Lu County, located on the northwestern border.
In an area where vegetation was not abundant to begin with, the former Northern Lie Kingdom repeatedly invaded and plundered, and its herdsmen occupied the area and overgrazed, resulting in a significant shortage of grass production on the grassland. As a result, many grass seeds were eaten by livestock before they could grow to seed or mature.
In addition, goats make up more than half of the livestock grazing by the herders who have taken over this area.
Goats are fast-moving and adept at stripping the bark of sandy shrubs and digging up grass roots. Combined with trampling, this makes the grassland produce less and less grass.
This led to the formation of large areas of desertified land, ultimately resulting in the current irreversible vicious cycle.
Due to years of human destruction, the ground here has long since lost its cover. Coupled with the increasingly arid climate and strong winds, the wilderness has long since become a barren, desolate yellow desert.
After leaving the house, Yi Shangyun walked straight towards this place without looking back.
Before she knew it, today was the fifth day she had gone out alone.
Before setting out, she had indeed considered the harsh environment in the desert, but unexpectedly, she completely underestimated its severity and overestimated her own tolerance.
The desert at night is extremely cold, with a sudden drop in temperature, but the starry sky is exceptionally clear and bright, as if you could reach out and touch the stars.
During the day, however, the sand in the boundless desert is scorching hot under the summer sun.
At that moment, she intuitively felt that all around her were layers upon layers of surging heat waves, tightly enveloping her and making it hard to breathe, as if they wanted to devour her.
She had been trekking through the desert for far too long and could no longer endure the heat and thirst. Her lips were chapped and peeling, and even her mind seemed to be becoming somewhat clouded.
But he still refused to give up, so he forced himself to stagger forward, taking one difficult step at a time.
Just then, looking into the distance, she was pleasantly surprised to find a cool, emerald-green lake in front of her.
"That is...it really is..." He composed himself, and before he could finish speaking, he rushed toward her with overwhelming joy.
But just as she stumbled forward, about to reach her destination, a gust of sandstorm swept by.
She instinctively raised her arm to shield her eyes, but when the sandstorm subsided and she looked around again, everything was back to normal, an endless desert.
Only then did she realize: "Mirage, it was all just an illusion."
The only hope that had appeared in a long time was ruthlessly shattered. In an instant, she felt like a deflated balloon, and she no longer had the courage to continue.
In that instant, I instinctively felt that I couldn't hold on any longer.
Then, with a thud, he knelt down on both knees, then collapsed to the ground, shaking his head weakly and protesting, "I can't, I really can't walk anymore! I can't walk anymore!"
Immediately afterwards, it seemed that he could no longer control his own body and fell heavily backward, lying face up on the ground.
He then paused for a long while, seemingly lost in thought, and stared at the vast, boundless sky before him, feeling utterly listless, disheartened, and hopeless.
Am I really going to die here like this?
"Could that dream have been just a dream?"
"That mysterious water source in the desert doesn't exist at all?"
"Heavens above, even so, please let me see His Highness one last time before I die..."
"But Your Highness is in the capital city, thousands of miles away. How could you possibly be here!"
"Your Highness, I'm sorry, Yun'er was ultimately unable to save the people here, and I've disappointed you..."
After saying that, she closed her eyes in despair.
Gradually, she seemed to have truly fallen asleep.
After an unknown amount of time, she seemed to faintly hear the sound of flowing water through one of her ears, which was pressed tightly against the ground.
However, after thinking for a moment with her eyes closed, she smiled faintly and said, "This must be another hallucination of mine."
He soon fell into a deep coma again.
"Yun'er... wake up..."
"Yun'er...don't sleep...you can't sleep..."
"Wake up... wake up quickly..."
In a daze, it seemed as if a familiar voice pulled me back to reality.
In an instant, she felt as if she had stepped into empty air, and she suddenly woke up, opening her still beautiful eyes.
"Am I... still alive?"
Clearly, she was surprised by herself.
Without her noticing, her eyes glanced back at the ground and she saw several large birds, about three or four feet long, with dark brown feathers, huddled together pecking at something not far away.
Yi Shangyun was startled, as if she was quite frightened. She quickly regained her senses and tried to sit up slowly and carefully without being noticed.
Upon closer inspection, he murmured in astonishment, "Could that be... a vulture?"
Vultures typically feed on carrion in deserts and arid regions, generally consuming carcasses, and rarely attack healthy animals. However, they will occasionally prey on sick or injured animals.
