Chapter 3

The Flowing Sands River was eight hundred miles wide, and when the wind was strong, the waves surged like mountains and the billows rolled like ridges.

Large amounts of He Ruoshui frequently rolled into the banks with the waves, forming floods that stretched for hundreds or even thousands of miles, submerging vast areas of land.

How wide and long were the Yellow River and Huai River on the Great Middle land of Nanzhan?

When the Yellow River breached its banks and the Huai River flooded, it could turn a thousand miles of land into a marshy country, but the Flowing Sands River was eight hundred miles wide, with too much water, too full.

Moreover, He Ruoshui is "light in quality," goose feathers don't float, and it's very easy to rise into waves with the wind.

What Xiao Yu remembered most deeply was four years ago.

That day the sky was dark like a cover, wind and rain flew across, He Ruoshui spread wantonly, and the waves raised were truly like a mountain peak flying into the sky, almost a thousand meters high.

She hadn't been to other places yet, so she wasn't clear, but anyway, the sand dunes where their Sha Man lived became a lonely boat in the vast ocean.

Apart from huddling in their own animal-skin tents and shivering, the Sha Man couldn't do anything.

The He Ruoshui flood wasn't a one-time deal.

The mighty He Ruoshui directly changed the landform and ecology, creating the "Flowing Sands World."

Seawater creates saline-alkali sandy land, He Ruoshui isn't salty, but it's more powerful than seawater.

Xiao Yu had studied it; the physical and chemical properties of He Ruoshui completely deviated from the category of ordinary liquid water.

Animals and plants need water because water participates in various organic reactions of animal and plant cell activities.

He Ruoshui clearly has weight—Xiao Yu had weighed it, it could be filled in a bottle, it had weight, it was just far lighter than ordinary water—but the physical density it expressed was absolutely zero.

Elementary physics common sense: if the density is greater than water, it sinks into the water; if the object's density is less than water, it floats; if the density is the same as water, it suspends in the water.

The density expressed by He Ruoshui is zero, any non-miracle substance has volume and weight, so the density is greater than zero, and falling into He Ruoshui must sink.

Xiao Yu used animals for experiments, pouring He Ruoshui into their mouths, and the He Ruoshui couldn't be normally absorbed and utilized by cells, instead rushing "upward" along blood vessels and muscles.

Just like ordinary people drinking mercury, mercury sinks.

He Ruoshui rushes upward, finally entering the brain; if it doesn't die immediately, it will also be sickly, and very few can survive.

Animals cannot drink He Ruoshui, and plants cannot use He Ruoshui to grow.

The banks frequently swept by He Ruoshui waves have very few plants that can survive, basically all sandy land.

But the earth cannot be flat as a pancake.

The Flowing Sands River stretches ten thousand miles up and down, and it's impossible for there to be no high ground like mountain ridges and earthen mounds.

Even if He Ruoshui forms floods on both banks, it won't pollute groundwater; normal groundwater has density and sinks when it encounters He Ruoshui.

The He Ruoshui flood tide rushing onto the shore is almost completely distinct from the water pools, lakes, and groundwater in the original location, like clear and muddy water.

Therefore, as long as you can find a piece of high ground that isn't directly submerged by He Ruoshui floods, you can grow green plants, and then evolve a barbarian civilization.

It's impossible to be lush and forest-dense like normal riverside mountain peaks.

Even if there were tall mountain ranges nearby, they became low due to the scouring of a thousand miles of He Ruoshui flood waves, and also presented serious sandy quality, finally becoming sand dunes with green plants on the top and mottled weeds on the bottom.

The Western Sha Man tribe where Xiao Yu was born in this life was located on a hill by the Flowing Sands River.

This is also the origin of the two names "Sand Dune Kingdom" and "Sand Dune King."

At this time, the "Red Smoke Steed" with fire-red scales and long mane like flames floating, stepped slowly into the palace of the "Sand Dune King."

"Hiss, hiss~~~" It sneezed lightly, and two streams of bright red flames as thick as chopsticks sprayed out from its nostrils.

The red flames grew with the wind, and in the blink of an eye, they were seven or eight meters long and as thick as a water bucket. Like swinging on a swing, they circled around the "Sand Dune King's Wang Gong," and the palace made of felt, wooden stakes, and linen cloth rose into raging flames.

