Chapter Thirteen: Sandstorm

  Last time I saw him sleep, he wouldn't get up so early, this guy is acting out of character today.

  I carried a backpack and followed everyone to the hall for dinner. During dinner, I was somewhat absent-minded.

  It's strange because at every meal before, Yu Gang was always nagging in my ear, but now the meal is almost over and I still haven't seen Yu Gang appear.

  I took a look at everyone present and found that, apart from Xiao Lianbu who had an accident last night, not only was Yu Gang absent, but also Lin Wuxuan.

  Where did they go?

  I stole a glance at Tang Guangze and found that they seemed to be completely indifferent to all this.

  Suddenly, I had a bad premonition, my hands shook, and I quickly buried my head in eating.

  Nothing will happen to them, right?

  Ten minutes later, after filling up my stomach, I saw Yu Gang standing beside the car as soon as I walked out of the door. He was still holding a dry ration and gnawing on it. When he saw me, he waved at me enthusiastically.

  I don't know why, but I always feel that Yu Gang is very embarrassing. Subconsciously, I want to keep some distance from him, but he's like sticky candy, following me around.

  After everyone got on the bus, it didn't take long for the vehicle to plunge into that vast expanse of yellow sand, leaving behind a string of clear tire tracks, which were quickly filled in by the rolling sand, as if we had never appeared there at all.

  I was so cold in the car that my teeth were chattering, as if I had a lump of ice in my mouth.

  "This damn weather is going to kill people, why doesn't this car have heating." Yu Gang was also frozen stiff.

  "Little brother, don't be impatient, turning on the heater is too wasteful of oil. Although our supplies should be sufficient, we can save as much as possible along the way. Who knows where to cry if we can't find fuel later? Besides, there might be even colder days ahead, and it's not late to turn it on then." The old professor said with a smile.

  "Old professor, you seem to be quite familiar with this desert, can you tell us about it?"

  The old professor listened and was delighted for a moment, it's rare to see such a studious young person.

  "The desert climate is all the same, this Taklamakan Desert, also known as the Devil's Desert, is one of the largest deserts in our country. The temperature difference between day and night can reach 60-80 degrees Celsius at its highest point. We chose to come here at the beginning of April, which is a month with a relatively small temperature difference. However, we still cannot let our guard down. This desert is even more terrifying than the devil in the Bible. I remember that during the final stages of the war against Japan, a Japanese army unit that refused to surrender entered this desert and ultimately died here. So, one must respect nature."

  "Haha, old professor, you're deceiving people! It seems that the Japanese devils starved to death. If it were me here, I would stir up a storm and have a great time. Isn't this just a desert? I'd play with it like a small piece of mud. Nature is meant to be conquered. Marx said, 'Humans must explore the entire natural world' and 'reproduce the entire natural world.'" Yu Gang's nose was twitching upwards as he laughed loudly.

  The old professor with glasses listened, his old face flushed red, looking at Yu Gang who didn't know how to retort back.

  I saw the old professor who was over fifty, his body looked quite strong, which made me feel a bit relieved. We had just entered the desert and if he got sick, it would be troublesome. So I quickly comforted him saying: "Professor, don't get angry, don't talk to that rough guy about these things, he won't understand anyway."

  After I said that, Yu Gang still wanted to say something, but I glared at him fiercely and turned to the old professor: "Professor, you're an expert on desert habits, tell me about it."

  Yu Gang wanted to say something, but he just snickered and leaned back in his chair with his eyes narrowed.

  The old professor then told us everything he knew about the desert.

  It wasn't until around 6 or 7 pm that the temperature had dropped to an extremely low level, and continuing to drive would likely cause significant damage to the engine, so we could only stop the car and rest.

  This time, a total of three vehicles were used, all of which had been modified. Roughly speaking, they started with the tires. Everyone knows that sand has a great deal of friction on tires. If you use ordinary tires, they will be scrapped after driving for a short while.

  They parked their cars together, then set up a few more tents nearby and lit a bonfire. The cold feeling that seemed to permeate every pore of the body was finally alleviated a bit.

  "You will die... You will die..."

  Suddenly, in the desert where the wind was howling and sand was cracking, a voice came from somewhere, spreading throughout the entire camp, startling me awake just as I had fallen asleep.

  "Wiped them all out..."

  Again a sound came, the voice was very noisy, as if many people were shouting.

  I suddenly had an epiphany: "Damn it, there can't be someone around here, right?"

