Chapter 223: Set Off Again

The next morning, the convoy set off again.

Leaving the small village called Lancuo, further into the depths of the Gobi, there was an uninhabited area with nothing on the map. That is to say, there wasn't even a basic road worn by vehicles; under the wheels lay land that no one had reached for decades or even a hundred years. The road conditions, or rather the terrain, were even worse. So-called off-road vehicles had to drive cautiously on such roads because you never knew if there were rocks or deep pits beneath the Gobi dust. And Zhuding Zhuoma had to rely on wind-eroded rocks and river valleys to find the markers ahead, forcing the convoy to approach the steep slopes near those rock formations.

Under the scorching sun and extreme bumpiness, those who had been enthusiastic at first were almost immediately defeated. One by one, people were wilted by the sun. At first, some were racing, but later they all obediently lined up in a row.

In so-called adventure and geological exploration activities, the experience in deserts and Gobi is completely different from jungle or ocean exploration. The ocean and jungle have abundant usable resources; that is, as long as you have survival skills, you can survive for a long time in those places. But the Gobi desert is the complete opposite—here there is only sand. Even if you were a demigod, you couldn't find anything on your own in the desert to sustain life. That's why almost all Gobi deserts are called "Death Places." And A Ning and the others were entering such a place for the first time; they lacked experience, so this setback was foreseeable.

I was also dazed by the sun. Looking at the rolling yellow dust outside, I had already thought of retreating. But the message that Zhuding Zhuoma had given me and Poker-face yesterday forced me to steel my resolve. Thinking about what happened last night, I felt an indescribable pressure again.

It is among you.

Who is it?

In Wenjin's notes, she mentioned many times that she had been evading "it" for the past twenty years. What exactly is this "it"? What bothered me was, why use "it" instead of "he" or "she"? Could the "it" among us not be human? It was a truly unsettling speculation.

At the start of the route into the uninhabited area, we followed a dry river channel. The Qaidam Basin was once a gathering place for rivers, most of which originated from the snow peaks of Tanggula and Kunlun. But in the past ten years, due to climate change, many large rivers have gone underground, let alone smaller streams. As we drove along the riverbed, we found waist-high wormwood everywhere, indicating that no water had passed through here for perhaps two or three years. In a few more years, this river channel will also disappear.

After three days, when we reached the end of the river channel, the Gobi would turn into desert. However, the deserts in the Qaidam Basin are not large; they are like scattered patches dotting the center of the basin. Ordinary herders do not enter the desert because it is inhabited by demons and there is no grass for cattle and sheep. Zhuding Zhuoma said that going around that desert would lead to the Salt Mountain Pass where she and Wenjin's team had separated. There is a large area of strange rocks there, like a huge city gate, so it is easy to find. Further in is the meeting point of desert, lakes, and salt marshes. These features devour each other, and the terrain changes daily, so even the most experienced guide would not dare to enter.

However, A Ning and the others had GPS, so they weren't worried about that, even though Zhaxi kept reminding them that machines can break down, especially in the Gobi where the temperature difference between day and night exceeds fifty degrees Celsius.

After driving along the river for two days, a strong wind arose. If it had been in the desert, this wind would have been a deadly trade wind. Fortunately, in the Gobi, it could only stir up a huge cloud of yellow sand. We had to increase the distance between vehicles to over a hundred meters, visibility was almost zero, and the speed dropped to the minimum. After driving against the wind for another half day, both the vehicles and the drivers reached their limits. We couldn't see or hear anything, and radio communication was impossible. It was no longer possible to continue driving.

The Caucasian didn't give up easily, but later we had no idea whether the car was moving or in which direction. He had no choice but to stop, turning the vehicle sideways to the wind to prevent sand from entering the engine, and wait for the wind to pass.

The car was almost shaking in the wind, and sand rattled against the windows. Not knowing the situation of the other vehicles was truly terrifying. I looked out the window; it was surging blackness. You could tell it was thick sand and dust outside, not nightfall, but there was nothing to be done.

After waiting in the car for over ten minutes, the wind suddenly grew stronger. I felt the entire car vibrate, as if it were about to lift off.

The Caucasian showed a look of fear. He looked at me and said, "Have you ever encountered something like this before?"

I thought, how could I have, and seeing his panicked expression, I comforted him, saying, "Relax, the weight of the Land Rover will definitely protect us." But just as I finished, there was a sudden loud bang, as if something had hit the Land Rover. Our car shook violently, and even the alarm went off.

I thought a car behind us, unable to see the road, had hit us. I quickly pressed my eyes to the window, and the Caucasian also leaned in to look.

The darkness outside was even denser than before. But because sand and dust are solid, they leave a silhouette when they scrape past objects. If there was a car, we might be able to see its headlights.