"Hee-hee~~"

The Red Smoke Steed turned its "horse head" and neighed softly toward the knight in dark armor on its back, as if proudly asking for credit.

The knight on horseback was tall and fully armored, his helmet even pulled down with a face mask, making it impossible to see his face, only a gaze as cold as a sword blade penetrating from the eye holes.

The armor was made of sufficient material, having a sense of heaviness and solidity.

Two dark golden Pixiu beast mouths on the left and right shoulder armor bit two gold rings, and behind the gold rings was tied a large red cloak three meters wide, almost dragging to the ground at the end.

All around, the Sha Man wailed miserably and begged, while the iron-clad cavalry laughed wantonly and scolded loudly.

One could also hear the sound of sabers waving through the air, the hissing sound of blood spraying from cut flesh, and the crackling sound of raging fire burning.

The strong wind rolled up thick smoke and swept through every open space...

The entire battlefield was so noisy and messy, yet it didn't seem to affect the knight on the Red Smoke Steed in the slightest.

He sat quietly on the horse's back, not even drawing the saber at his waist, his iron gloves clean as new, without a trace of blood.

Just looking at the leisurely and contented movements of him and the Red Smoke Steed he sat on, one would feel a sense of peace and tranquility in their heart.

"Clatter, clatter, clatter~~~"

A black steed ran over from the rear slope, and twenty meters away from the Red Smoke Steed with red light all over its body, the precious horse that could travel a thousand miles a day hesitated and stopped, not daring to take another step forward.

On the black horse was an armored knight, whose armor and weapon style were almost identical to the dead Ge Qing.

However, Ge Qing didn't have a face mask, but he, like the general on the Red Smoke Steed, used a black face mask to cover his face.

It seemed that he was long familiar with the fierce power of the Red Smoke Steed that ordinary warhorses couldn't look directly at; without waiting for his own precious horse to stop, he pressed his hands lightly on the saddle, his body like a large bird, jumping over the horse's head, flying a distance of ten meters, and landing lightly behind the knight on the Red Smoke Steed.

He bowed his head and arched his back, cupping his hands, saying: "General General Guan, please order the brothers to sheath their sabers.

This subordinate has confirmed that in the entire Sand Dune Kingdom, there are less than fifty barbarian warriors with combat ability left.

They were all killed or injured in the first wave of iron cavalry charges, and the rest are all the old, weak, women, and children."

"Humph, what is the situation with the Sha Man, does this general's 'Immortal Eye' not see more clearly than your 'pig eyes'?"

General Guan General Guan Huchen on the Red Smoke Steed sneered, and added: "This general has always been rigorous in governing the army; if it weren't determined that the Sha Man camp had no resistance, how would I disperse the cavalry team and let the soldiers do as they please?

You only have a pair of pig eyes, not a pig brain, think about it carefully!"

Hearing "Immortal Eye" and "pig eyes," the armored knight immediately reacted, slightly lowering his head, his hands hanging at his sides unconsciously clenching into fists, even bulging with blue veins on the back of his hands.

General General Guan pulled the reins, and the Red Smoke Steed immediately turned around obediently, changing from facing away to looking down from the front.

He saw the subtle movements of the black-armored knight, and a playful and slightly fast-paced sneer appeared at the corner of his mouth under the face mask.

"General, slaughtering innocent old and weak is harmful to the harmony of heaven and is a great inauspiciousness." The armored knight's voice was a bit muffled, yet he was still remonstrating.

In fact, he had long understood General Guan Huchen's thoughts.

Not only did he know, but the brothers of the Great Shu Iron Cavalry Battalion all knew—General General Guan's Red Smoke Steed had been setting fires, spraying a mouthful when seeing Sha Man, and snorting when seeing Sha Man tents or thatched huts, burning all the way from the outskirts of the sand dunes to the Sand Dune King's Wang Gong.

It could be said that most of the great fire that ignited the sand dunes came from the Red Smoke Steed... or rather, from General General Guan's intentional indulgence.

If it weren't for this, the Iron Cavalry Battalion wouldn't have scattered teams and wantonly vented various ugly desires.

"Swoosh—snap~~~"

Just as the black-armored knight finished speaking, a fire snake as thick as a thumb flew out from General General Guan's sleeve, moving extremely fast, like a poisonous snake with life.

