Volume 7 Chapter 23: Shipwreck in the Sand Sea

For a few seconds after the flare, we were all stunned. Everyone looked at the huge object and their minds went blank. It was only when the flare went out that we realized what had happened and immediately turned our flashlights in that direction.

The scattered light could not reveal the full picture of the object. Under the flashlight, we could only see that there was something there, but it also looked blurry. If we had not just seen the flare, we would not have noticed anything unusual when the flashlight swept over us. And we could not see it clearly from the bottom up.

“What is this thing?” Tashi said to himself.

No one could tell what it was, but I was sure it was the remains of an ancient wooden object, just not sure what it was. At first glance it looked like a huge coffin, but on closer inspection it was the wrong shape, and seemed to be the remains of a building. However, I had never seen a building with such an odd shape.

“Climb up and take a look!” I didn’t know who said it, but we all reacted at the same time. They all wanted to climb up the slope, but I quickly stopped them, saying, “Don’t be rash, calm down. It’s so high and it’s a mound, you can’t just climb up it. It would be terrible if something happened.”

Aning also nodded, saying, “Yes, the three of them haven’t been found yet. We’ve searched everywhere down here, but we haven’t found any clues. So it’s very likely that they’re up there. There’s no movement now, so there must be something wrong. Maybe there’s danger up here, so we have to be careful. I’ll go up first and see if it’s easy to climb. If it is, you can come up.”

She took out her flashlight and asked us to shine it on her as she prepared to climb up.

At this point, Tashi stopped her and said, ”Don’t move. I’ll do it. There’s no reason for a woman to do this kind of thing. I’ve climbed many of these mounds before. I’m definitely more experienced than you.” Without waiting for a response from Aning, he bit down on the dagger, jumped onto the mound, and then used the dagger as a climbing pick to start climbing upwards.

He moved quickly, and his movements were as agile as a monkey. We used our flashlights to shine on him, and it didn’t take much effort. We watched him climb “tentatively” to the bottom of the huge object. He found a place to stand and made a gesture to us, meaning that it wasn’t too difficult to climb. Then he shone his flashlight at the object.

From below we could only see his movements and couldn’t see what he was shining at. We were anxious, and the team doctor asked, “What is it?”

“I don’t know,” Tashi’s voice came down from above. I saw him scratch his head and mutter a few words in Tibetan, then he said, “Oh my, it’s like a ship.”

“A ship?” We looked at each other. Tashi called out again: “It really is a boat! You should climb up and take a look for yourself.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Aning climbed up, and I followed after her awkwardly. The team doctor was too fat and slipped down after a few attempts. We told him to stay down and not to do anything stupid, or he would be killed if he fell. Then we moved closer to Tashi.

The slope was not difficult to climb, it was a bit steep, and although the soil was soft, it was very uneven, and there were many places to stand. We followed Zaxi’s example and used our knives as climbing picks, and in no time at all we were close to it.

I crawled to Zaxi’s side, using my hands and feet. It was very cold up here. I stepped on a few protruding mounds of earth, slipped a bit, and then stood on my feet and looked at the thing. But I was far away and Zha Xi was blocking my view, so I couldn’t see clearly whether it was a real boat.

I moved a little to make room for myself and then I could see clearly. Under Zha Xi’s flashlight, an ancient wreck was embedded in the mound, only half of it was exposed, and the other half was deeply embedded in the mound.

Aning lit a cold firework and threw it at the wreck. At this point, the area was lit up, and I discovered that the wreckage had disintegrated to such an extent that it was almost fused with the mud. The wooden hull was completely broken and had turned to charcoal. There was a huge crack on one side of the wooden ship, and it seemed to be empty. I could see the mud inside, but the deepest part was pitch black and I couldn’t see clearly.

I turned and looked at the surrounding landscape, thinking that this was a major discovery. This area should have been an ancient riverbed, and the wreck had sunk in the ancient riverbed and become wrapped in mud. I never imagined that the ancient riverbed would become the Gobi Desert, and that the mound of earth surrounding the wreck would be so high above the ground.

