At night, Zhou Jun stood on the sand dunes of Longbu Camp and looked up at the night sky.
Huayue came to his side and said softly: "Sun Aying took the letter and left overnight for Dunhuang."
Zhou Jun: "That letter is for Liu Zai. In the letter, I asked Liu Zai to go to Wen Zhongyu to discuss the official status of the personnel at the desert post station in Shazhou. In Shazhou, the appointments of all subordinate officials and servants are
I need the approval of the governor of Dunhuang. As the supervisor of the mutual market, I don't think Wen Zhongyu will refute my face."
Huayue hummed, raised her head, and said no more words.
Zhou Jun seemed to have remembered something interesting, and a smile appeared on his lips.
Huayue asked: "What's wrong?"
Zhou Jun: "Speaking of the stock market, I suddenly remembered the scene when you and I first met."
Huayue frowned and asked, "What happened then?"
Zhou Jun: "When I first met you, you were like a wounded beast, wary of everything in the outside world."
Huayue turned her head away: "You may never understand how sad and desperate I felt at that time."
Zhou Jun: "In fact, when I saw you in the slave market, for a moment, I seemed to see the shadow of an old friend in you."
Hua Yue turned around and looked at Zhou Jun doubtfully: "Old friend? Who are you talking about? Are you referring to your experience as a prophet...?"
Zhou Jun sighed, slowly sat down, motioned for Hua Yue to sit down as well, and said, "I guess you know more or less something about me... As the prophet you call me, in another world, I once
I watched helplessly as someone very close to me died in front of my eyes."
"Before they died, they still had the yearning for happiness and the desire for the future, but because of my negligence and my mistakes, they lost their lives in the end."
"A few years ago, you and I met for the first time. There was not only sadness and despair in your eyes, but in the deepest place, there was still a glimmer of light called hope. In the face of that glimmer of light, in order not to commit the same crime again, I
The past negligence and mistakes no longer leave regrets and regrets, so I resolutely chose to try my best to help."
Huayue was silent for a moment, and then said: "A long time ago, I never understood why you wanted to help a foreign slave girl you have never met, but now I got the answer."
After saying that, Huayue raised her head, stared into Zhou Jun's eyes, and asked: "So, how do you look at me? Is it just to make up for the mistakes you made in the past? Or is there some other reason?"
The moonlight is picturesque and compassionate like water.
In the bright light, Hua Yue has a beautiful face and a well-proportioned figure. She has long since shed her youthfulness a few years ago. She not only has the amorous feelings of an exotic woman, but also has a rare heroic spirit.
Zhou Jun knew clearly what Hua Yue's question meant, and he could guess the answer in the other person's mind.
However, he could not tell him frankly.
Zhou Jun turned his head sideways, looked at the desert in the distance, and said softly: "Tomorrow, after the affairs of the Dragon Division have been dealt with, we will find a guide and set off to Shicheng Town in the Western Region."
Hua Yue's amber eyes showed a little disappointment.
Zhou Jun's unwillingness to answer her questions directly meant that the other party had other plans in his heart.
Huayue's voice was slightly trembling: "When we arrive in the Western Region, do you plan to send me back to Dashi? Then we won't see each other again?"
Zhou Jun looked at Huayue and said, "I will accompany you to a big food trip, but things are not what you think."
Huayue: "What is that?"
Zhou Jun: "This year is the seventh year of Tianbao. If everything goes as usual, there will be an earth-shattering change in Dashi. When we get there, I will wait for you to make a decision after you have seen everything and heard everything...
"
Huayue: "Change? Choice? I don't understand everything you said." Zhou Jun: "When the time comes, you will naturally understand what I said."
On the second day, Zhou Jun bid farewell to his clansmen, and with Long Qi and the dragon guards as guides. When Sun Aying came back quickly, the group set off and walked into the hinterland of the Shazhou Desert.
Starting from Longbu Camp to Shicheng Town in the Western Regions, the journey is more than a thousand miles.
Due to the difficult roads and harsh environment along the way, Zhou Jun and his party could only travel more than thirty miles a day.
By the time they finally walked out of the desert, a month had passed.
The boundless Gobi Desert, withered Populus euphratica whistling in the west wind, the sound of camel bells echoing in the swirling yellow sand, and the translucent sky still inlaid with a few stars that have not yet returned home.
In the vast wind and sand, Zhou Jun saw the outline of Shicheng Town from a distance, and was filled with emotions.
Shicheng Town, also known as Dianhe City, may not be famous in history books.
But if you mention its other aliases, I am afraid that everyone knows it and everyone knows it.
During the Western Han Dynasty, Shicheng Town was originally called "Nuqiang" and it was a small country in the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions.
In the fourth year of the Yuan Dynasty (176 BC) of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty, Nuoqiang was renamed "Loulan" country.
In the fourth year of Yuanfeng (77 BC), the country was renamed Shanshan and the capital was moved to Muni City (today's Ruoqiang Town, Xinjiang).
In 400 AD, the Loulan Kingdom gradually declined, leaving only ruins of houses. Most of the residents in the city moved south and established the Shanshan Kingdom.
In the second year of the Yuan Dynasty (AD 675), the Shanshan Kingdom entered the Tang Dynasty and was renamed Shicheng Town (also known as Dianhe City) and placed under the jurisdiction of Shazhou.
Walking into the gate of Shicheng Town, the buildings and streets in the town are completely different from those in Hexi Prefecture.
There are Luobu people, Tubo people, Turks, Uighurs, Han people, Yuezhi people, Sogdians, etc. in the city.
The ground in the city is rugged and barren. Although the houses are built in uneven shapes and have strange styles, they are closely laid out. From a distance, they look like a community of stacked mud houses.
On both sides of the road, there are no ordinary flowers and trees, but there are reeds, tamarisks, tung trees and white grasses, which are completely like the Western Regions.
Zhou Jun and his party, a total of more than a hundred people, attracted the attention of the residents of the city as soon as they entered the city.
The powerful and majestic horses, the elite sword-wielding warriors, and the robes that hid their true faces caused people in the town to talk a lot and began to speculate on the true identity of this group of people.
Sun Aying rode his horse to Zhou Jun's side and asked: "Master, where should we go first?"
Zhou Jun glanced at the surrounding situation through the gap in the hood, and whispered: "Find a place to stay first."
As soon as he finished speaking, a clear and sweet female voice suddenly came from the roof nearby: "Guests who have come from afar, why don't you take off your veils and show your faces for everyone to see?"
Zhou Jun heard the sound and looked around, and saw a young woman wearing a gorgeous sarong, a hairpin decorated with colorful feathers, a high nose, big eyes and deep eye sockets, a white complexion, and a charming expression, sitting carefree on the roof.
, shaking a pair of snow-white and delicate bare feet, looked over with a smile.
Long Qi on the side suddenly changed his expression when he saw the woman.
He drove his horse to Zhou Jun's side and said to the latter: "Zhou Jun, do you still remember that I once said that when I was in Qiuci Town, I knew a contact person in the Hidden Sect?"
