Dare to shirk responsibility? This adorable little one will tear down your military district!

The truck bumped along the gravel road, and the wind and sand were strong in the truck bed. Gu Changfeng opened his military overcoat and wrapped Ya Ya completely in his broad arms to shield her from the wind.

Ya Ya poked her fluffy head out from the seam of her coat, her little mouth wide open, giggling happily:

"Dad, it was so funny to see that shop owner bent over under the tree just now. He was pooping like a fountain!"

His crotch was covered in mud. I think his inn should just be renamed "Public Toilet" and he should start charging admission!

Niu Dan sat down beside him, tucked the cast iron boning knife into his waistband, and replied with great seriousness:

"The latrine was already full. The guy with the big knife couldn't poop anymore, so he just plopped down in his partner's pile of excrement, and the two of them hugged each other and foamed at the mouth."

The smell under that tree in the backyard is even worse than the pigsty in Lijiaba; it'll definitely produce manure fruit next year.

Gu Changfeng chuckled and ruffled his daughter's hair with his rough hand: "Well done! This is what they call 'the wicked will be punished by the wicked.' We don't have time to waste words with this kind of scum. You did a good job with that packet of powder; you wiped out their stronghold without bloodshed. I'll give you a credit for that later."

Lin Wanrou, sitting next to them, rolled her eyes at the father and son, reached out to help Ya Ya adjust her scarf, and scolded, "You, you just spoil her. What kind of father teaches his five-and-a-half-year-old daughter to rub her chin like that all day? If this gets back to the big houses in Beijing, people will laugh at our Gu family for having no manners."

"Anyone who dares to laugh at my daughter, Gu Changfeng, I'll slap their mouth shut." Gu Changfeng glared, displaying his domineering nature and fully embodying the essence of a doting father.

Not long after the truck left Hongshanbaozi, a dilapidated, earthen-yellow fortress could be seen standing on the wasteland in the distance, with the tattered sheepskin sign hanging on the wall rattling loudly in the wind.

Outside the fortress, a large open space was enclosed by a tattered wooden fence, where fifty or sixty tall Bactrian camels lay, slowly chewing on hay.

Platoon Leader Li jumped out of the vehicle and led a few elite soldiers to clear the way.

Gu Changfeng carried Ya Ya, and Lin Wanrou led Niu Dan as the family of four passed through the wooden fence.

A gaunt old man squatted under the dilapidated wooden door of the earthen fortress, his head wrapped in a white cloth so dirty it was impossible to tell its original color. His left eye was an empty, dark hole, his right eye was cloudy, and he had a large brass pipe in his mouth, puffing away at it.

This man is Lao Ma.

"Old man, let's buy your camels and hire you as our guide to take us into the heart of the Taklamakan Desert." Gu Changfeng got straight to the point, his military boots slamming onto the rotten stone block in front of the old man, his imposing aura of iron and blood pressing down on him.

Old Ma didn't even lift his eyelids, exhaling a thick puff of smoke, the pipe tapping twice on the sole of his shoe: "Soldiers? The Taklamakan is a land of the dead; once you go in, you never come out. My life is precious, and these camels are treasures too. If you want me to lead the way, I don't accept government money or food coupons, I only accept this."

As he spoke, he rubbed his two dark fingers together vigorously. The meaning was clear: he wanted real money.

Gu Changfeng's face darkened. The national treasury was empty; the military funds he brought were all in ten-yuan notes. Where was he supposed to get gold for him?

"I have military duties to attend to, so the camels must be requisitioned. If you lead the way, the country will reward you handsomely afterwards. If you don't, I'll tear down this earthen fortress right now." Gu Changfeng reached for the hilt of his gun at his lower back, his voice extremely low.

Old Ma, a tough nut to crack, stiffened his neck and sneered, "Shooting me won't do any good. Without me leading the way in this desert, you'll all be dried-up corpses within a hundred miles. If you can't produce the yellow goods, there's no point in talking."

The scene froze. Platoon Leader Li pulled the bolt of his semi-automatic rifle, preparing to use force.

Just then, Ya Ya emerged from under Gu Changfeng's coat. She was wearing a military green tactical vest, and her two chubby little hands reached into her pockets.

"Grandpa, do you think this is enough to trade for your big camel?"

Ya Ya called out in her childish voice and flung her little hand at the stone block in front of Old Ma.

Two crisp "clang" sounds.

A bright yellow, heavy ten-tael gold bar from the Republic of China era, along with several gleaming silver dollars, was slammed solidly into Old Ma's face.

The gold bar gleamed blindingly in the sunlight, and Old Ma's only remaining right eye went glazed over. He abandoned his pipe and, like a starving dog pouncing on its prey, grabbed the gold bar, stuffed it into his mouth, and bit down hard with his yellow teeth.

Seeing the clear teeth marks, Old Ma was so happy his face scrunched up, he almost knelt down on the spot: "Genuine! Top-quality, pure yellow croaker! Oh my, my little ancestor, you're really generous! Leave it to me!"

