Volume 7 Chapter 19: Setting off again

The next morning, the caravan set off again.

Leaving the small village of Lantuo, the caravan headed deeper into the Gobi Desert, into the uninhabited area where nothing was marked on the map. In other words, there were no roads, not even the basic ones made by vehicles. Under the wheels were the roads and conditions that no one had reached for decades or even centuries. The so-called off-road vehicles also drove cautiously on such roads, because you never knew if there would be rocks or deep pits under the Gobi sand. The team had to rely on the wind-eroded rocks and river valleys to find the signs of the way forward, which made the team have to get close to the steep slopes near the rocks.

The scorching sun and extreme bumps almost immediately defeated those who were initially enthusiastic. One by one, people wilted in the sun. At first, some people were racing, but later, they all obediently lined up.

In so-called exploration and geological exploration activities, activities in the desert Gobi are actually completely different from jungle or ocean exploration. The ocean and the jungle have a large number of resources that can be used, that is to say, as long as you have the skills to survive, you can survive for a long time in these two places. But the desert Gobi is completely the opposite. Here, there is only sand. Even if you have three heads and six arms, you cannot find anything in the desert that can sustain life. This is why almost all the Gobi desert is called “the land of the dead.” This was the first time that Aning and the others had been in such a place, and they were inexperienced. At this point, this kind of setback was predictable.

I was also feeling dizzy from the sun, and looking at the rolling yellow dust outside, I had already begun to feel discouraged. But the message that Dingzhuoma had given me and Mianyouping yesterday made me force myself to make up my mind. Thinking about what happened last night, I felt an indescribable pressure.

It is among you.

Who is it?

In Wenjin’s notes, he mentioned many times that he had been avoiding the search for “it” for the past 20 years. What is this “it”? What I care about is why “it” is used instead of “he/she”? Could it be that this “it” among us is not a person? This is a really uncomfortable speculation.

We followed a dried-up riverbed as we entered the no-man’s-land. The Qaidam Basin was originally a place where rivers gathered. Most of the rivers originated from the snow-capped peaks of the Tanggula and Kunlun Mountains. However, due to climate change in the past decade, many large rivers have turned underground, not to mention small rivers. We drove through the bottom of the riverbed and found that it was full of half-meter-tall wormwood. It is estimated that there has been no water passing through here for two or three years. In a few years, this river channel will also disappear.

After three days, we reached the end of the river, and the Gobi desert began. However, the deserts in the Qaidam Basin are not very large, and they are like spots dotted in the center of the basin. Generally, the herdsmen will not enter the desert because there are devils living there, and there is no grass for the cattle and sheep to eat. Ding Zhuoma said that bypassing the desert was the Yanshan Pass where her and Wenjin’s teams had split up. There was a large area of strange rocks there, like a huge city gate, so it was easy to find. Further in, it is the place where the desert, the sea and the salt marsh meet. These things devour each other, and the landscape changes from day to day. Even the most experienced guides dare not go in.

However, Aning and the others have GPS, so they are not worried about this. Although Tashi has been reminding them that the machine will break down. Especially in the Gobi Desert, where the temperature difference between day and night is more than 50 degrees.

After driving along the river for two days, a strong wind blew. If we were in the desert, this wind would be absolutely deadly. Fortunately, in the Gobi Desert, it could only raise a large cloud of yellow sand. The distance between our cars had to be increased by more than 100 meters, visibility was almost zero, and the speed was also at the lowest standard. After driving against the wind for half a day, the car and the driver reached their limits at the same time. They could not see or hear anything, and the radio could not be contacted. They could no longer drive.

The Caucasian was not giving up, but later on, we could no longer tell whether the car was moving or not, or in which direction. He had to stop, turn the car sideways to face the wind to prevent dust from entering the engine, and wait for the wind to pass.

The car was almost shaking in the wind, the windows were rattling with the sand, and we had no idea what was happening to the other cars. I looked out the window, and it was a black mass, you could tell that it was a thick layer of sand, not that it was dark, but there was nothing we could do.

After waiting in the car for more than ten minutes, the wind suddenly picked up again. I felt the whole car shaking, as if it was about to fly.

The Caucasian man looked scared. He looked at me and said, “Have you ever encountered this kind of thing before?”

I thought to myself, “How could that be possible?” I looked at him in panic and said to him, “Don’t worry. The weight of the Land Rover can definitely protect us.” But just as I finished speaking, there was a loud bang, as if something had hit the Land Rover.

I thought that the car behind us had hit us because it couldn’t see the road, so I quickly pressed my eyes to the window, and the Caucasian man also leaned over to take a look.