Yi Shangyun had heard from the local people that, according to legend, there was a ritual called sky burial, which involved moving the deceased to a sacred place to become food for vultures.
Just as she was pondering, it seemed that one of the vultures had already noticed her presence. Their eyes met, and there was something bloody and unidentifiable hanging from its beak.
Yi Shangyun swallowed hard, instantly tensing up, and muttered to herself, "Do you also want to make me your next meal?"
In an instant, she froze, as if nailed to the spot, even finding it difficult to breathe, fearing that her every move, even a glance, would alert these ruthless killers.
"Boom!"
Just then, a deafening, thunderous sound suddenly rang in their ears, startling the flock of vultures that were eyeing them menacingly.
Seeing that it finally flapped its wings and scattered in all directions, far away from him, Yi Shangyun finally breathed a long sigh of relief.
As soon as he came to his senses, Yi Shangyun slowly and laboriously got up and went to look in the direction from which the sound had come.
In front of them was a sand dune over thirty feet high, facing south and sitting north.
The sound seemed to be coming from there.
So, despite her extreme weakness, she decided to go and find out what was going on.
After finally managing to climb the sand dune with the last bit of strength he had left, Yi Shangyun could hardly believe his eyes.
He stood there stunned, staring at the miraculous scene before him, and exclaimed, "A miracle! This is truly a miracle! In the depths of this vast desert, where only endless yellow sand stretches as far as the eye can see, there is actually a clear spring of water, the source of which cannot be found, that is flowing continuously."
This time, in order to verify that what she had seen was true, she was indeed sober.
She pulled out the short sword that Xuan Yuanhan had given her for self-defense, and slashed her arm. Blood immediately seeped out, and she felt a sharp, piercing pain: "Hiss..."
He exclaimed excitedly, "That's wonderful! That's truly wonderful! Heaven rewards those who persevere; I've finally found it!"
Soon, she took out a porcelain bottle that she had prepared in advance and began to conduct experiments using the materials available on the spot.
The small porcelain bottle contains a sand-fixing agent currently used to control shifting sand.
She quickly uncorked the bottle, added a few drops of freshly drawn spring water, and then put the cork back in.
Then, he grasped the porcelain bottle and shook it vigorously back and forth until he felt it was even enough and the two were completely mixed before he stopped.
After letting it sit for a moment, she uncorked the bottle again and mixed the white powdery substance inside into a pile of sand next to her.
After stirring it thoroughly by hand, he poured in the ordinary spring water he had saved and waited for a miracle to happen.
As time ticked by, she held her breath, her eyes fixed on the changes in the grains of sand before her.
The sand, which was originally very easy to seep water, became wet. At this moment, it seemed that no water was being lost at all, and all of it was still in the sand.
Next, she simply stirred the sand with the water, and the sand instantly became sticky, seemingly no different from ordinary soil.
She waited for a long time and saw that this condition could last for a long time, indicating that it had a very strong moisturizing effect. She thought that the plants planted later would definitely be able to absorb enough water from it.
At this point, a smile finally appeared on her face: "It really is so! I never expected that the sand-fixing agent made by adding this desert spring water, which looks no different from ordinary water, would be so perfect. It's almost exactly the same as clay in terms of feel and properties, and it's so much better than before!"
However, amidst his joy, another problem arose, so he frowned and began to worry again, saying, "But how am I supposed to bring this spring water back?"
After much thought, she could only take out all the bottles and jars she had on her, empty them one by one, and replace them with water from the sacred spring in the desert.
"Now that we've found it and confirmed the existence of this sacred spring, I'll go back and gather more people to fetch water from here. I'm confident that the people will be able to overcome this massive sandstorm!"
Having made up her mind, Yi Shangyun hurriedly started to walk back.
A casual glance back revealed what appeared to be a figure, half-buried in the sand beneath the slope.
He then looked around carefully, and then recalled the sound that had just saved him from the predicament and driven away the vultures.
He then speculated, "This sand dune is at least thirty feet high, and its slope is crescent-shaped, forming a huge sand dune echo wall. When someone slides down from the top of the dune, a huge roaring sound will be heard; could it be that he tumbled down this sand dune just now and drove away those vultures?"
With this thought in mind, Yi Shangyun lifted her skirt and took a laborious step, turning her head to walk back to where the person had rolled down below.
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