Volume 7 Chapter 20: Lost

The wind here was not as overbearing as it had been. It was whirling around me, but there was definitely something in front of me that was blocking the wind. I wasn’t walking fast, so how could I have fallen behind?

I raised my miner’s lamp and looked around, but I didn’t see any shadows. I regretted that I had been too focused on the task at hand and hadn’t paid enough attention to my surroundings. However, in such a strong wind, there was really nothing to pay attention to. The sound of the wind was so loud that no one could hear it, and all of my energy had to be focused on the destination in front of me and on keeping my balance.

I was suddenly alone, and I felt a moment of fear, but I quickly dispelled it. I took a break, breathed deeply, and then continued on. At this point, I couldn’t go back to find them. I had lost my sense of direction. If I went back, I wouldn’t know where I would end up. The best thing to do was to keep going forward.

I threw off a package of equipment. This thing is really too heavy. Foreigners’ adventure equipment is very personalized. Once I saw someone carrying a photo frame as big as his wife’s shield and a data book like a phone book. I was too lazy to carry them for them, so I ran lightly to the place where the light was.

However, no matter how I ran, the light was still far away, as if it had not come close at all. I was panting heavily and thought of giving up, but I was unwilling to do so. As I ran, the light in front of me became blurry.

Just as I was about to lose consciousness and fall to the ground, suddenly, someone caught me. I had no strength left, and when they pulled me, I fell to the ground. I looked up and, through my goggles, I recognized the eyes of the two men. One was Mian Youbing, and the other was Black Glasses. His goggles were also black. These two men quickly pulled me up and dragged me in the other direction.

I tried to break free and point to the front to tell them where there was shelter from the wind.

However, when I looked again, I froze. I couldn’t see anything. The lights in front had disappeared, and it was pitch black. Even the huge silhouette was gone.

Muyoubing and Black Glasses didn’t pay any attention to me and dragged me along. At this time, I saw that Black Glasses was holding a flare gun in his hand. The two of them were extremely strong, and my weight of nearly 180 pounds was carried by them at a great speed. I soon came to my senses and began to kick with my feet, indicating that I could run on my own.

They let go of me, and I immediately regretted it. These two people ran so fast that it took all my strength to keep up with them. I gritted my teeth and ran as fast as I could, following them all the way. I ran for twenty minutes, and in the end, all I could see were the two shadows running in front of me. In a trance, I knew that we had already rushed up to the riverbank, bypassed a mound of earth, and then the two shadows in front of me disappeared.

I yelled at them to wait for me, and then suddenly tripped and fell, rolling down a slope. I struggled to get up and spit out the mud in my mouth. Looking around, I saw that the slope was actually a deep ditch, full of people who were huddled in the ditch to escape the wind. They all looked up at me when they saw me fall.

We were huddled at the bottom of the trench, with the sand and dust swirling past our heads. The Gobi Desert is not always flat, especially where there used to be rivers. There are many branch channels that were washed out during the flood season on both sides of the river. These scars on the Gobi Desert are not very deep, but they are also two or three meters, which is enough for us to avoid the wind.

I was exhausted, and several people came over and dragged me to the bottom of the trench. It turned out that there was a large depression on one side of the bottom of the ditch. It looked like a huge poplar tree had been blown over and its roots had broken off, forming a pit that had been washed away by the water. The poplar trunk was buried at the bottom of the ditch, and only a small part of it could be seen. They were all huddled in this depression, warming themselves with smokeless stoves. There was not a breath of wind.

I was dragged in by the people. The depression was shallow and not very high, and it was already very cramped inside. They made room for me and one of them handed me some water. This was a dead spot for the wind, and I could already speak, but my ears had not yet adjusted, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying for a while.

After drinking a few sips of water, I felt much better. I took off my goggles and thought to myself, “Damn, there are so many good places in China, why did I have to come here?”

However, this kind of wind is not uncommon in the Qaidam Basin. This is not the most terrible wind. I saw a documentary about the geological exploration of the Qaidam Basin in my early years. At that time, the exploration team was setting up tents when the trade winds came, and the people were blown up like kites. The supplies were all blown out of the tent in an instant. It was more than ten miles away. But what I found strange was that Dingzhuoma didn’t warn us. The trade winds on the Gobi are very obvious. Not to mention the elderly, anyone who has lived here for a while can feel the rhythm.