The blackness outside was even more intense than before, but because the sand was solid, it would leave a silhouette when it scraped something, and if there was a car, it might be possible to see the headlights.

Then I couldn’t see any car lights outside, and I was wondering why. The Caucasian suddenly screamed, grabbed me and looked back. I turned my head and saw a strange shadow in the dust outside the window on the other side of our car.

The black shadow outside the window was blurry, but it was obviously very close to the window. It looked like a human figure, but in such a strong wind, how could anyone be walking outside?

Before we could even react, the shadow moved. It seemed to be groping for the window, trying to find a way to open it. But the Land Rover was extremely well sealed, and after groping for a long time, he couldn’t find a gap. Then we saw a face pressed against the window. The light in the car illuminated his goggles.

I immediately realized that it was the kind of goggles that Aning and the others had. I immediately felt relieved, and thought to myself, “Who is this son of a bitch? Why did he get out of the car in such a strong wind? Could it be that the car that just hit us was his?

The person outside the window also saw us in the car and began to knock on the window, pointing at the door, as if he was in a hurry for us to get out. I looked at the weather outside and thought to myself, “I’m not doing it!”

Before I could finish thinking, suddenly the shadow of a person with goggles appeared on the other side of the window. The person was also knocking on the window, and both sides were knocking and very urgent.

I sensed that something was wrong. Maybe they wanted us to help them. So I took out my cloak and goggles and put them on. The Caucasian man took out two miner’s lamps and handed them to me.

We both took a deep breath and then opened the car door with all our might. In an instant, a cloud of dust rushed in. Although I was prepared, I was blown back into the car. I used my foot to hold the door open so that it didn’t close. The second time I used all my strength and crawled out with my head down, and was pulled out by someone from the outside. The Caucasian man who got out of the car on the other side was blown to the ground, and his curses were blown more than ten meters away. The sound of the wind blowing against my eardrums and the sound of the wind blowing against the dust all around me were not very loud, but they drowned out all other sounds, including our breathing.

As soon as I set foot on the Gobi Desert outside, I felt something was wrong. I bent over to prevent myself from being blown over by the wind. I shone my miner’s lamp at my car and was dumbfounded. Shit, half of the wheels were already gone, the body was tilted at a 30-degree angle, and the part of the car that was still on the pedals was already under the sand in the riverbed. The car was slowly sinking, and it seemed like a quicksand bed. No wonder the car wouldn’t move no matter how hard I tried.

Without the car, we were finished. I panicked and hurried to lift the car, but as soon as I stepped on the edge of the car, I felt a force pulling my feet downwards, like a whirlpool in the water. At this time, the person who had just knocked on our window pulled me over and gestured to me with difficulty, saying that there was no way to save the car and that we had to leave here or else we would sink in.

He was wrapped up tightly, with his mouth covered in a cloak. I knew he was talking at the same time, but I couldn’t hear anything. I didn’t know who he was, but what he was gesturing was true. So I nodded and asked him where to go with a gesture. He pointed to our rear hood, told me to get my things, and then made a gesture with both hands forward.

This is the sign language for diving, which means searching. It seems that if the many people in the car don’t get out, they won’t know that the car has already entered the quicksand bed. We must inform them along the way, otherwise these Land Rovers will become their iron coffins worth more than a million.

I nodded to the man and made an OK sign, then opened the back of the car and took out my equipment, almost hunching over and hunching like a hunchback to complete this simple task. At this point, my ears were actually numb, and it seemed like there was no sound around me. It was a bit like watching a silent movie, a three-dimensional silent movie.

When I closed the car cover, I saw that the back of our car had already been dented, as if it had been scratched by something huge. I thought of the vibration in the car and used the miner’s lamp to shine around, but I couldn’t see anything, only the shadow of the Caucasian urging me to hurry.

I calmed down and thought that maybe it was a rock that had blown over and hit the car. I followed the shadows and crouched down and walked back.

After walking for about 80 meters, which I thought was a lot, we saw the headlights of the next car. The car had already tipped over, so we climbed in and jumped onto the front of the car. We found them about ten meters behind the car. One of them had lost his goggles and was crying in pain because his eyes were full of sand. We formed a windbreak and wrapped his eyes with a towel.

We helped him up and continued forward. Soon we called out another car. Three guys were playing cards in the car. We jumped on the roof for a long time, but they didn’t respond. Finally, I smashed their glass with a stone. At this time, half of the car was already under the riverbed.

