withdrew from the historical trend. Today, they are basically extinct. Even if they exist, they are very rare. They live a nomadic life. A camel team, the sound of camel bells can be heard all over the country. Basically, they appear in those inaccessible places all year round, selling goods produced in rich places to those primitive tribes on the high mountains and snowfields, and then bringing the specialties in those primitive tribes to big cities to earn a high price difference in the middle. However, this kind of money is not earned by ordinary people. There are few people in this society who make money but spend it. After all, although people's hearts are more stupid in this society, the living environment is incomparable to the past. If a person has a lot of strength and is willing to work, he will not be hungry, and it is not worth risking his life for that little money.
You must know that the roads that these pilgrims take are either deserts or snowfields. Cars cannot go there, planes cannot land there, and railways cannot be built there. They can only rely on large animals to pull them. If a natural disaster comes, people will have to give up their lives. The danger is no less than our business.
The tribe where Raphael is located is such a tribe, but they are engaged in the trade of tea. In summer, they take the ancient tea-horse road, transporting tea from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Yunnan and Yunnan to Tibet, passing through the roof of the world with an altitude of nearly 4,000 meters, and then selling tea from the south to Tibet. Of course, the places they sell are not places like Lhasa. After the Sichuan-Tibet line was opened, places like Lhasa have actually developed slowly. Goods from the mainland can be easily delivered there, and there is no need for these pilgrims. They mainly go to uninhabited areas such as Medog and Ali. When summer is over and winter comes, the climate on the plateau is cold, and it becomes more difficult to travel and trade, so they will turn to the desert, because the black storm in the desert has disappeared at this time. Even if it appears, it is sporadic and not strong. As long as the camel team sticks together, they will not be buried alive. Therefore, the desert during this period became a place for them to travel and trade. They would send tea into the desert. After all, there are still many oases in the Taklimakan Desert and Lop Nur. There are people in these oases, and trade can be carried out where there are people.
Why send tea?
Because tea has high vitamin value and is not consumed as fast as vegetables. In high-altitude cold areas or arid and water-scarce areas, vitamin supplementation has always been the biggest problem. Tea is a necessity, so traveling merchants like to do this business. As long as you can send it, you don't have to worry about not having a way to sell it.
And I was picked up by Rafael and his tribe on the shallows when they passed the Tarim River. Not only me, but also my friends were picked up by them.
I think the underground river under the crystal coffin should eventually flow into the Tarim River, so I was washed all the way to the shallows of the Tarim River.
Our luck was not too bad. At least Rafael and his friends were kind-hearted. After seeing us, they did not leave us alone. Instead, they brought us here - a small oasis in the desert, a place where Rafael and his friends settled when they were traveling and doing business.
According to Rafael, my friends were not seriously injured and woke up quickly. Only I was in a coma for three days and three nights, and I had a high fever of about 40 degrees and it never subsided. Their medical means were very limited, and antipyretics were useless. Many people thought I would not survive, but in the end I did. Rafael was very surprised and kept saying that I was a lucky person that Hu Da valued and that he was protecting me.
This is what happened during my coma. After listening to Rafael, I thought of a very important question - we were thrown into the entrances and exits by the immortal corpses, and almost all of us were in a coma after falling into the underground river. In that state, we had no way to take care of each other. Would we get separated under the rush of the rapids?
I don't know how many people Rafael saved, but we must not let anyone get separated, otherwise in this deserted Gobi, if we missed their tribe, we might not be able to meet the next one. At that time, we would be helpless and could only wait to die! !