The black-armored knight saw it and wanted to turn his head to dodge, but it was too late, and the snake-flame whip lashed onto his face.

"Clang~~~"

The knight let out a muffled groan, falling backward to the ground, his helmet slipping off his head and rolling several steps away.

It was a face that was tragic and ugly to the extreme.

Like a winter melon left for too long, the inside almost rotted away, the winter melon skin was gently peeled off, eyes, nose, and mouth were dug out of the rotten winter melon flesh with a knife, and then two pig eyes the size of peaches were stuffed into the eye sockets.

Those two huge, ugly pig eyes were still dripping with yellowish-brown pus.

The pus solidified into thick "scabs" near the eye sockets.

"Song Song Changqing, you are just a small deputy general, yet you dare to talk to this general about 'harming the harmony of heaven.' When the Sha Man united with the Western Lu rebels to invade our Great Shu, why didn't you go and persuade the barbarians not to slaughter the people of the Shu border cities, so as not to harm the harmony of heaven?

The Great Shu Luye Guard had fifty thousand brothers this time last year.

Now, including our Iron Cavalry Battalion which is missing more than half, there are less than three thousand people.

You don't pity your own brothers and the people of your own country, but instead pity the enemy barbarians; what is your intention?"

General General Guan's voice was loud and stern, and some of the black-armored knights who were burning, killing, and looting nearby also heard it.

Some stopped their hand or crotch movements, turned their heads, and used hateful eyes to scrape the "pig-eyed knight" Song Song Changqing.

The scorched trace of flesh on Song Song Changqing's ugly face from the snake-flame whip was burning with pain, but he didn't scream, nor did he cover his face, just hurriedly picking up his helmet.

Putting the helmet back on, he pulled the face mask down again to cover his face.

Even though the scorched marks on his face rubbed against the face mask, causing more pain, his movements didn't slow down in the slightest.

"General, business is urgent!" His voice raised a bit, "The entire military strength of the Sand Dune Kingdom has already perished outside Tianmen Town along with the Lu Kingdom rebels.

A mere Sand Dune Kingdom is now just a mound of earth, with a population of less than twenty thousand.

If it were just for them, it wouldn't be worth our Great Shu Luye Guard Iron Cavalry Battalion crossing thousands of miles of wilderness.

Even if we need to clear the enemy's nest, it doesn't require you, General, to take the field yourself.

You came here, isn't it to receive the special order from the Great Middle Kingdom envoy to capture 'Sha Man Yu'?

The envoy clearly requested that capturing 'Sha Man Yu' alive is a great merit, bringing her corpse back is only a minor merit; if 'Sha Man Yu' is lost, and she is neither seen alive nor dead, even if we sweep the Sha Man tribal land, not only will there be no merit, but there will be no small crime."

General General Guan was stunned for a moment, his tone softening, carrying some doubt, saying: "Have you captured 'Sha Man Yu'? Bring her over for me to see, you didn't hurt her, did you?"

"Haven't found anyone yet." Song Song Changqing replied.

General General Guan was angry again, shouting: "Useless, as my deputy general, before entering the sand dunes, I specifically exhorted you that capturing Sha Man Yu is your first priority, and I even gave you her Shadow God Map for this.

Now that you haven't even captured the person, why are you messing around?"

Song Song Changqing didn't speak.

He wasn't messing around.

He had been looking for people all along, seeing the Iron Cavalry Battalion wantonly slaughtering without distinguishing between the old and the weak, he couldn't bear it in his heart, so he came over to remonstrate.

The black-armored knights who were "messing around" all around silently withdrew their sabers and "guns," quietly yet swiftly surrounding them from all directions, gathering in front of General General Guan and lining up in neat rows.

General General Guan was even angrier, scolding: "Idiots, why are you all coming over? Hurry up and disperse to find people, find that 'Sha Man Yu,' I want to see her immediately!"

A knight with a big beard walked out of the crowd, cupping his hands and reporting: "General, don't be anxious, with Deputy General Song's reminder, the brothers have always remembered the mission of searching for Sha Man Yu.

According to the information provided by the envoy of the Great Middle Kingdom, that 'Sha Man Yu' is just an eleven or twelve-year-old girl.

Although the brothers have killed many people, they have always refrained from drawing sabers on the little Sha Man, even holding back from touching the handsome little male barbarians."