Sun Fuping signaled for Nian Songyu to wait a little longer.
That wait dragged on for barely five or six minutes.
Every creature beneath the sand had been driven away by the stench. Within a radius of dozens of feet, not a single sign of life remained—nothing save the howling of the wind.
"Still not here?" Nian Songyu said impatiently. "Time is precious." Night fell quickly in the Panlong Desert. In barely two shichen, darkness would blanket the land, and they had little time to waste idling here.
"Not yet." Sweat beaded across Situ Han's forehead, though whether from the scorching sun or raw anxiety, no one could say. "It might be coming from far away. It takes time to crawl this far."
He Lingchuan did not miss the chance to speak up for Situ Han. "I've seen one before. It's an absolute behemoth. There's a decent chance it really can haul us across the desert, saving us time and effort."
"A decent chance?" The phrase turned Nian Songyu's tone venomous. "You dare waste our time on something you aren't even certain of?"
Another two sticks of incense burned down, yet the end of Red Cliff Road remained dead silent.
A great gust swept across the dazed crowd, whistling shrilly as it rushed off into the distance.
Nian Songyu's index finger tapped lightly against the scabbard of his blade—*tap, tap-tap*—a sure sign his patience had worn thin.
With every passing moment, he grew more convinced that the bandits were acting under He Lingchuan's instructions, deliberately making fools of his men. After all, it was He Lingchuan who had brought up that so-called "scent bun" in the first place.
Nian Songyu's gaze turned increasingly hostile. He Lingchuan pretended not to notice, though a flicker of unease stirred in his own chest.
Watching the sun sink further into the western sky, even Sun Fuping finally lost his temper. "We wait no longer. Everyone aboard the boats..."
During the wait, he had already divided the company into three groups, assigning each to one of the walnut boats.
Time was running out. They could afford to delay no further; they had to depart at once.
Just then, Situ Han raised a finger to his lips and shushed sharply. "It's here!"
To make such a gesture before so many dignitaries was exceedingly rude, but in his state of tense excitement, he had no mind for courtesies.
The moment his words fell, a massive splash echoed out. The sands parted like churning water, and yellow sand sprayed in all directions, as if a localized dust storm had erupted on the spot.
A colossal monstrosity broke nearly ten feet out of the ground, clamped down on the cured meat in its jaws, and crashed heavily back onto the earth.
Dust billowed into the air once more.
With an agility entirely belying its sheer size, the creature dove back beneath the surface and vanished into the sea of sand in the blink of an eye.
Ignoring the sand plastered across his face, Situ Han cheered, "It's here! It's here! It really came! *Pah! Pah!*" He hastily spat out several mouthfuls of grit.
Aside from National Preceptor Sun and a few others who had raised their protective astral qi in time, the rest of the group was left disheveled and covered in dust.
Even so, everyone finally got a clear look at what sort of creature Situ Han had reeled in with his long line.
The beast resembled both an eel and an earthworm—long, cylindrical, and limbless, with deeply segmented rings along its torso and a hide nearly identical in color to the yellow sand. If it lay dormant beneath the surface, even the sharpest eyes would struggle to distinguish it.
Yet unlike an eel, its maw was staggering in size. When gaping wide, its jaw stretched broader than its own body, lined inside with dense rows of needle-sharp teeth. Beside its mouth hung two long barbels, seemingly used to sense the flow and currents of the shifting sands.
Zeng Feixiong gasped, "An earth dragon of that size?!"
The creature had reached a full eight zhang—twenty-six meters—in length!
The soldiers nearby instinctively took half a step back. The sheer dread inspired by such colossal proportions could not be dispelled by reason alone.
This earth dragon was no marine snake eel, but a creature unique to the desert. In truth, whether living beneath the sand or within the sea, certain beasts seemed to have no need for legs at all.
In other deserts, however, these creatures rarely exceeded one zhang in length, and experienced travelers would even catch them for food. But the beast before them... In all the times Zeng Feixiong had led patrols back and forth along Red Cliff Road, he had never laid eyes on an earth dragon of this magnitude!
