[Pu Ye] Gardener and Flowers

Up/I planted ten thousand Damascus roses, but reaped one desert flower

Amidst the noise, Kisuke Urahara opened his heavy eyelids.There was bright red flames everywhere outside, making figures running back and forth reflected in his tent.Someone is shouting, someone is drawing a knife, there are also the sound of horseshoes, horses neighing, and messy camel bells.He was hesitating whether to go out and have a look, when a black and swarthy thing suddenly rolled into his tent.

He sat up in fright.The thing wobbled and lay still on his leg.He tried to push it, only to realize that it was a person.

He scratched his head, turned the man over, and found that the face and body of the man were tightly wrapped in black veil, and a shocking gash was cut on his right leg by a sharp weapon, bleeding out continuously.It seemed that this person passed out temporarily due to blood loss or pain.

He searched around, found a clean turban, a half-bulged skin bag, and poured the liquid in the bag onto the man's wound.The man bounced off the ground as if being hit by a whip.Urahara only felt that his eyes were dazzled by a thin silver light, and the next moment, the cold knife edge touched his neck.

He just wanted to save someone, but the other party repaid his kindness with revenge.He didn't know how to explain it. The two looked at each other in the dark, and neither of them spoke.

The rapid and tense breathing was entangled between the face and the face.Urahara noticed that the other party's breathing was trembling violently, it was because the strong alcohol just now had greatly stimulated the wound.

He swallowed, and tried to lift the hood in his hands.Immediately there was a sharp stabbing pain on the neck, obviously the knife edge had sunk into the flesh.

The man glanced at the things in his hand, and he didn't cut off his head after all.

"……name!"

He froze for a moment, realizing it was the man talking to him.The other party spoke the northern language—his native dialect—very bluntly.That language, which should have been soft and pleasant to speak, has nothing in common with the language of the desert peoples in this area.

"Name!" The other party repeated, his voice was hoarse and anxious, and the gender could not be recognized for a while, but he was very young.

"Urahara..." He didn't want to lose his head.

"Really?"

Urahara guessed that the man wanted to ask him if this was his real name.It seemed that the other party only mastered sporadic short words and could not speak complete sentences.

"Yes," he said. "My name is Urahara Kisuke."

The man studied him silently for a moment.When a torch passed by very close outside, he saw an amber light flash in the pupils that were close at hand.He figured it must be his hallucination, after all, with his neck cut open, he was probably out of his mind.

Just as he was secretly lamenting his tragic fate, the man suddenly grabbed the turban from his hand, rushed out of the tent, and disappeared into the night.

"Urahara! Urahara!"

When Kurosaki yelled and came into the tent with all his heart, Urahara had just stopped the bleeding on his neck.Although the wound was painful, it was very shallow, buried under his matted hair, and it would not be found unless one looked carefully.

Kurosaki sat down with a bow.He was a big man, completely different from the uninvited guest just now, which made Urahara's tent suddenly very crowded.

"What's the matter, Mr. Kurosaki?" Urahara asked.

"Hey! Why did you wake up just now?!" Kurosaki couldn't believe it. "It's gone crazy outside!"

"What happened?"

"It's the patrol! They caught an Imayahan, but she escaped again!"

"Imayahan?"

"Yes. It's not surprising that you don't know this name when you come here for the first time. Actually, I don't know the specifics. I only know that it is probably a noble title among the desert tribes. These fierce vagrants control the business roads. If the caravans in this area offend them, they will die. Simply put, they are bandits in the desert, and Imayahan is the leader of the bandits. This kind of trouble has happened. The road ahead is really bad and bad!"

Urahara thought about it.

"...Did you just say that the captured Imayahan was a 'she'?"

"Yes!" Kurosaki nodded, then shook his head again. "Don't underestimate women! Especially that woman, she is the famous desert flower, the pearl of the night, the messenger of death—whatever you want to call it. It is said that her knife is as fast as the wind, as soon as she cuts it off The blade won't get your blood on your head. The kings around here offered a thousand ducats for her head, but no one ever caught her."

Urahara touched his neck with lingering fear: "A thousand gold coins..."

"It's enough for us to eat for eight lifetimes." Kurosaki sighed.

"It was so noisy outside just because they were hunting her?"

"Yes. She escaped into our tents, and set fire to some of them. The patrol came in after them, and everyone helped to find them, but there was no sign of them."

"What does she look like?"

"How do I know!" Kurosaki glared at him. "I've only heard rumors that her eyes are very special, as bright as burning amber. Also, her hair is purple."

"...Then," Urahara asked again, "do you think she will bring people to attack us after she escapes?"

"Better not to do that! Otherwise, even if there are patrols around, it won't guarantee our lives."

"Oh." Urahara sighed, and touched his neck again. "If that's the case, I just hope her knife is as fast as it is said to be. I don't want to see half of my neck cut off, bleeding non-stop, but not dying."