However, outside, we couldn't see any car lights. As I was wondering about this, the Caucasian suddenly let out a strange cry, grabbing me to look behind. I turned around and saw that in the dust outside the window on the other side of the car, a strange silhouette had appeared at some unknown time.

The black shadow outside the window was blurry, but it was clearly very close to the window. Squinting, it seemed to be a human figure. But how could anyone be walking outside in such a fierce wind? Wasn't that courting death?

Before we could even feel surprised, the shadow moved. It seemed to be feeling around the window, trying to find a way to open it. But the Land Rover was perfectly sealed; after groping for a while, it found no gap. Then we saw a face pressed against the window. The light inside the car illuminated his goggles.

I immediately recognized those as the type of goggles that A Ning and her crew were equipped with. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking, who the hell is this? Why would he get out of the car in such high winds? Could it be that the car that hit us just now was his?

The person outside also saw us inside the car and began knocking on the window, pointing at the door, as if urging us to get out. I looked at the weather outside and thought, hell if I'm going out there!

But before I finished thinking, suddenly a shadow of another person wearing goggles appeared on the other side of the window. That person was flashing a light and knocking on the window as well, both sides knocking urgently.

I sensed something was wrong, as if something had happened. Maybe they wanted us to get out and help. So I also found my cloak and goggles and put them on. The Caucasian took out two mining lamps, turned them on, and handed one to me.

We both took a deep breath and forcefully opened the car door. In an instant, a cloud of sand surged in. Although I was prepared, I was still blown back into the car. I used my foot to brace the door to keep it from closing. On the second try, using all my strength and keeping my head down, I managed to squeeze out and was helped by someone outside who grabbed and pulled me out. On the other side, the Caucasian who got out was immediately blown to the ground, and his curses were carried dozens of meters away by the wind. All around us was the sound of wind beating against our eardrums and the friction of dust in the air. This sound wasn't very loud, but it drowned out all other sounds, including our breathing.

As soon as my feet hit the Gobi ground, I felt something was off—why was the ground level higher? Bending low to avoid being blown over, I shone my mining lamp at my car. I was dumbfounded. Damn, half of the car's wheels were already gone, the body tilted at thirty degrees, and the part up to the foot pedals had sunk into the sand of the riverbed. And the car was still slowly sinking. This seemed to be quicksand. No wonder the car couldn't move no matter how we drove.

Without the car, we were finished. I panicked and rushed to lift the car, but as soon as I stepped near the edge, a force pulled my feet downward like a whirlpool. I quickly hopped back. Then the person who had been knocking on our window grabbed me and made gestures with difficulty, indicating that the car was hopeless and we should leave this place, or we would sink too.

He was wrapped up tightly, his mouth hidden in his cloak. I knew he was also speaking, but I couldn't hear anything. I didn't know who he was, but the gestures he made conveyed the truth. So I nodded and used gestures to ask where to go. He pointed to our trunk, indicating I should take my gear, and then made a gesture with both hands moving forward together. This was diving sign language for "search." It seemed that many people inside the cars, if they hadn't gotten out, probably didn't know they had driven into quicksand. We had to go all the way along to warn them, or these Land Rovers would become their iron coffins worth over a

I nodded at that person, made an OK gesture, then opened the trunk and took out my equipment, almost bending over, hunched like a hunchback to complete this simple task. By then, my ears were numb from the roar, and the surroundings seemed to have lost all sound, a vast silence—it felt a bit like watching a silent film, a three-dimensional silent film.

When I closed the trunk, I saw that our trunk lid was dented, as if scraped by some huge object. I remembered the vibration in the car, so I shone my miner's lamp around, but I couldn't see anything, only the silhouette of the Caucasian urging me to hurry.

I pulled myself together, thinking to myself that it might have been hit by a stone blown over, and then I followed those silhouettes, crouching as I moved toward the back.

After walking eighty-some meters—the eighty-some meters I felt, perhaps far more—we saw the headlights of the next vehicle. The front of this vehicle was already tilted up. We went over, jumped onto its hood, and found that the people inside had already run out. We found them a dozen meters behind the car. One of them had lost his goggles, his eyes full of sand, and he was screaming in pain. We formed a windbreak and wrapped his eyes with a towel.

We helped him up and continued forward. Soon we hailed another vehicle. The three guys inside were playing cards. We jumped on the roof for a long time but got no reaction. Finally, I cracked their glass with a stone. By then, half the vehicle was already below the riverbed.

After we dragged them out, the wind had become so strong that even stones on the ground were swept up, and bullet-like hard chunks occasionally whizzed past our eyes; if one hit us, we were done for. One person's goggles were struck by a flying stone, and his nose bridge was covered in blood. Someone gestured that we couldn't go on, that it was dangerous to continue. We had to temporarily stop searching and lie down to avoid this barrage of stones.

