"That should be enough," I counted. No more, no less, five cactus flat pots were filled in total.
Being thirsty is much more uncomfortable than being hungry. We rested against the bottle tree until the sun went down. We took our water bottles and got ready to go.
After climbing up the sandy slope, Xiaoxuan turned around and looked around and asked me: "Are we going west or east?"
"Let's go west, my intuition tells me we should go west."
I patted the cactus water bottle hanging on my body and said, "With these, we will have enough water for two to three or four days, but we have to be careful. This is our life."
"Xiaoxuan, why are you in such a daze? Are you listening to me?"
She didn't seem to hear me. She stared straight ahead with her eyes blankly, and suddenly said excitedly: "People...! Someone! There is someone there!"
"Human! Where is there!" I looked in the direction of her finger.
I saw two or three small dots appearing a few hundred meters away, moving towards us.
What a human being! Did they come here to find the head?
"Hello!"
"Hey! We are here! Here!" I yelled and waved over there.
Those people in the distance paused for tens of seconds. They must have noticed us and were speeding towards us.
It was only when I got closer that I could see it clearly.
They are not the leader, and these people are not from our camel team. There are three people on the other side, two men and one woman. The clothes they wear do not look like modern people, but are somewhat similar to some nomadic people in Tibetan areas. The two men have shaved heads and sideburns.
The woman has pigtails on her head, a blue cloth strip is tied on her head, and a large earring is on her left ear. The two men and one woman also carry small baskets in their hands. The baskets are covered with cloth, so the contents cannot be seen.
What.
Could these be the Hute people? This was my first thought.
"Hello, hello!" I ran forward and gestured, "We came from a big city and got lost in the desert. We are looking for the Hutte tribe. Are you Hutte people?"
The two men and one woman looked at each other and babbled a lot. I couldn't understand what they were saying. What they spoke was not the local Yinchuan dialect, let alone Mandarin.
After a few minutes, the girl with big earrings pointed at me, then pointed down the sandy slope, stretched out her hand and made a shape in the air, trying to communicate with me.
I thought about her gestures and suddenly realized: "Girl, what you just gestured was a tree!"
"That's right!" I pointed to the bottom of the sandy slope and gestured: "There is a big tree there, the bottle tree! That tree can draw water. Are you here to draw water too?"
After that, I took off the homemade cactus kettle and handed it to her.
The girl didn't understand what I was saying. She took the kettle with a puzzled face, dipped her fingers in it and put it in her mouth to taste.
I smiled and said, "How is it? It tastes good, it has a nice aroma."
Her face suddenly changed drastically, and she began to chatter nonsense to the male companion. Her expression became more and more excited, and her face turned red.
After hearing this, the two men suddenly stepped forward with angry faces and grabbed my shoulders from left to right. They were strong and strong, and they forced me to go down.
"What are you doing! What are you doing!"
"let me go!"
"Where are you taking me!" By this time I had realized something was wrong, and so was Zhao Xuanxuan, who was grabbed by the arm and dragged downhill by the girl with the earring.
When they arrived at the bottle tree, these people discovered the wound on the bark. The wound was caused by me hitting it with a stone on the ground.
"Pfft!" One of them suddenly knelt down in front of the bottle tree and kept mumbling words. Listening to the tone and looking at the expression on his face, I realized something at this time.
Zhao Xuanxuan and I might have gotten into trouble...
The big bottle tree in front of you was probably planted by them!