Situ Han let out a breath of relief. "And that's not even an earth dragon king... The largest one we've ever seen spanned over twelve zhang."
"Since it's such a giant, that tiny morsel won't begin to satisfy it." He Lingchuan pointed toward the three walnut boats. "Earth dragons possess immense brute strength. Pulling a single boat should be effortless. What's more, they usually hunt in packs."
Which meant the rotting meat had drawn far more than just one.
Children raised by the coast learned to fish, while the original He Lingchuan, raised on the edge of the Panlong Desert, had angled for earth dragons plenty of times.
Of course, he had never used such potent bait, nor had he ever seen prey of this scale.
Situ Han nodded. "Everyone, please board the boats. If we repeat the trick, we can harness them like carriage horses!"
With that, the soldiers boarded the three vessels, while the boatman at the prow of each walnut boat seized a towline, tied a slipknot, and waited on high alert.
This time, everyone covered their noses and mouths, so when the bandits brought out another large slab of cured meat and poured the foul liquid over it, no one was overwhelmed. Nian Songyu took matters into his own hands, fixing the heavily doctored meat onto the tip of a boat pole, stepping to the prow, and thrusting it high into the air.
The boatman's pole was itself an extension of the walnut boat, capable of extending and shortening at will.
The sand bandits' special foul brew was capable of repelling nearly every living creature in the desert, serving as their ultimate trump card when fleeing for their lives in an emergency. Yet every advantage came with a drawback: this concoction was the earth dragon's favorite treat.
More precisely, what the earth dragon loved was the stench.
They were scavengers by nature. The putrid rot that other creatures found utterly intolerable was, to an earth dragon, the irresistible aroma of a banquet. A stench of this caliber drifting through the air was like the dinner bell for an annual village feast of forty-eight overflowing bowls—they would come from miles away, without fail.
Situ Han called out a reminder, "They're remarkably stupid! Just dangle the foul meat before them, and the boat will move!"
Having traveled such great distances to get here, the beasts would not disperse anytime soon.
Sure enough, the moment the foul meat was hoisted, a massive earth dragon burst through the sand, lunging straight for the morsel.
In size, it was even larger than the one before.
Nian Songyu moved with swift precision. With a flick of his wrist, he jerked the pole upward, lifting the meat out of reach and sending the beast snapping at empty air.
The boatman standing beside him flung the towline forward, looping it with uncanny accuracy right around the earth dragon's neck.
Though the creature was round and limbless, the segmented rings along its body ran deep. The slipknot slid past two ridges before seating firmly behind the third.
Caught completely off guard, the earth dragon panicked and surged forward over thirty zhang in an instant. Only after the knot pulled tight and held fast did Nian Songyu lower the pole, dangling the cured meat just ahead and above the beast.
The enticing aroma filled its senses, and with its tiny brain, the earth dragon promptly forgot it had been collared. Drooling copiously, it swam forward through the sand, fixated entirely on the meat.
Possessing boundless brute force, it hauled the boat and its entire crew forward with effortless ease.
And so, the vessel set off.
All Nian Songyu had to do was steer the pole, and the towing earth dragon would obediently turn wherever he led. A continuous *hissing* rasp came from below as sand abraded the walnut boat's hull, testifying to the creature's formidable pulling power.
The helmsman's most vital duty was to keep the prow adjusted so that the boat and the earth dragon traveled downwind, ensuring the foul meat hanging out front would not suffocate everyone aboard.
For the moment, nothing was of greater importance.
In the blink of an eye, Nian Songyu's boat had sped over a hundred zhang into the distance.
"It's our turn!" With a successful example before them, the rest of the company was greatly invigorated. Sun Fuping and Zeng Feixiong led their squad onto the second boat, while the He father and son boarded the last vessel with the bandits, setting out in the exact same fashion.
Chapter 27