Kurosaki stared at him, unable to utter a word.

The next day, before dawn, the camel team set off to continue their journey.The patrol had disappeared without a trace.After tossing around in the middle of the night, everyone was listless, but Pu Yuan was in good spirits as always, riding on his little donkey, humming a little tune leisurely.

The scenery of the desert seems to change endlessly, but after a long time, it will become monotonous.The road does not lead to the dead center of the desert, so you can occasionally see some cacti.When it was almost noon, they came to a small oasis that was about to dry up as expected. People jumped off their hunchbacks and chewed their dry food.

"I hope it won't be too bad this time." Kurosaki said vaguely with dry bread in his mouth. "It's hard to do business now. I still have a son who hasn't married a wife. There will be more places to spend money in the future!"

"When I save enough money, I'll move to a port by the sea." Urahara fed half of the dry food in his hand to the donkey. "I want to buy a house there and eat fresh fish every day."

"Aren't you planting flowers?" Kurosaki asked. "That's a pity. Who will supply roses and flower oil to the maidens of the North?"

Urahara smiled: "Well, I can plant flowers for half a year, and after the flowering period is over, I will go to the warm seaside to spend the winter. As for the refining work, I can leave it to my assistants."

"That's good." Kurosaki agreed. "After a while, marry a beautiful wife, and you will have everything!"

The two chatted for a while, and Urahara went to the water to drink the donkey.The donkey buried his head to drink the water, and he bent down to wash his face himself.As soon as I looked up, I found a black flower blooming on the sand beside the water.

He was very curious, so he put his hands on the ground, bent down and sniffed.

The fragrance of the flowers is very strong, and the petals are thin and black, stretching proudly to the sky.

At this moment, he felt a slight tremor in the sand under his palm.

"Urahara! Urahara!" His companion ran up in panic.

"We're done! Here they come!"

"...What?" Urahara finally took his eyes off the flower.

"She really brought someone here!" Kurosaki stopped in front of him panting. "Ima Yahan, the desert flower, she brought her people to revenge!"

Urahara looked back, and saw a cloud of flying sand blowing up on the sand dunes in the distance.In the yellow sand mist, a fleet of galloping horses soon appeared.

"Hurry up, we have to do something!" Kurosaki urged.

Urahara immediately responded to this sentence, but what he did was completely beyond Kurosaki's expectations—he bent down and carefully dug out the black flower with its roots and ground.

"What are you doing?!" Kurosaki was dumbfounded.

Urahara said with satisfaction: "This seems to be a variant of desert rose, very precious. I want to take it home and plant it under my roof."

Herosaki opened his mouth for a moment, and finally decided not to waste his words with him, turned around and ran to the camel, and pulled off his knife.

The horse team came to the front in the blink of an eye.Compared with these warriors galloping across the desert, a caravan without guards has no fighting power at all.A dozen or so people were quickly confiscated with their weapons, and were surrounded together with their own camels.Urahara stayed alone by the water, and was not noticed at first, but he thought that even sneaking away would be useless, so he carefully held the flowers he had just dug up, sat on the ground and did nothing.

The veiled fighters soon spotted him slipping through the net.Several people jumped off their horses, drew their knives, and wanted to escort him to the others.But just as they approached him, all of a sudden, the points of all the knives stopped five feet away from him.

As if in awe of something, they didn't take a step closer.

Urahara was surprised to find that their eyes were all focused on the flower in his hand.

At this time, a person who seemed to be the leader came over.The others made a gap for the man to come between them.Although the other party was also wearing a veil, Urahara recognized that she was a young girl as soon as she opened her mouth.

Seeing the flowers in his hand, she stopped coming any further, and said sharply in extreme displeasure:

"You! Put it down quickly! This is Imayahan's sacred object, and the dirty hands of foreigners are not worthy to touch it!"

She speaks fluent northern dialect.It seems that among this group of people, there are also people who have learned other languages.Urahara flinched, obviously unwilling to hand over the flower.The girl became even more angry, but she didn't dare to go forward to snatch her.The two remained in a stalemate for a while, until a loud voice broke the silence:

"Broken Bee!"

Another veiled woman rides up on a fine horse.Seeing her eyes, Urahara couldn't help opening his mouth:

"It's you……"

That was the man who broke into his tent last night.

"Imayahan!"

The girl who was glaring at Urahara immediately turned around and saluted.They exchanged a few words, but Urahara couldn't understand anything except the word "Imayahan".

That Imayahan kept looking at Urahara when he was talking to the girl.Her eyelashes drooped slightly, but under them, Urahara clearly saw the same eye color as in the rumors—it was like burning amber gemstones, flashing golden streamers, extremely beautiful.

He stared blankly at her, wondering if he had any hope of begging her to spare her life, but Imayahan had already finished his confession, and with a flick of his whip, the steed took her away.