Similarly, I don’t know when this wind will blow itself out. I often hear people in the Gobi say that this kind of place only blows twice a year, for half a year each time, and once it starts blowing, it never stops. If it doesn’t stop for a long time, we’re finished.

The stuffy oil bottle and the black-glasses guy quickly went out again, definitely to find other people. The people here were obviously scared, and not many of them spoke, all huddled together. I felt a bit of a laugh in my heart, thinking that I thought these people were like Indiana Jones, but they turned out to be just as useless. However, I soon found that my feet kept shaking and I couldn’t stand up at all.

The person who handed me the water asked me if I was okay, if I had any bruises. I shook my head and said I was fine.

To be honest, I still remember the experience of braving the blizzard in Changbai Mountain. Compared to that time, this time was already comfortable, at least we could hide and didn’t have to worry about freezing to death.

I poured some water on my face and washed my face. My eyes were hurting from the goggles, but they gradually eased up.

After I relaxed, I was able to observe the people in the pit. I didn’t see Aning. Ding Zhuoma, her daughter-in-law, and Zaxi were in the deepest part of the pit. Wu Laosi was also there. There weren’t many people. It seemed that most of the people were still outside, and I didn’t see the Caucasians.

There were too many people in this group, I thought to myself. Aning and the others must still be looking for them. With so many people, even if they were superheroes, they couldn’t possibly take care of everyone. Fortunately, we weren’t in the desert, otherwise, I’m afraid we would all be dead.

Three hours later, the wind finally slowed down a bit. Mian Youbing and the others were still able to bring back a few people occasionally at first, but later, their physical strength couldn’t take it anymore, so they stopped going out. We all huddled inside, dazed and confused, until it really got dark. The wind outside was like a demon howling, which was irritating at first, but later on I just felt like sleeping.

I had already prepared for the night, so I wasn’t surprised. Many people had actually fallen asleep. Someone went out in the wind and found food in the many piles of luggage outside. We ate a little hastily and I fell asleep leaning against the yellow sand.

I didn’t sleep for long, and when I woke up, the wind had died down a lot. This was a good sign. I saw that most of the people were sleeping. Tashi was sitting on the edge of the depression, as if he was keeping watch. It wasn’t safe here. Above our heads were either rocks or cracked earth and sand, so from time to time, sand would fall from above. When I was asleep, I ate a mouthful of sand, which made me feel very uncomfortable.

I didn’t want to talk to Zashi. He wasn’t a very easy person to get along with, or he was wary of us. I wasn’t the type to stick my head in the lion’s mouth, so I didn’t care about his attitude. I just wanted to get some fresh air and sleep somewhere else.

But when I walked over, I heard a noise outside and saw the light of a miner’s lamp. It seemed like someone was outside.

I was curious and asked Zashi what was going on. Zaxi handed me a local tobacco and said that Aning had returned. The wind had died down, and they had sent someone out to look for the others and to see how the cars were doing.

I thought about the cars stuck in the sand and was a little worried. With such a strong wind and sandstorm, I didn’t know if the cars could be driven after they were dug out. I was also worried about the Caucasian, and I didn’t know if he had returned. So I put on my goggles and cloak and went out to ask about the situation.

As soon as I stepped outside, I felt relieved. The wind was not as strong as I had expected. It seemed that the storm had passed. There was almost no sand in the air. I took off my cloak and breathed in the cool air of the Gobi. Then I walked towards the miner’s lamp.

It was the direction of the riverbed. I walked down and came to them.

They were checking a car that was stuck in the sand at an angle. Only the front of the car was left. Aning was holding a radio and anxiously adjusting the frequency.

I asked them, “How is it?”

One of them shook his head and said, “Family members are scattered.”

I was puzzled and didn’t quite understand what he meant, so I looked at Aning.

She saw me and smiled reluctantly, then came over and explained, “Just now, Dingzhuoma said that the wind might pick up again, so we must find a better shelter as soon as possible. But our cars are stuck, and several of them will definitely be scrapped. The others may not be able to drive, and they need to be repaired.” She paused, “The most troublesome thing is that four people are missing. They may have lost their way when the wind just started to blow. We just looked around and couldn’t find them.”