After dragging them out, the wind was so strong that it blew up the stones on the ground. A bullet-like hard piece of rock flew past our eyes from time to time, and if we were hit, we would be finished. One of them had a piece of flying rock hit his goggles, and his nose was covered in blood. Someone gestured that it was no good and that it was dangerous to continue, so we had to temporarily stop searching and crouch down to avoid the rocks.

Several people took out hard objects from their equipment. I took out a stainless steel lunch box and held it in front of my face. The Caucasian man took out his Bible, but before he could position it, the wind blew the pages open and all the paper crumbled into a ball of paper.

I laughed at him and shouted at the top of my lungs, “This must be a pirated version!” Before I finished, a stone hit my lunch box, sending sparks flying. The lunch box was already flying in the wind, and I lost it in an instant.

I was terrified. If it had hit my head, it would have splattered blood everywhere. I could only hold my head tight and press it to the ground.

At this moment, all of a sudden, it became bright all around us, and a blazing flash of light flew past us. We were all startled. I thought to myself, “What the fuck is that thing so fast? Before I could react, three more bright flashes appeared in front of us, flying towards us at high speed and passing by us again. Then I smelled a familiar smell, the smell of magnesium burning at high temperatures. I immediately knew what the flashes were – they were signal flares wrapped in the wind.

I couldn’t help but get angry, thinking to myself, which bastard, which pig, in this weather, in the upper wind, set off signal flares, afraid that the wind would not kill us, trying to burn us to death? A fireball with a temperature of over 1,000 degrees Celsius at a speed of over 160 kilometers per hour would probably kill us instantly.

But then I thought to myself, this can’t be right. These people are well trained, how could they possibly be reckless? In an expedition, the use of flares is a form of communication that is only used in emergencies, because its range is too wide and ammunition is expensive. Now in such harsh conditions, they have also used flares, so there must be something wrong up ahead.

I looked around at the others, and they all had the same idea as me. I gestured for the three uninjured people to stand up, and we headed in that direction. If they needed help or someone was injured, there would be no shortage of helpers.

This was not a task that could be done on a whim or with personal heroism. I had just stood up when a stone hit my shoulder. We all put our bags in front of us as shields, adjusted our compasses, and headed in the direction from which the flare had come. At the same time, we were on the lookout for any more flares that might suddenly appear.

After walking for a while, we didn’t know if we were going in the right direction, but we saw three cars gathered together more than 100 meters away. We searched around the cars, but didn’t find anyone, but the equipment in the car had not been taken away.

The car was sinking, so we opened the back of the car and thought that at least we should rescue the equipment. Just as we were about to climb into the car, another flare flashed, and it flashed past us from a distance. At the flash, we realized that the place where the flare was launched had become to our left, not very far from us. It seemed that our direction was indeed wrong. Or maybe the person who launched the flare was moving himself.

We picked up our equipment, although we were very tired, but the wind did not blow us too much, and we were able to stabilize our pace and walk towards the place where the flare was launched. Walking, walking, we suddenly saw with surprise that in the rolling dust in front of us, the outline of a huge object appeared.

In the wind, we hunched over, holding each other’s hands, looking through the sand and dust at the huge silhouette, all very surprised, and suddenly forgot whether we should continue to move forward.

The Caucasian man next to me gestured and asked me what it was. This guy has a fixed idea that since he is in China, I am Chinese, and anything he encounters in China should be asked me.

I shook my head and told him not to be silly, and I didn’t know what to think either.

Normally speaking, there is no doubt that if it is not a middle-aged, fat Ultraman, then it must be a huge rock in front of us, which is something that anyone would immediately think of. But on the way here, there was nothing but flat land, and we didn’t see any such huge rock.

Where did this rock come from? Could it be that we were all in a trance and didn’t see it? I thought to myself, I knew it couldn’t be, but first and foremost, we had been looking for this kind of rock all the way here, because we needed a cool place to rest, and the shady side of this kind of rock is a must-have resting place for any expedition. And there aren’t many such isolated rocks in the usual Gobi, so if there were, we would definitely notice it.

But now I couldn’t care less. Such a large rock is a good place to shelter from the wind. Those flares might be to inform us that we have found a place to shelter from the wind.

I started to run towards the rock, and soon I could feel that the closer I got to the rock, the stronger the wind became and the more energy I needed to use. Halfway through the journey, I could already see five or six miner’s lamps flickering in front of me.

I was ecstatic, and ran towards the lights, braving the wind and dashing forward in one foot after another. However, after running for a long time, the lights didn’t seem to be getting any closer to me. I was exhausted and slowed down, calling out to the people next to me to wait. I felt something was wrong.

But when I looked back, I couldn’t help but be dumbfounded. There was no one around me. All around me was rolling sand and endless darkness.