A-Ning climbed to the side of the ancient ship and shone the flashlight into the crack, revealing a large amount of mud and things wrapped in the mud. In the mud, you can also see many things that look like clay pots.

A-Ning said, “This seems to be a cargo ship that went to the Western Regions for trade. These are their goods. This is an amazing discovery. Many people still believe that there is no waterway transportation in the Western Regions.”

In ancient times, this was one of the more treacherous of the 17 Silk Roads, and the countries of the Western Regions were scattered across this barren land. This was the middle ground for trade between the Arab civilization and the Chinese civilization. In the past, there were countless rivers here, and it is not known how many pieces of cloth and silk reached the West through these waterways. It is said that the royal families of the Western Regions could also eat watermelons from the Central Plains. At that time, the river channels here were ever-changing, and many merchants were stranded and sunk because of the diversion of ancient rivers. At least a thousand desert wrecks are buried in the depths of the desert here, but because the desert changes so frequently, it is almost impossible to find them.

The medic couldn’t see anything down there, so he shouted anxiously, “What do you see? Are those three people up there?”

Tashi called down to him a few times, but the medic’s voice was too faint to hear.

At this moment, I suddenly thought of the Caucasians. Maybe they also climbed up to check out the wreck because they saw it. We’ve searched everywhere down there, but we haven’t found anyone. They should be up there. But we just looked at the cliffs around us, and there’s no one there. Where did those three people go?

There was nowhere else to hide on the cliffs except in the wreck. Could it be that the three people were inside the wreck?

At this moment, the moon was covered by dark clouds, and suddenly it became darker all around. I asked Aning to turn on the walkie-talkie and find the location of the signal again.

Aning took out the walkie-talkie and turned it on. The sound came out loud and clear. She waved it around a bit, and the signal was almost the same. Then Tashi pointed to the ship and told her to try it on the ancient ship. When Aning reached out and touched the crack in the ancient ship, we could really hear the voice coming out of the walkie-talkie in crystal clear sound.

We looked at each other and felt incredibly surprised. It seemed that the signal was really coming from inside the ancient ship.

Zaxi looked at the crack and said, “What the hell, did those three idiots climb inside?”

The crack was wide enough for a person to climb in, but we didn’t know if the space inside could accommodate them. We shone our flashlights inside and found that the ship was very deep and very dark at the back. I called out several times, but no one answered.

“What should we do?”

“Maybe they went inside, but then came out again and left the walkie-talkie behind,” said Aning. “Or maybe they had an accident inside.”

“Then how did the voice come from there?” I asked.

“No one can answer that, but we’ll know if we go inside,” A-Ning gave me a wink and said, “Put down your backpack. We’ll go in and take a look.”

Tashi was the guide, so he had to conserve his strength. A-Ning and I were the only ones with normal-sized bodies, so I couldn’t say no. She took off her jacket, bit down on the dagger, and then hunched over to climb into the crack.

As soon as she got in, mud kept falling off the boat, but luckily the boat was sturdy. After she had gone in, she stopped for a few seconds to steady herself, and then Zaxi handed her the flashlight. Then I took off my jacket and climbed in.

The crack was just big enough for me to fit through, but it was wider than I thought. I was clumsy and awkward, and found that it was completely a world of mud. There was dry mud all over the ceiling, and you couldn’t sit up, you could only crawl forward. The space inside the cabin should have been large, but now it was basically filled with mud.

Aning was on the walkie-talkie, and her voice was clearly coming out of it like a sneer. The sound was especially loud in here. Looking at the pitch black inside the cabin, my heart was in my throat. What the hell was making that sound?

Aning was inside in a side-crawling position, like a soldier dragging a gun. She moved forward with one hand, and with the other she shone the flashlight around. I followed her example, panting, and began to shine the flashlight around the mud. It was all mud, except for the occasional splinter of wood embedded in the mud. I felt like I was in a scene from a tunnel warfare movie.

This must have been the mud that gushed in after the ship sank. The ship probably didn’t sink completely, so the mud didn’t fill the entire cabin. Underneath the mud should be the cargo from that time. I wonder what was in it.