I asked which people, and Aning said it was the Caucasian and three others I didn’t know.

The Caucasian was with me when he disappeared, so I pointed them in the direction and asked if they had looked in that area. Aning nodded and said they had looked everywhere nearby, and these people must have gone further than she thought.

I sighed and comforted her, telling her not to worry. These people all have GPS, and with the wind blowing so hard, they can’t have gone far. It’s still windy, and visibility isn’t very good, but it’ll be easier to find them when it’s light out.

She nodded, biting her lower lip, but her expression didn’t change, and I got the feeling that something was wrong. I’m not familiar with the Gobi either, so I didn’t know what was going to happen, so I just kept quiet.

We forced open the doors of the two cars, took out the equipment inside, and then they had to go find the next car, so I had to follow them.

At this point I discovered that the car was stuck in the riverbed, and it seemed that it was not the quicksand often mentioned in novels, but rather that the ground at the bottom of the riverbed had collapsed, and the car had sunk in without being completely submerged. Someone told me that it was the salt crust that had been crushed. There are a lot of salt crusts in many places under the Gobi Desert. This is a riverbed. When there was water before, the bottom of the river was very complicated, with a lot of sediment. After the drought, when the salt crust crystallized, it left a lot of voids, so some parts of this riverbed are actually like dry cheese, not compressed. We parked in the wrong place.

I was surprised and said, “But we have been traveling on the riverbed all the way, and nothing has happened.”

The man said, “That’s because the river we were walking on before had been dry for a long time, but the river we’re standing on now has been dry for at most half a year. Didn’t you notice that there’s almost no grass or shrubs here?”

I looked around in surprise, and sure enough, the surroundings were bare, not even a tuft of grass growing.

The man said to me, “We must be heading upstream along this river. The river must end at a high mountain. If the river has not changed course, there must be an ancient city or ruins near this river. This shows that the Tibetan old woman was not leading us astray. I had long thought that the old woman was a liar.”

I looked at the upstream of the river he was pointing at. On the flat Gobi, there seemed to be something. I thought of the huge black shadow I saw in the wind. I always felt that it was not my illusion.

That night, we found all the cars and gathered our luggage. When dawn broke, the others woke up one by one. Aning began organizing them to work, fixing cars and looking for people.

I and a few others who had been looking for cars all night had a little something to eat and went to sleep in our sleeping bags. We were very tired and slept until sunset.

When I woke up, the wind had completely stopped, and the sand and dust had disappeared. The group was very efficient, and several cars had been repaired and were ready to go. All the supplies had been redistributed, and they were loading the cars again.

A-ning had not slept for a day and a night, and was constantly listening to the radio. Mufeng and the black-glasses guy were not there. When I asked, I was told that the two of them were still looking for the four missing people outside.

I felt that this was not good. It had been a day, and the four people had not been found. Is it really true, as Tashi said, that this thing doesn’t work in the Gobi?

I took some dried food out of my bag, ate while walking to Aning’s side, and asked about the specific situation.

Aning’s brows were tightly locked, her dark circles were showing, she felt very haggard, and when I asked her, she didn’t have the heart to answer me. The walkie-talkie was constantly talking about people looking outside, in English, and I listened briefly, but none of it was good news.

I asked her if I should go out and look for it too, but she shook her head and said no. Three groups had already been sent out, and they were all looking for it for the third time. I went out and saw that it wouldn’t be useful. Let me pack up. Zaxi and the others found a ghost city 20 kilometers ahead. We’ll set off there to rest later. It’s going to be windy at night.

I saw that she was already exhausted, and I didn’t want to bother her, so I went to see the other group of people repairing the car and helped pass the tools.

After about half an hour, Tashi came back from the riverbed in the distance and told us that the wind was about to pick up again. The sand line on the horizon was already visible, so we had to hurry up or else the car repairs would be in vain.

We quickly got ready and soon had everything packed up. Because there were fewer cars, the cars that had not been repaired were towed behind. I and a few Tibetans got into one car and set off towards where the sun was setting.

After driving for about 20 minutes in the vast Gobi Desert, we saw the shadow of the Yadan landform in the setting sun.

