Chapter Eighty-Six: The Six Great Desert Tribes, the Serpent Clan!

Afterward, the old physician looked at the woman of the serpentfolk tribe whom he had tightly seized, reached out a hand, and with the air of a lecher pawing at a respectable lady, lightly stroked her pale cheek, a shameless grin spreading across his face.

The woman glared at him fiercely, gritted her teeth, and said each word with icy venom: "You can forget it."

The old physician seemed to have long expected such an answer. He chuckled and said, "I once heard a friend mention that certain nonhuman folk fetch a good price in the black market, especially women." As he spoke, he deliberately sized up the serpent woman before him with a look full of malicious intent, then let out a string of lewd laughs.

The woman flushed scarlet, staring at him in fury. Then, with a sudden spat, she hurled a mouthful of saliva straight into the old physician's face and said savagely, "Dream on. You want me to lead you to my tribe? Stop deluding yourself. If I brought you there, I don't know how many of my people would suffer because of it."

The old physician blinked, wiped the spit from his face, and the smiling expression on his face immediately darkened, like clouds blotting out the sun, sending a chill through anyone who saw it.

With a sharp crack, he slapped her across the face and sent her flying several feet. A mouthful of fresh blood spilled from the serpent woman's lips and dripped onto the ground, drop by drop.

"I rarely strike women," the old physician said coldly, "but I despise being humiliated even more."

After being struck away, the serpent woman lay on the ground for a moment. Then, with a sudden whoosh, a pair of blue wings, each nearly a zhang long, appeared on her back. She immediately beat those wings and, in the blink of an eye, soared into the blue sky, fleeing at tremendous speed.

"Master, she's escaped!" Lu Zhe cried urgently.

Yet to his astonishment, the old physician stood there calm and composed, serene as ever, a faint smile even lingering on his face.

Lu Zhe, seeing this expression, was utterly baffled. "Master, what are you smiling about?"

The old physician glanced up at the sky, smiled, and then lowered his gaze. "You must be wondering why I let her go, aren't you?"

Lu Zhe nodded without objection.

The old physician smiled faintly and said with complete ease, "If I hadn't let her go, would she have led us to her tribe?"

Lu Zhe froze, and after a moment's thought, found the old physician's words reasonable. Then he looked up in confusion and asked, "But how do we catch up to her?"

The old physician smiled indifferently, took a palm-sized bottle from within his robes, and Lu Zhe looked inside. He saw a worm about an inch long and as thick as an adult's finger, with a pair of wings on its back. What made this creature most peculiar, however, was the strange nose-like organ at its front, about half its body in length, with two broad nostrils at the tip, much like the snout of a farm-raised pig.

The old physician shook the bottle in his hand, looked at the bewildered Lu Zhe, and smiled. "This is a swine insect. I just used a certain medicine on her, and now we rely on this creature's sense of smell to track her."

Understanding dawned on Lu Zhe, who nodded in realization. So that was it.

The old physician opened the stopper and released the swine insect.

Once out of the bottle, the creature immediately beat its wings and hovered in the air. Then its elongated snout sniffed around, and it flew southward.

"Let's go," the old physician called out as soon as the swine insect had picked up the scent.

Lu Zhe nodded and hurried after the insect flying to the south, keeping pace with the old physician.

...

For about four hours, Lu Zhe and the old physician pursued the swine insect. Lu Zhe looked up at the sky and saw that the sun, once high at noon, had already tilted westward; evening was drawing near. Before his eyes, the desert lay in a wash of gold, countless rippling ridges of sand and stone rising like frozen waves, stretching all the way to the distant golden horizon.

Before long, the setting sun sank lower still, shifting from gold to a blazing red. Its fiery light bathed the glittering yellow sands, dyeing them a pale blush. A gentle breeze came drifting by, and the pale red grains rolled softly as the dunes moved like surging waves. It was a scene so stirring that one could not help but admire the majesty of the desert. The red sands brushed past, the sun went down, and with the fierce heat and scorching glare of day gone, the desert beneath the sunset seemed softened by a fraction. Yet within that softness lingered a trace of desolation and loneliness.

A lone plume rises straight in the desert; the sun sets round beyond the long river.

Lu Zhe could not help but sigh, "What beautiful scenery."

Then he came back from his reverie and quickly caught up with the old physician.

The two of them continued for about another hour. By then the sun had fully set, and night had quietly climbed the heavens. Darkness spread like a black net, silently falling over the entire land.

The sky was ink-dark, deep and boundless, covering the earth like a vast dome.

The desert night was beautiful as well. The sky above was a painted scroll, the moon bright and the stars plentiful; a crescent moon hung far off on the horizon, adorning the dark heavens together with the countless stars.

A night wind came from afar carrying a hint of cold. The temperature in the desert at night was far lower than in other places. Lu Zhe pulled his robes tightly around himself, then looked around. The vast desert seemed utterly silent, and as far as the eye could see, it exuded an air of grim menace.

Suddenly, as Lu Zhe scanned the surroundings, he noticed a faint glow rising from behind the hills to the south, like lantern light in the night, bringing a thread of dim hope to one long trapped in darkness.

"We've arrived," the old physician said calmly, focusing his gaze on the light coming from the south.

"Is that the serpentfolk tribe?" Lu Zhe asked thoughtfully, staring at the lantern glow in the south.

"Come on." With a wave of his hand, the old physician recalled the swine insect flying ahead into the bottle and hurried toward the hills in the south.

Without another word, Lu Zhe quickly followed him, striding across the desert toward the southern dunes.

The two climbed the hill at speed. Then, after they crossed over the ridge, what met Lu Zhe's eyes made him draw in a sharp breath.

A vast city lay directly ahead of the dune where Lu Zhe stood. At this moment the city blazed with lights that pierced the heavens; their brilliance even lit the surrounding land with dazzling clarity. Along the outer walls stood many people armed with weapons, pacing back and forth in patrol. They seemed to be the soldiers guarding the walls.

"Incredible. To build such a huge city in this barren wasteland of blowing sand and stones..." Lu Zhe exclaimed in admiration as he looked at it.

The old physician smiled faintly. "Nothing remarkable. If I am not mistaken, this should be her tribe: one of the six great tribes of the desert, the serpentfolk tribe."

Sorry, I had something to do today and just got back, so I hurried to update this. Please recommend and bookmark it.