The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#135 - Assessment content?

After the time it takes to burn an incense stick, Lu Jing, refreshed from his bath, met the female shopkeeper again in the small courtyard behind the tailor shop.

She was boiling water, simmering the roots of some unknown plant, which smelled a bit like mint and catnip.

The female shopkeeper poured a bowl for Lu Jing and said, "This place is very far from the Central Plains, and tea cakes are hard to find, so I can only offer this soup as a substitute. I hope Young Swordsman Lu won't mind."

"It's no problem," Lu Jing accepted the bowl of soup, but didn't rush to drink it. Instead, he curiously asked, "What exactly is this place? Are you from the Chen Dynasty, shopkeeper? How did you end up here?"

The female shopkeeper shook her head. "I am not from the Chen Dynasty, but my mother was born in the Central Plains. When she was sixteen, her family suffered a disaster. She fled west, and after many twists and turns, it took her a full ten years to reach this place and marry my father.

"When I was young, I often heard her talk about her homeland and longed for the Chen Dynasty. I learned the official language from her. As for here... it's called Marasal Khan, a small city in the Mingsha Desert, which translates to 'Oasis of the Desert'."

Seeing Lu Jing lost in thought, the female shopkeeper added, "The Mingsha Desert is tens of thousands of miles away from your Chen Dynasty's so-called Western Regions. This desert is vast and boundless, and almost no one can reach its end.

"In addition, frequent sandstorms make it difficult for us to trade and communicate with the outside world, so Young Swordsman Lu has probably never heard of this place before."

"I see," Lu Jing nodded, "But in that case, why did you ask me if I was from 'that place' as soon as you saw me, and how did you know I had a wooden token?"

"Because I prayed a few days ago, and the Divine Well gave me a response."

"Divine Well?" Lu Jing raised his eyebrows.

"That's right," the female shopkeeper nodded.

As she spoke, she got up and went to the well in the courtyard, opening the lid.

Lu Jing looked down and found that it was just a dry well, with nothing at the bottom.

"This well was dug by my mother after she settled here, taking several months. However, before she found any water, she stopped and placed a brick she brought from the Chen Dynasty at the bottom of the well. Then she told us that this well was connected to a mysterious place in her homeland.

"The people in that place are very powerful and have all kinds of magical abilities. In the future, if you encounter danger, pray to them through this well. Just write the trouble you encounter on a prepared talisman paper, put it in a brocade pouch, and throw it into the well.

"At first, everyone thought she was just homesick and didn't pay much attention. Until this time, when Marasal Khan faced a crisis, I threw the brocade pouch into the well as she said. Unexpectedly, after only a few days, the pouch reappeared by the well.

"I opened it and found that the writing on the talisman paper had changed. It said that the government office had received my plea for help and would send someone over soon. The person coming would have a wooden token, which would be easy to identify."

The female shopkeeper's explanation confirmed some of Lu Jing's previous guesses.

In Hengji Coffin Shop, he and Yang Tao were lying in their respective coffins when they suddenly fell downwards without warning, and then inexplicably arrived here.

Lu Jing later recalled that, given the height of the coffin at the time, the only place in the backyard where it was possible to continue falling was the well.

Of course, an ordinary well couldn't have allowed him to fall so deep, nor could it have allowed him to fall directly into this oasis city tens of thousands of miles away.

This was obviously the effect of some powerful magic or some strange object.

And if that's the case... this assessment is for him to resolve the crisis here.

However, Lu Jing always felt that something was wrong. After thinking for a while, he asked, "Was only one coffin dropped in your city?"

"Hmm?" The female shopkeeper looked a little blank.

"I have a companion who was lying in a coffin like me. He should have arrived a little earlier than me. Has anyone seen him?"

The female shopkeeper shook her head. "I only saw your coffin, Young Swordsman Lu. As for whether other coffins have fallen elsewhere, I don't know. But Marasal Khan is a small city. If your companion had fallen here, the news would have already spread throughout the city by now."

However, since he couldn't find out any news about Yang Tao, Lu Jing could only focus on the matter at hand.

He took a sip of the mint-flavored boiled root soup, which actually tasted pretty good and was refreshing. So he continued to ask the female shopkeeper, "You said earlier that you encountered trouble. Are you referring to the sandstorms and the things in the sandstorms?"

The female shopkeeper nodded again, a look of lingering fear appearing in her eyes.

"Marasal Khan is located in the Mingsha Desert, so sandstorms often occur. The residents living here are actually used to it. However, about half a month ago, the appearance of sandstorms suddenly became more frequent, changing from once every two or three months to once every two or three days.

"Moreover, the interval between them is constantly shortening. By the time Young Swordsman Lu came here, sandstorms would occur about every half day. Of course, if it were just sandstorms, the problem wouldn't be too big.

"The key is those things in the sandstorms... Once you don't close the doors and windows properly, or leave a gap, making any noise, they will break into your house and kill everyone inside. Marasal Khan used to have more than 30,000 people, but now there are less than 20,000 left in the city.

"Everyone is panicking now, but there's no other place to escape in the desert. The nearest oasis city is at least two hundred miles away, and their water source is already strained, so they definitely can't accept so many of us. And everyone is reluctant to give up their property and livelihoods in the city."

Lu Jing digested the information he had gathered and then asked.

"Those iron-clad warriors, you just saw them. Do you have any impression of them?"

The female shopkeeper hesitated, "Today was also the first time I saw what they looked like. I was too flustered before and didn't think about it carefully. Until you asked, Young Swordsman Lu, it seems that I have indeed seen something similar in a mural."

"Mural? Where?"

"In the city lord's palace," the female shopkeeper said, "Every year on Harvest Day, Marasal Khan holds a grand celebration, and the city lord opens the gates of the palace, allowing the people of the city to enjoy themselves inside. However, this year's Harvest Day celebration was held a month ago. The palace will not open again for another eleven months."

Lu Jing heard a hint of subtext in the female shopkeeper's words, "What, is your city lord difficult to deal with?"

"After the sandstorms became frequent, he brought in a wizard to exorcise the evil spirits. The wizard told him that the disaster was because foreigners disrespected the spirits of this place. So he had already expelled the foreigners in the city before, of course... there weren't many to begin with."