Chapter 60: Delivering Grain into the Desert, the Youth Sees Suffering

Disaster relief in the Western Desert was harder than Xiao Cheng'an had imagined.

The grain carts moved slowly.

The water skins were never enough.

By day the heat scorched flesh; by night the cold wind cut to the bone.

More than ten camels of the Wan Tong Merchant Association's caravan collapsed, and the escorting Clerk's lips were cracked and dry, yet he still cursed and hauled the grain sacks onto his shoulder.

Qin Su's Medical Camp was the busiest of all.

Among the refugees, plague-fever, dehydration, and starvation wove together; many never lived to see the grain, dropping dead by the roadside.

It was the first time Xiao Cheng'an had personally held a bowl for someone to drink.

The one drinking was a little girl not much older than his younger brother—thin enough that only bones were left.

After two sips she suddenly pushed the bowl back.

"Give it to my mother."

Her mother was already dead.

Just three steps behind her.

Xiao Cheng'an held the water bowl, his fingers trembling.

Qin Su walked over, crouched, gathered the girl into her arms, and said softly, "Let her drink first."

Xiao Cheng'an said hoarsely, "Her mother…"

Qin Su replied evenly, "The dead are already dead; the living must live."

Those words were cold.

And heavy.

Xiao Cheng'an lowered his head and went on feeding her water.

That night, outside the tent, he retched for a long while.

Not because of the filth.

But because he had finally seen what the history book's single line—"a thousand li of Red Earth"—looked like when it fell upon a person.

Lin Xiaoman had come along with the column as well.

He was in charge of recording the disaster in the Western Desert.

The two youths sat on a sand dune, silent for a long time.

Xiao Cheng'an suddenly asked, "Back in Luo'an, did you see these things too?"

Lin Xiaoman shook his head.

"Luo'an was blood."

"The Western Desert is dryness."

"Both are just as hard to bear."

Xiao Cheng'an said quietly, "When I used to live in the Prince's Manor, I never knew any of this."

Lin Xiaoman said, "I didn't know it either, before."

"Then how do you hold on?"

Lin Xiaoman thought for a moment.

"Write it down."

"Write it down and you can hold on?"

"Not necessarily."

Lin Xiaoman gazed at the distant relief-camp fires.

"But if I don't write it, it's as if they suffered for nothing."

After a silence, Xiao Cheng'an said, "Then write me too."

Lin Xiaoman was taken aback.

Xiao Cheng'an said, "Write what I used to be like, what I've seen now, what I've done wrong, and what I've done."

"Good and bad, write it all."

"Don't spare my face."

Lin Xiaoman nodded seriously.

"All right."

On the third day, the Han Ba Army appeared.

They were no living people.

They were dried corpses that crawled out of Drought Bone Abyss, cloaked in yellow sand, with crimson fire burning in their eyes.

Wherever they passed, grass and trees withered, and the water in the skins began to evaporate.

Green Blade Camp drew swords at once.

But the Han Ba feared no ordinary sword-wound.

Blade-edge cleaved the dried corpses, yet they soon rose again from the yellow sand.

An elder of Sword Pavilion said in a heavy voice, "Their fire cores must be severed!"

The Drought Demon Fire Core lay deep within the chest and belly—extremely hard to strike.

The fight bogged down into a bitter struggle.

The relief caravan was forced to a halt.

Xiao Cheng'an looked at the slaughter ahead, then at the refugees waiting for grain behind, and said through gritted teeth:

"The caravan keeps moving!"

The guard cried out urgently, "There's a Drought Demon ahead!"

Xiao Cheng'an drew his Short Dagger.

"Then we'll go around."

"If we can't go around, we'll charge from the side."

"If the grain doesn't arrive, everyone behind us will die."

The Shopkeeper of the Wan Tong Merchant Association glanced at him, then suddenly laughed and scolded, "The Young Prince looks like a real person now."

Xiao Cheng'an made no rebuttal.

Under the protection of the Green Blade Camp, the caravan forced its way through the sand road.

A Drought Demon broke through the defenses and lunged at the grain carts.

Xiao Cheng'an instinctively stepped back.

But he saw several children hiding behind the grain carts.

So he gritted his teeth and charged forward.

The Short Dagger pierced the Drought Demon's chest.

It was useless.

The Drought Demon raised its sharp claws.

Xiao Cheng'an thought he was about to die.

A sword light swept in from afar, shattering the Drought Demon Fire Core.

Xiao Cheng'an fell onto the sandy ground, gasping for breath.

He looked up and saw a young man in black clothes walking through the wind and sand.

Jiang Che.

Xie Tingxue followed beside him.

The Green Bamboo Sword remained unsheathed.

Jiang Che glanced at Xiao Cheng'an and smiled, saying:

"You wield that dagger quite poorly."

Xiao Cheng'an, his face covered in sand and dirt, said in a wretched tone, "I know."

Jiang Che reached out and pulled him up.

"But you didn't retreat."

Xiao Cheng'an's eyes grew hot.

Jiang Che turned his head to look deep into the sandstorm in the distance.

There, in the direction of the Drought Bone Abyss, red light shot up to Heaven.

The Drought Demon King was awakening.