Several of us took out hard objects from our gear. I pulled out a stainless steel lunchbox to shield my face. The Caucasian took out his Bible, but before he could position it, the wind ripped open the pages, and in an instant, all the paper shredded into fluff and vanished, leaving only a fragment of the black cover in his hand.

I laughed at him and shouted at the top of my lungs, "That copy of yours must be pirated!" Before I could finish, a stone slammed into my lunchbox, sending sparks flying. The lunchbox was already catching the force of the wind, and suddenly I couldn't hold it; it spun away and disappeared without a trace.

I was scared half to death—if that had hit my head, there would have been blood everywhere. I could only hug my head tightly and press myself as close to the ground as possible.

At that moment, the surroundings suddenly lit up. A scorching, dazzling object flew past us from one side, startling us all. I thought to myself, Holy shit, what's that so fast? Before I could react, three more streaks of light flashed ahead, speeding toward us, and again whizzed by our side. Then I smelled a familiar odor—the smell of magnesium burning at high temperature—and I immediately knew what the flashes were: flares caught in the wind.

I couldn't help but get furious. Who the hell, what kind of idiot, would shoot flares in this weather from upwind—were they afraid the wind wouldn't kill us and wanted to burn us alive? A fireball traveling over 160 kilometers per hour at thousands of degrees—if it hit us, we'd probably drop dead on the spot.

But then I thought again and realized something was off. These people were all well-trained; how could they act recklessly? During expeditions, firing flares is a communication method used only in emergencies, because it has too wide a range and consumes a lot of ammunition. Usually, it's only used in the face of great danger or when the communication target is too far away. Now, under such harsh conditions, they still used flares, which meant something must have happened ahead.

I glanced at the people around me; they all had the same thought. I made a gesture for the three uninjured people to stand up. We needed to go over there and take a look. If they needed help or if someone was injured, we wouldn't be without assistance.

This was not something you could just do on a whim, nor was it a task for individual heroism. As soon as I stood up, my shoulder was hit by a stone. We all carried our packs in front of us as shields, adjusted our compasses, and walked toward the direction from which the flares had come. At the same time, we remained alert for any more flares suddenly appearing.

After walking for a while, we didn't know if we had deviated from our course, but about a hundred meters away, we saw three cars gathered together, but there was no one around them; they had already left. We searched around the cars but found no people, though the equipment inside the cars had not been taken.

The cars were sinking into the ground. We opened the rear doors, thinking we should at least salvage the stuff. Just as we were about to climb into the cars, another flare flashed, sweeping past far away from us. In that flash, we noticed that the location of the flare launch had moved to our left, not very far from us. It seemed we had indeed veered off course. Or maybe the person launching the flares was moving on their own.

We shouldered our gear. Although we were very tired, this made it less easy for the wind to blow us around, so we were able to steady our pace and walk toward where the flares had been launched. As we walked, we suddenly saw with astonishment, through the rolling sand and dust ahead, the outline of a gigantic object.

In the fierce wind, we hunched over, supporting each other, peering through the sand haze at that enormous silhouette. We were all very surprised and, for a moment, forgot whether we should continue forward.

The Caucasian beside me made gestures, asking me what that thing was. This guy had a habitual way of thinking: since he was in China, and I was Chinese, he should ask me about anything encountered in China.

I shook my head, telling him not to be foolish—I was uncertain myself.

Normally, without a doubt, less than two hundred meters ahead of us—if it wasn't a middle-aged, overweight Ultraman—it should be a huge rock formation. Anyone would think that immediately. But the road we took here was flat and open, and we hadn't seen such a tall rock formation.

Where did this rock formation come from? Had we all been distracted and missed it? I thought to myself, but I knew it was impossible. First and foremost, we had been searching for such rock formations all along the way because we needed shady spots to rest; the shady side of such rocks is the preferred resting place for any expedition. And normally on the Gobi, isolated rock formations like this are rare, so if there had been one, we definitely would have noticed.

But now I couldn't worry about that anymore. Such a large rock formation was a good place to shelter from the wind. Perhaps those flares were to notify us that a shelter had been found.

I started leading the way, running toward the rock formation. Soon I clearly felt that the closer we got to the rock, the weaker the wind became, and the more strength I had. When we were about halfway there, I could already see the lights of five or six mining lamps flickering ahead.

Overjoyed, I sprinted toward the lights, charging against the fierce wind, my steps uneven. But after running for a long time, the lights didn't seem to get any closer at all. Damn, they were that far away, I thought. Meanwhile, I was already exhausted, slowed down, and called to the people beside me to wait. I felt something was wrong.

But when I turned back to look, I was stunned. There was no one by my side—in front, behind, left, and right, there was only rolling savage sand and boundless darkness.