Chapter Sixteen: A Desperate Counterattack (1)
They were in a deserted area near Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
The private plane coming to pick up Cheng Muyang would arrive at Riyadh Airport the following morning. Before then, he seemed intent on staying here. After all, compared with the city, the desert was more suited to someone like him. If a bloody confrontation became unavoidable, it would also be easier to cover up. The bones and blood would all be buried beneath the shifting sands.
And this place was very close to the world's largest camel market.
That afternoon, Cheng Muyang took her to see the camel trade there.
There was more than just the sale of camels. There was camel milk, and even hamburgers made from camel meat.
Cheng Muyang handed her a camel-meat burger. Nan Bei took it with an odd expression and sniffed it.
“Does this really taste good? What does it taste like? Chicken? Lamb? Or beef?”
“It doesn't really taste like any of them,” he said with a smile. “But it definitely won't make you fat. Saudis have always believed that camel meat is extremely delicious and very low in fat. Most of the fat is in the hump.”
“Oh,” Nan Bei said, taking a small bite.
How was she supposed to describe the taste? She didn't think it was particularly good.
Seeing that Cheng Muyang hadn't bought a burger for himself, she held the one in her hand up to his mouth, indicating that he should take a bite. Unexpectedly, Cheng Muyang merely shook his head. She then held out the camel milk to him.
Cheng Muyang shook his head again and quietly told her, “I forgot to tell you. In the eyes of Arab men, camel milk is a natural aphrodisiac. It's very effective.”
“Ah.”
Nan Bei immediately lost any desire to drink it, too.
She remembered that last night, Cheng Muyang had not only drunk the camel milk himself, but had also fed it to her mouth-to-mouth. She suddenly felt her face grow very hot.
Because this was a market for trading large livestock, the place was extremely chaotic. There was even slaughtering on-site, and the bloody smell mingling in the air made her very uncomfortable. Nan Bei couldn't understand why Cheng Muyang had gone out of his way to bring her here, until they walked into a very large tent and she saw an astonishing number of beautiful stones.
They came in all sizes, arranged throughout the tent. The owner was smiling as he watched them.
All the stones were yellow-brown, their surfaces seeming to be covered in grains of sand, with two or three roses artificially carved into them. The one beneath the largest glass display case in the tent even appeared to have nearly a hundred flowers.
The roses were all different in shape, but every one had layers upon layers of petals.
“Desert roses.” Cheng Muyang slipped an arm around her shoulders and told her, “I've already reserved the largest one. I'm planning to have it sent to our home in Moscow.”
“Desert roses?”
He nodded. “The place where this stone was dug up is a red desert, so the rose stone formed there, like the desert roses from Australia, has a reddish-orange color. It's more valuable for display.”
Nan Bei touched the one nearby, able to feel the texture of the grains of sand.
Cheng Muyang explained it to her in a low voice.
He told her that at certain locations in Saudi Arabia, these desert roses were very easy to dig up. After digging three or four meters into the ground with a shovel, if they came across a layer of wet earth, there would be stones. And if they were lucky, they would find a desert rose like this.
“Quicksand can't grow real roses, but over hundreds or thousands of years, it can form desert roses that never wither.” Cheng Muyang wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and said quietly in Chinese, in a language no one else could understand, “Happy Valentine's Day.”
“Happy Valentine's Day.”
Nan Bei answered him.
It wasn't an especially expensive gift, but it was truly romantic enough.
He smiled. “When Shakyamuni was young, he lamented the suffering of birth, old age, sickness, and death. So he simply abandoned his royal status, left his wife and children during the night, and became a monk to cultivate himself.” His voice was clear. “I always thought what he did made a lot of sense. But after thinking about it carefully last night, how could anyone possibly abandon their wife and children just to escape the sea of suffering that is birth, old age, sickness, and death? He was really an idiot.”
Nan Bei laughed. “Shakyamuni was born with the lotus flower appearing beneath his feet with every seven steps. That's not a state of being that an ordinary mortal like you can compare with.” She took hold of the hand resting over her lower abdomen and joked, “Cheng Muyang, a man like you who casually quotes Buddhist stories while holding a butcher's knife is absolutely the nemesis of every woman.”
Cheng Muyang laughed but did not continue.
The owner of the tent had no idea what these two Easterners were saying. He simply stood to the side, smiling politely as he accompanied the two of them while they looked at the desert roses in all their different forms. He had even learned a few words of Chinese on the spot and kept saying, “Never wither.”
Nan Bei nearly died laughing. She was certain someone had given the businessman instructions beforehand to curry favor with Cheng Muyang. Cheng Muyang, on the other hand, acted as though nothing was out of the ordinary.
When the two of them stepped out of the tent, they saw a group of unexpectedly beautiful camels in the distance. Most were dromedaries, a breed commonly found in the Arabian region.
This particular group was especially striking. Their skin was smooth, and their eyes were large. They looked almost more like camels bred for ornamental purposes.
She watched with interest as Cheng Muyang told her beside her that Saudi nobles were particularly fond of camel racing, so these were premium racing camels specially bred by the locals. “Sometimes, when you come across a top-grade camel, a single one can cost at least five hundred thousand US dollars. The expensive ones can go for a million.”
