The sun of Kucha baked the flagstone streets until they were searing hot. No sooner had Zhang Yifan's wooden ox convoy stepped into the city than it was surrounded so densely not even a drop of water could leak through. Hu merchants stared in amazement at the demon-mask carvings on the heads of the wooden oxen, clicking their tongues, their praises mingling with the chiming of camel bells. "Why do these oxen look like desert corsac foxes?" "Wrong, quite wrong! They're clearly Chang'an clay dolls!"
Zhang Yifan stood atop an ox's back, shaking a string of dried chili peppers brought all the way from Cyan Ox Village. "Have a good look, everyone! This is our Cyan Ox Village's 'Huwa Divine Ox'. It can carry a hundred catties and walk a thousand li, and inside its belly it can store three days of dry rations—"
Before he could finish, one of the wooden oxen let out a strange "moo," its tail flicking an abacus bead that struck squarely on the hand of a Hu merchant who had been secretly trying to lift the ox saddle.
Chapter 20