That was the place that Tashi had chosen to shelter from the wind. When we drove straight towards it, we saw that it was a large stone mountain shaped like a steamed bun. Behind it was a large area of Yadan landform that gradually became denser, like a fortification behind the castle.

The Devil’s City, also known as the Wind City, is a strange terrain carved out by strong winds. A large area is dotted with a large number of strangely shaped rock mountains, which can be imagined as all kinds of strange things. When the wind blows through these rocks, they make a sound like ghosts crying and wolves howling, so it is called the Devil’s City. This kind of terrain is very common in the Gobi Desert. I have visited it before in Xinjiang, so I wasn’t curious this time.

We stopped at a flat-bottomed rock outside the “castle”. Tashi jumped down first and shouted, and we all got down and started setting up camp. Two hours later, sure enough, the wind started to blow, and it was as if the sky was covered in sand, blowing until midnight, when it slowly died down like yesterday.

The wind was too strong, and the howling of the wind in the Devil’s City kept everyone awake. When the wind died down, everyone gradually fell asleep one by one. The two people who had slept during the day were both very interested in the Devil City. They saw that neither I nor Tashi had slept and went outside to take pictures. Tashi told them to be careful not to go in, as it was easy to get lost inside.

I slept during the day and was very energetic. Aning was thinking about the search method for tomorrow and kept holding the walkie-talkie in her hand. It seemed that she would not rest until she found the people.

I went over to persuade her to take a nap. I hadn’t said a word when suddenly someone shouted in the distance in the Gobi Desert: “Team doctor! Team doctor!”

Aning’s team doctor was a fat man who was also reading a book instead of sleeping. As soon as he heard it, he woke up. We also looked in that direction and heard them shouting: “Come quickly! We found A-K!”

We all jumped up at the sound of this, and ran over in three steps. We saw the two people who had taken photos of the Devil’s City waving at us from a mound. When we rushed over, we saw a large pit on the mound, and at the bottom of the pit was a person, who was none other than Ah K.

The team doctor ran breathlessly, jumped down, touched him, and shouted, “He’s alive.”

Several people rushed down to lift him up, and the team doctor shouted at them to carry him into the tent.

The scene was in chaos. Tashi carried the man on his back and ran back. I was pushed to the side and looked at the pit and then at the direction we had come from. I thought to myself, “How could this person be here? This is more than 20 kilometers from where we parked yesterday, and it was still against the wind at the time. Did he come against the wind?

Back in the team doctor’s tent, I watched as the team doctor performed the rescue. Soon, Ah K was rescued and the team doctor said with a sigh of relief that he had just fainted from fatigue. The team doctor gave him a shot and he soon woke up.

After he woke up, we asked him what happened, and he said he didn’t know either. He said that all the way along, he saw a shadow in front of him, and he thought there was a rocky mountain, so he leaned over. He then asked, “Hey, have Lao Gao and the other two returned?”

Lao Gao is a Caucasian, and when I heard him talk about the shadow, I had a chill in my heart and wanted to ask him more. But as soon as Ning heard him ask about Lao Gao, she immediately asked him why he was asking, and if he had seen them.

He said, “They were right in front of me at the time, but no matter how I called to them, they didn’t turn around. I thought they couldn’t hear me because they were walking against the wind, and then I fell and fainted.

A-Ning was surprised and said, “You mean you saw them before you fainted?”

A-K nodded, and A-Ning turned to me and said, “Did you hear that? The place where we found A-K was outside the Devil’s City, and the Devil’s City was right in front of us. So they went into the city! No wonder we couldn’t find them no matter how hard we looked.”

Her eyes lit up, and she immediately clapped her hands and told us to go out. We walked out of the team doctor’s tent and discussed it. A-Ning insisted on going into the Devil’s City to search right away.

These people didn’t know what was going on. They had walked against the wind for more than 20 kilometers. A-K had fainted outside, and the people inside might also be exhausted. They had to find them immediately so that we could rest assured.

I was in good spirits, so I nodded and agreed. We immediately divided up the team. Many people fell asleep, and we didn’t wake them up. The team doctor and I were the only ones who were going to go in first to take a look around. The others waited for two hours, and then we woke them up to follow us in.

We immediately began to prepare. Just as we picked up our bags, Zaxi, who was standing nearby, came over and stopped us, saying, “Wait a minute. My grandmother said you can’t go in.”