After crawling seven or eight meters, we could hear the strange sound directly. Without the filter of the walkie-talkie, the sound sounded slightly different. It came from the innermost part of the cabin and was very faint. Aning stopped, turned off the walkie-talkie, and crawled in the direction of the sound.

I kept a little distance from her, giving her room to retreat. Before she had crawled a few steps, Aning screamed and stopped. I quickly climbed over to her and peered over her shoulder. I saw a round table-sized hole in the dirt-covered “deck” at the end of the cabin, as if it had collapsed. There was actually space underneath. I shone my flashlight down and saw a mess below, all the soil that had collapsed from above, and a person buried inside, only the upper body exposed.

I shone my flashlight and saw that it was one of the missing people. His face was covered in mud and his face was pale. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. The sneering voice came from the mound of earth below.

“He’s really in there!” I shouted, thinking that these people were too playful. I yelled and pushed forward, wanting to quickly go down and dig him out.

I didn’t expect that when I suddenly yelled, the sneering voice disappeared in an instant, and the entire cabin suddenly became quiet.

This silence startled me, and my hands and feet stopped involuntarily.

I immediately thought that we had just discussed that the sound was their distress signal, and now that I had shouted, the sound had stopped. Obviously, someone had heard my cry and stopped sending the signal. There were two possibilities: one was that he thought that rescue was already at hand and there was no need to send out this sound to attract us; the other was that he had heard us arrive and lost consciousness when his faith was relaxed.

Either way, we had to get him out of there immediately. Especially in the latter case, I knew that many people who had called for help had lost their will to live just before they were rescued, and their efforts had been in vain.

Aning and I thought the same thing. She asked me to shine a light on her, and she crawled over and carefully rolled herself into the hole. I followed her, and Aning asked me not to go down, to wait for her up above.

Tashi heard my cries from outside and yelled at us, asking what was going on inside. I told him to wait until I had a better view.

From this position, I could see more clearly. Below the hole was probably the second cargo hold of the ancient ship, or the bottom compartment. It was usually used to store things that were easily damaged, because the bottom was not very bumpy. The bottom compartment was not very big, and it was all covered in mud, but it was far less eroded than the place I was in. I could still basically imagine it being the inside of a ship, and I could see that there were many clay pots mixed in with the mud, probably cargo.

After Aning went down, she immediately pushed aside the dirt on the man’s body and put her hand on his neck to feel his pulse.

I asked anxiously, “How is it?”

Aning visibly shuddered and shook her head at me, indicating that he was already dead.

I sighed. Aning began to dig out the dirt, quickly digging the man out and then dragging him to the side. At this point, I noticed that inside the dirt that had been dug out, there was another person. I saw hair and a hand. Aning continued digging, but this person was buried more firmly. She dug for a while but still couldn’t get any results.

I couldn’t stand it anymore and jumped down to help. When I touched the man’s hand, I knew it was hopeless. The man’s hand was cold and he was already dead.

It took us a lot of effort to dig him out and drag him to the side. Underneath the Caucasian, I saw his pale face. He was curled up, his eyes wide open, his hand stretched out, holding a walkie-talkie, in a stiff gesture as if he was trying to crawl out.

It seemed that he was the one who had sent the signal. I saw the walkie-talkie and thought to myself.

I pulled him out, and Aning touched his neck again, her face changing. He immediately undressed the Caucasian and started CPR on him, shouting at the same time, “Tell Zashi to get the team doctor ready for a rescue. Someone is buried and suffocating.” He then went to give the Caucasian artificial respiration.

I hurriedly got up and shouted outside. Zashi heard this and immediately shouted at the team doctor under the mound. I turned around and saw the Caucasian twitching, shrinking, and vomiting at the same time, but he obviously regained his breath.

“You go up and take over!” Aning said to me in a tone that left no room for doubt, her voice was calm but full of authority.

I froze for a moment, suddenly shocked by her manner, and did as she said, like a reflex. Aning quickly took off her clothes, tied them around the Caucasian, made a makeshift stretcher, threw the sleeves of her clothes to me, and told me to pull.