  Yu Gang also crawled out of the sleeping bag, dazed and confused, opening his eyes. At this moment, the camp was already in an uproar, the sound just now was too loud, it couldn't help but make people panic.

  "Damn it, it seems to be coming from over there." Yu Gang's face turned ugly as he shouted.

  "It's dead..."

  A voice, as if from the underworld, suddenly rang in my ears, and I was startled for a moment. Subconsciously, I rummaged around to find something to defend myself with, but after fumbling for a while, I didn't see anything good, so I picked up the bronze sword beside me.

  I had just stepped out of the tent, and it seemed like I heard a few extremely faint whispers of wind. The sound seemed to be coming from a very far away place. I looked into the distance, and my eyes froze in an instant.

  In the distant sky, two huge black shadows stood upright, those two black shadows 'crossed' together, like two giant skulls.

  Sandstorm.

  A shrill cry burst out from one of the mouths in the camp, and the entire camp erupted into a huge commotion. Some people here had not even entered the desert before, let alone some experienced old team members, who also felt a few points of panic in their hearts when faced with this disaster.

  A huge sand curtain, like a giant fishing net, was rushing towards us at a terrifying speed. In just a few seconds, the massive sand curtain slammed into our camp.

  In an instant, a mournful cry came from inside, and soon the entire camp disappeared without a trace.

  My whole head was dizzy, and I felt like my mouth was full of sand. My mouth was almost skewed by the huge wind, and my body was trembling with fear, as if it might be swept into the air at any moment.

  Suddenly, a hand grabbed my collar and pulled me over, I found it was Lin Wu Xuan, so the two of us crouched down together under that car.

  Originally wanted to get on the bus, but the door had been tightly locked from the inside.

  At this moment, I could only hide under the car, and at that moment, I felt my body was almost being blown into the air by the fierce storm.

  "Quick, get into the car."

  The camp was filled with a cacophony of wailing and howling sounds, but it was unclear who was using the loudspeaker to shout at the top of their lungs.

  I struggled to open my eyes, and everything around me was a blurry yellow. I couldn't see anything in front of me, the sky was filled with sand that blocked out the sun, and in our line of sight, at this moment, a gigantic sand dune had actually rolled up into the sky.

  Looking far away, I don't know how many thousands of tons of sand are suspended in the air, just like a giant mountain peak pressing on the sky.

  Endless grains of sand fell from the sky like raindrops, and in the distance, the entire desert seemed to be shrouded in a sandstorm.

  From a distance, the sand was falling from the sky and heavily hitting our campsite where we had set up our tents. In just one second, the tents were no longer visible.

  A miserable cry came from not far away, and before I could see the situation clearly, a heavily armed man in camouflage uniform was blown away by the huge storm right in front of me. The man was like a broken rag bag, and it was unknown where he was blown to.

  I didn't even have time to feel sad, when a huge sandstorm like a small hill came crashing towards the car we were hiding in.

  "Get out of here!" Lin Wu Xuan bellowed, and his entire body rolled a meter away.

  I desperately crawled away, and after crawling five or six meters, I looked back to see that the Hummer had been flipped over, and the entire vehicle was flying into the air along with a small sand dune. The Hummer was tossed to a height of over ten meters before crashing down heavily in front of me.

  Right after that, I was shocked by the enormous force and fell onto the sand, with my whole body aching.

  If Lin Wuxuan hadn't warned me early enough, I would have been blown away by that tornado and ended up who-knows-where.

  I had just spat out a mouthful of sand when that tornado suddenly charged towards me and Lin Wu Xuan.

  These grains of sand are like small stones, under that extremely fast whirlwind, grain by grain, they hit my body.

  In the midst of chaos, I was still in a state of shock when Lin Wu Xuan suddenly handed me a piece of plastic sheeting and covered my head with it. The sheet seemed to have been torn from the tent.

  The next second, I heard a very mournful and piercing wind sound, the voice was like the sound of sharp claws scratching on glass. Before I could react, my whole body was pulled into the air by a huge force, spinning around in mid-air.

  At that moment, I only felt like a leaf in the turbulent waves of the ocean. I didn't know how many times I was blown around by the gust of wind before my whole body slammed into a pile of dirt with a perfect arc, like dunking a basketball. The massive force almost made me pass out.

  In the sky, as that massive gust of wind passed by, countless grains of sand seemed to flow like a mudslide in mid-air, slowly falling down, and I could only watch helplessly as those sands buried me whole.