Later that night, in the early hours of the morning, after seeing that we were all asleep, Aza untied his camel, took water and food, and left on his own.
The journey went smoothly for the first two days, but something happened on the night of the third day.
He was sleeping in the middle of the night when he suddenly heard the cry of a camel. Camels generally do not bark unless they see wild animals that are dangerous to themselves. There are no lions in the Alxa Desert, but there are also some other wild animals living there.
Animals often appear at night, such as wild dogs (not hyenas), sand lizards, rattlesnakes, etc.
Aza woke up from his sleep and ran out in a panic to see if there was a wild dog or something nearby. As a result, he saw a bonfire in the distance. The bonfire was burning very brightly, and he could still hear people talking with the sound of the wind.
of noise.
At first Aza thought it was Touhou and the others who were chasing him, but then he realized that it might not be the case. As he got closer, he found that it was a group of people cooking meat around a campfire.
The people he met were the same as we met. Aza said that this group of people was another group of indigenous tribes living in the Alxa desert, called the Kayak tribe. Those people were all Kayak people. It is said that Alxa is deep in the
The Kayak people here migrated from Taklimakan over hundreds of years.
Regarding the Keya people, for Aza, a native of Yinchuan who has lived at the foot of the Helan Mountains since childhood, he knew that the Keya people were much later than the Hute people. About twenty or thirty years ago, in the 1970s, there was a foreigner who
A famous explorer came to Alxa to explore. He lost his way due to a sandstorm and had no water or food. The foreign explorer was rescued by the Kayak people when he was dying. At this point, the locals in Yinchuan knew that there was something like this in Alxa.
A tribe, a tribe they don't know yet.
A few decades ago, the Kayak people were very scattered. Some houses were separated by more than 20 kilometers. It sometimes took a week to ride a camel to visit one house. Time entered the last century.
After the 1990s, this group of Kayak people realized that it was inconvenient to live like this, so they began to gather together to build villages in the desert. From this, the Kayak people slowly gathered from all directions and developed into a real Kayak community.
tribe.
The Kayak tribe has their own language, culture and god worship. Aza told me that the Kayak people worship the sacred tree the most. The sacred tree he mentioned is the bottle tree I smashed. It is said that the ancestors of the Kayak people brought saplings from Taklimakan.
And after planting, it took hundreds of years for the bottle tree to grow to this size.
There are no doctors in the Kayak tribe. They believe that the sap of the sacred tree can cure all diseases and pains. If someone is sick, the Kayak people will bring sacrifices to hold a ceremony. After the grand worship ceremony, the Kayak people will use a knife to
Gently scratch the bottle tree, use a small cup to catch a little sap, then smooth the small opening with Populus euphratica gum, and pray that the bottle tree will heal the wound soon.
Zhao Xuanxuan and I smashed the pale white tree sap, which was regarded as sacred water among the Kayak people, and drank to our fill. We also took five large bottles of homemade flat pots made from dried cactus.
, so people became anxious with me.
Later, Aza, this bad boy, was captured by the Kayak people because of a verbal conflict. He didn't meet us until just now.
He continued: "You two destroyed the sacred tree of the Kayak people. Do you know the nature of this matter? It is like a devout Buddhist who one day has the Buddha statue he has worshiped for his entire life being smashed.
If you put yourself in their shoes, what would you do if it were you?"
I was dissatisfied and said: "What else can I do? I smashed the bottle tree they planted, but I am also willing to apologize and compensate. How dare they kill people in broad daylight."
"You're so cool," Aza taunted me, "You'll find out later in the evening. I heard a little bit just now that they were discussing setting you two on fire under the sacred tree. I'm afraid they weren't going to use it as a sacrifice.
Contribute your products to the sacred tree."
I immediately asked: "Do you understand the language of the Kayaks?" As for what he said that the Kayaks would burn Zhao Xuanxuan and me to death at night, I didn't believe it at all. I thought he wanted to see that I was afraid of making a fool of myself.
I don't believe it. I didn't chop down their sacred tree. I just smashed it a little bit, so it won't be like that.
Aza replied: "The pronunciation of Keya language is somewhat similar to that of Qiang language. I can understand part of the meaning, but I can't speak it. I know you don't believe what I just said. By tonight you will know whether what I said is true or false."
Already."
After that, Aza leaned against the wall, closed his eyes, and stopped talking.
It was getting dark, and we stayed there until about eleven o'clock in the evening, when torches were lit outside the door and there was a lot of noise.
The door was pushed open, and the young girl with earrings walked in with four or five big men. They were holding two thick poplar tree sticks with hemp rope tied to one end.
Seeing the menace coming at me, my heart skipped a beat and I thought, what are they doing here with sticks in the middle of the night? And they're also holding ropes?
suddenly.
"What are you doing! What are you going to do!"
Two big men suddenly picked up Zhao Xuanxuan, one on the left and the other on the right, and tied her hands and feet to thick wooden sticks.
"Xiaoxuan!"
"If you want to be beaten or punished, come to me! I smashed the tree! It has nothing to do with her!" I yelled at them with a red face, not caring whether they could understand or not.
Five minutes later, my hands and feet were tied to a poplar tree stick. Although I struggled hard, I couldn't break free.
Aza smiled and said: "Come on, I won't send you two away. Don't worry, my sins are far less serious than yours. In a few days, the Kayak people will probably let me go, and I will give it to you when I go out."
Burn some paper money so you can take flowers with you on the way."
Aza looked gloating.
The next moment, the expression on his face changed instantly and he could no longer smile. The Kayak girl with big earrings waved, and someone brought in a stick and two ropes.
"Misunderstanding, misunderstanding," Aza struggled hard and said: "You are mistaken! He and I are not the same group! I did not destroy your Kayak Sacred Tree!"
It's a pity that the other party can't understand.
After the three of us were tied up, the girl with the earring waved her hand, and the three of us were lifted up like we were slaughtering pigs during the New Year.
"You're paralyzed!" Aza scolded me with his head down.
I was also in a panic. I suppressed my anger and fear and asked him what to do. Where were they going to carry us in the middle of the night?
“Where else can we go!”
"Go to the Keya tree! We will be burned to death by the Keya people soon!"
"It's all your fucking fault. Who told you to smash the sacred tree?"
I got angry, turned around and said in dirty words, "It's your mother's fault. If you didn't steal our camels and water, why would I smash that bottle tree to get water!"
"Stop arguing!" Zhao Xuanxuan shouted at Aza: "Hurry up and find a way, we Sanquan will die if you are arguing!"
"What are you yelling at? You didn't see that I was thinking of a solution!"