“These?” she asked curiously, looking at the camels.
“Valuable racing camels aren't traded here.” Cheng Muyang smiled.
As he spoke, several well-dressed Arabs with distinguished features were buying premium racing camels on behalf of their masters. They were talking loudly. Cheng Muyang listened carefully for a while, then translated for her.
“This afternoon, there'll be a small camel race. We can go and watch.”
She had no objections.
This was their last day here.
After that, she would return to Moscow with Cheng Muyang and live there with him and Baobao.
About an hour later, the camel race finally began.
There was a brand-new racetrack several kilometers from the camel market. Many Saudi men dressed in white robes sat in the stands. Nan Bei and Cheng Muyang chose a corner and watched the young jockeys sitting atop the camels on the track.
According to Cheng Muyang, the younger the jockey, the lighter the burden on the camel, and naturally, the faster it could run.
So, looking at the boys sitting on the camels' hindquarters, clinging tightly to their humps, they all appeared to be around twelve or thirteen years old.
Once the race began, the crowd in the stands became excited. People kept getting to their feet, shouting loudly.
Nan Bei became fired up by the shouting as well and couldn't help taking Cheng Muyang's hand, only to discover that he was looking toward a place not far away.
She found it strange and was just about to follow his gaze when Cheng Muyang had already quietly placed a hand on her shoulder and said softly, “Don't turn around. They're here.”
“Who?”
“Our enemies right now, our friends in the future.”
CIA agents?
Judging from Cheng Muyang's tone, he wasn't particularly surprised.
The carefree mood Nan Bei had maintained for most of the day finally shattered again, and her nerves tightened.
She had actually guessed that after they had sent the nuclear scientist away and kidnapped their agents, the CIA would eventually come after them.
This time, they would have no scruples.
If, before yesterday, their primary objective had been to get the nuclear scientist out of Saudi Arabia, then their mission now was much simpler and more direct: assassinate here, in this place, the number-one wanted man on the CIA's list.
Cheng Muyang probably knew that this confrontation was bound to happen.
That was why he had chosen to remain outside Riyadh, deep in the desert, and play a game with them.
The camels raced forward, kicking up billowing clouds of dust.
Cheng Muyang suddenly squeezed her hand, then jumped down from the stands and held out an arm to her. Nan Bei followed him down. Cheng Muyang caught her firmly around the waist. When the two of them turned around, a large group of camels was already charging straight toward them.
And several men in white robes not far away had also clearly gotten to their feet and were running this way along the stands.
There were too many cheering spectators for anyone to notice anything unusual about these few men in white. Cheng Muyang and Nan Bei, however, were cutting across the racetrack at an astonishing speed, drawing a chorus of boos from the stands.
The jockeys were already sprinting. One after another, they jumped up onto the camels' humps, gripping the reins and repeatedly whipping the animals.
At this speed, there was no way the two of them could avoid them.
Fortunately, it was Cheng Muyang.
And fortunately, it was Nan Bei.
The two of them flew across the racetrack through the billowing dust. The moment Cheng Muyang stepped off the track, the hooves of the camels racing behind them had already landed on the spot they had just crossed.
While the staff stood there dumbfounded, the two of them snatched the camels that were about to enter the race right out of their hands. Cheng Muyang lifted Nan Bei onto one, then climbed on himself, quickly riding it away from the racetrack.
Behind them came the cheers and applause from the stands, along with the staff shouting themselves hoarse.
“What is he shouting?” Nan Bei turned her head and asked Cheng Muyang, whose face was pressed against hers.
“He says this is the champion camel.” Cheng Muyang's voice held a laugh. “The implication is that it's extremely valuable.”
“At least a million dollars?”
“More than that.”
“Thief.” Nan Bei laughed. “You're not just a scoundrel. You're a thief, too.”
Their conversation was torn apart by the wind.
It was indeed a champion camel. Even with people chasing them from behind, it left them far, far behind.
The vast desert stretched beyond sight. Nan Bei put on her black veil to shield herself from the increasingly fierce wind and sand.
Cheng Muyang was clearly heading deeper into the desert, avoiding unnecessary crowds.
She didn't know what he intended to do, but she wasn't worried at all.
If the trip to the Philippines had been an accident, this time, the entire journey had been meticulously planned.
The fine sand was powder-like, glowing an almost painfully bright orange-red beneath the sunlight.
Unlike a horse, a camel's bounding gait was absolutely torturous.
Fortunately, he held her tightly in his arms, keeping her from being jolted around too badly.
Afraid that the fine sand would make her uncomfortable, Cheng Muyang was actually thoughtful enough to pull her black veil up even in the middle of their “escape,” wrapping it around her entire face and covering even her eyes.
Nan Bei's vision was veiled in a faint layer of black, keeping her eyes from being battered by the scorching sun and blowing sand.
It was just somewhat difficult to breathe.
“There'll be a Yin-Yang Mountain ahead.” Cheng Muyang lowered his head and spoke against her ear. “Jump off the camel. Oman will meet us there.”
Nan Bei answered with a soft “Mm,” and soon vaguely saw the sand dunes and rocky hills in the distance.
How cunning.
Was this a trap he had arranged long ago?
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