Gu Changfeng was also stunned, looking down at his daughter with a puzzled expression: "Where did you get this thing?"

"Grandpa secretly slipped me some pocket money when I left!" Ya Ya blurted out, dragging Lei Zhentian into the mess as a scapegoat. Her big eyes blinked innocently. "Dad, don't be stingy. Let's buy these camels and get going!"

Old Ma accepted the gold bars, his attitude completely changing. He stood up, bowing and scraping, "Sir, you should have just handed over the gold earlier! I'll take the job. Pick any camel you like; they're all top-quality animals I personally raised. With me, Old Ma, here, even the fiercest Taklamakan Desert can be brought to a living!"

Without delay, thirty elite soldiers immediately went to the backyard to fetch camels.

Everyone tied military aluminum water bottles filled with clean water, dry rations, and tents to the camels' backs.

Ya Ya ran to the camels she rode, and when no one was looking, she secretly took out several large cups of highly concentrated spiritual spring water from her spatial storage and poured them into the stone trough in front of the camels.

The camels, which had been somewhat listless, suddenly tilted their heads back and snorted loudly after drinking the water. Their four thick legs stood straight as if filled with air, and they were more energetic than if they had eaten several kilograms of concentrated feed. Their humps even stood up.

With everything prepared, the large group left the fortified village and plunged into the boundless yellow sand.

The Taklamakan Desert is known locally as the Sea of ​​Death.

Upon entering the desert, all you see are endless, towering sand dunes, not a single blade of grass to be found. A gust of wind blows, and the coarse sand particles sting your face.

Old Ma rode at the head of the pack, leading the way. He turned and shouted, "Listen up, everyone! Follow the camel's footprints closely! Don't stray even a step! The sand below is deadly; one wrong step and you'll sink into quicksand, not even a god could pull you out!"

Gu Changfeng and Lin Wanrou rode on a large camel, Gu Changfeng's broad back shielding Lin Wanrou in front of him. Niu Dan and Ya Ya shared the largest camel. Ya Ya wasn't afraid at all, sitting on the camel's back, peeling open a White Rabbit milk candy and stuffing it into her mouth, her two little legs swinging leisurely.

It's so hot during the day you could bake an egg, but at night it's so cold you could freeze water into a giant block of ice.

For the first two days, thanks to the spiritual spring water that Ya Ya secretly fed to the camels, the caravan progressed remarkably smoothly. The lead camels moved swiftly, leading the caravan behind them to withstand the extreme heat, and none of the thirty spearmen showed any signs of dehydration.

Gu Changfeng saw everything clearly and knew perfectly well that it was his strange daughter who was behind it, but he just kept his gun at the ready and didn't ask any more questions.

Before we knew it, it was the third day deep in the desert.

The sky at midday suddenly became very strange. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky, the sun was a ghastly white, the sandstorm around us suddenly stopped, and the air was so stuffy that it was hard to breathe.

A massive sand dune, tens of meters high, blocked the way in front of the procession.

The camels had just climbed halfway up the mountain when they suddenly began to snort restlessly, their thick hooves kicking wildly on the sand, refusing to take another step forward.

Niu Dan, who had been dozing on the hunchback with his eyes half-closed, suddenly tensed up, like a wolf that had smelled blood, and pulled out the cast iron boning knife from his waist.

He sniffed hard and shouted ahead, "Dad! There's a strong smell of gunpowder! And a pungent stench of horse manure! It's definitely not our people!"

Almost simultaneously, the white jade amulet on Ya Ya's chest became scorching hot, her wood-type ability core throbbed wildly, and a strong killing intent surged straight to her head.

"There's an ambush!" Ya Ya shouted in her small voice, gripping the camel's thick reins tightly.

Gu Changfeng reacted swiftly, slapping the camel's neck and ordering sharply, "Everyone dismount from the camels! Take cover! Load your guns!"

Thirty elite soldiers moved in perfect unison, rolling off the ground and pulling back the bolts of their semi-automatic rifles with a "click-click" sound. Using the camels' tall bodies as cover, they leveled their rifle muzzles.

Old Ma was so frightened that he scrambled to his feet in the sand, clutching his head and trembling: "It's over...it's sand bandits! Those damned wolves, they always choose this time to kidnap people!"

Before he could finish speaking...

A cloud of dust billowed from the top of the massive sand dune ahead, and a dark mass of figures suddenly poked their heads out.

Forty or fifty burly men, shirtless and with their faces covered by tattered black cloths, rode on tall, rough horses typical of the desert, appearing all at once on the high ground.

They carried long, homemade muskets and had large, curved swords with blood grooves at their waists. Their horses' hooves thundered across the sand dunes, and they completely surrounded Gu Changfeng and his group.

The leader, a burly man with a scarred face, raised his homemade gun, the dark muzzle pointing down directly at Gu Changfeng in the middle of the group, and grinned, letting out a strange laugh like a night owl.