I bit my teeth and pulled up, she lifted her feet and carried the Caucasian up. Then I dragged him all the way back and pulled him out of the crack in the wreck.

Zashi was already waiting outside. As soon as the Caucasian was pulled out, Zashi took the whole thing on his back, buckled it in with a belt and then climbed down. I was exhausted, so I helped Aning out of the hole while panting after him, protecting Zashi, and then climbed down little by little.

After a lot of effort, I saw Zashi almost fall down several times, but fortunately he was quick enough to use his dagger to stabilize his position each time. After finally crawling down to the bottom of the mound, the team doctor had everything ready. We put the Caucasian on the ground and the team doctor immediately began to perform first aid.

But as soon as he tore open the Caucasian’s clothes, he suddenly started to convulse and grabbed the team doctor’s clothes. We quickly went over to hold him down. The doctor opened his coat, and I felt sick. I saw that the inside of his warm coat was completely covered in blood, as if he had been injured.

The doctor then cut open his underwear with scissors. When he lifted the bloody cloth, he let out a cry of “Oh my God.” At this point, I almost vomited. I saw that the Caucasian’s stomach was covered in tiny blood holes. There wasn’t much blood, and the holes were very small, but there were so many of them, about twenty or thirty.

“What kind of wound is this?” asked Tashi.

The team doctor shook his head: ‘I don’t know, it looks like… something was stuck in it, something like a screwdriver. But how come his clothes aren’t torn? Didn’t you notice that at the scene?’

We all shook our heads. In fact, it was so chaotic at the time that we really didn’t notice his stomach, but we could be sure that his clothes weren’t torn. It shouldn’t be an injury caused by the collapse.

We didn’t care about that at the moment. The team doctor asked us to help hold him down, bandaged him up, then gave him a quick examination, injected him with something, and finally gave him a small oxygen pack to breathe from. It was probably the effect of that injection that made the Caucasian slowly calm down.

After all this, we were already sweating all over, and the team doctor wiped his sweat and asked us to think of a way. The man is very weak now, we can’t take him out, but the larger equipment is in the car outside, we need to move it in, and we also need a tent and sleeping bag to keep him warm, and we can’t take him out until he stabilizes.

Only Tashi knows how to look at his stone pile, so he said he would go get it, and asked some people to come in and help. It took a long time for us to walk in, but it was much faster to get out. I said I would go with him, but he said no, he would be faster alone, and I would be more of a help here.

After that, he ran away. The team doctor took off the clothes from the Caucasian and gave them back to her. Then he took out the thermal cloth from his backpack and wrapped it around the Caucasian’s vital parts to keep her warm.

I lit the smokeless stove, increased the flame, and put it aside to warm up a few people. At the same time, I took out the burning alcohol, all of which was used to keep out the cold. We had just sweated all over, and the nights in the Gobi were quite cold, so it was easy to get sick.

The fire was lit, illuminating the surroundings, and we immediately felt warmer. The team doctor continued to treat the Caucasian’s wounds, and Aning and I retreated to the side. The fatigue of the past few hours suddenly came pouring out. I sat down on a large rock to drink water, and Aning put on her clothes. We both had dirt on our faces and looked very disheveled. I smiled at her wryly, but saw her leaning against a mound of earth with a look of exhaustion on her face, fiddling with the walkie-talkie, seemingly quite depressed.

I thought of her just now, and I said to myself that it was really not easy. She was a woman who could be so capable in that situation. I think it must have been forced out of her. It’s really a bit sad to think that a woman has to be so tough.

But it’s strange to say that she doesn’t seem to be short of money, and she doesn’t seem happy doing this kind of thing. What exactly is she doing to work for Jude? And she’s desperate to this extent. I really can’t understand it. I’ll have to ask her properly in the future.

After drinking a few sips of water, I felt the urge to urinate, so I went around the circle and urinated under the mound.

While I was urinating, I suddenly heard a strange sneer coming from behind a rock. I turned my head and looked at the rock, thinking to myself, “Could it be that I’ve been hearing this voice all along and I’ve developed auditory hallucinations?”