Chapter 14: Sandstorm 2

  My eyes also started to blur, and the scene in front of me became hazy, like a phantom realm.

  My mind is in chaos, I don't know anything anymore.

  In a daze, I seemed to be pulled out of the sand by some force. A heavy force was placed under my nose, and I knew it was a person's chin. The force almost crushed the chin.

  Faintly, I only felt a sharp, stabbing pain suddenly transmitted to my brain, and that feeling made me dispel all the illusions in front of me.

  A dull feeling came from my chest, I felt that all the strength in my body was being drawn away bit by bit.

  "Hmm..."

  I suddenly sat up straight and breathed heavily.

  I struggled to open my eyes, my mouth was extremely dry and cracked, I only felt the scorching pain in my mouth, I hated that I wanted to bite off my own blood vessels and drink a mouthful of my own blood, that thought grew stronger and stronger, so strong that I suddenly sat up from the ground.

  "Woke up." Lin Wu Xuan spoke up beside me, his eyes glancing at me with a cold indifference.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and carefully replied, "We're not dead."

  Then looking at the surrounding desolate desert, he suddenly came to and asked:

  "What about others?"

  Lin Wu Xuan slightly shook his head: "That tornado was too big, the car was swept away, let alone other people."

  If it were a person falling directly from the air, the situation would not be so bad after all. They have a thick layer of soft sand under them, and as long as they are not unlucky enough to break their neck or spine, there is still a chance to survive.

  But if you fall off in the car, it's directly from a dozen meters high and hit the steel plate. Even a master would be finished.

  I saw with my own eyes that huge gust of wind lift the car into the air and then slam it back down.

  Will they die?

  At the thought of this word, I shuddered all over, and once again came into contact with death, in such a situation.

  Death is like a beautiful angel who quietly takes away life.

  "Aren't there a few more cars? They can't have all been swept away?" I asked anxiously, this was about our lives after all.

  If all the vehicles were swept away, then we would have no food, no water, nothing at all in this desert. How could we survive? We would definitely die.

  "It's uncertain, this kind of car can be very good if they have experience, keeping the car right in the center of the eye of the wind, then there won't be any problem."

  Now I'm anxious, what are we going to do without anything in this desert?

  The temperature around is not very low, nor is it very high. Go around and look for it. If you're lucky, you might find those cars or people blown away by the wind.

  In that case, we have hope for survival.

  On this endless expanse of yellow sand, there isn't even a hint of any other color in sight, let alone finding another person.

  The whole day has passed and I haven't found a single person with Lin Wu Xuan, let alone any supplies.

  In this environment, we can't stop at all, otherwise when the temperature drops in the evening, with our current physical condition, we absolutely cannot withstand that cold.

  In the distance, a strip of something different from yellow suddenly appeared in front of me, like a silver ribbon floating on the yellow sand.

  "Doesn't it look like a river ahead?"

  I opened my mouth and shouted with joy, I actually saw a river!

  In this half-day period, my lips had already cracked open seven or eight mouths, with the blood and flesh inside clearly visible. Lin Wu Xuan's situation wasn't any better either. In the face of such high temperatures and dehydration, anyone would be the same.

  I was just about to rush over when a Mitsubishi military dagger suddenly appeared in front of me, Lin Wuxuan's eyebrows were tightly furrowed, and he said coldly: "That is a mirage, it can never be reached."

  His voice sounded extremely hoarse, I looked at him and almost burst into tears.

  A mirage, metaphor for illusory things; also used to describe the fantasies in one's mind that do not match reality.

  In the desert, during the day, the sand and rocks are heated to extreme temperatures by the sun, causing the air near the surface to heat up very quickly. Because air is a poor conductor of heat, there is little transfer of heat between layers of air when it is calm, resulting in a large vertical temperature gradient with cooler air above and hotter air below, leading to an unusual phenomenon where the density of the lower layer of air is actually less than that of the upper layer.

  In this case, if there is a tree in front, it grows in a relatively humid area. At this time, the light projected by the inclined branches of the tree will be refracted because it enters from a dense air layer to a less dense air layer. When the refracted light reaches the hot and thin air layer close to the ground, total reflection occurs, and the light is reflected back into the denser air layer above by the near-surface low-density air layer.

  In this way, through a curved light line that sinks downward and downward, the shadow of the tree is sent to the human eye, and an inverted image of a tree appears.

  Whether it's dry grass or sand, they can be heated by the scorching sun to produce a 'rolling wave' effect, causing the density of the air layer to increase gradually from bottom to top, resulting in a mirage.

  In short, what the eyes see is something that can never be reached.

  Being in this vast desert, the hardest thing to bear is the lack of water. Water is as precious as gold in the desert, it's for drinking, not for washing your face, brushing your teeth or rinsing your mouth.

  When I watched desert documentaries before, those in the northwest, Gobi Desert, when there was no water to drink, they had to store 'urine' in a thermos. When they were thirsty, they would take it out and drink a small mouthful, and they had to hold back and not spit it out.

  Who among those who went to the Great Northwest and the Gobi Desert in that era has not drunk their own urine?

  Right after that, the two of us walked forward step by step like zombies, with a faint glimmer of hope, hoping to find water source or be found in the next moment.

  If the human body can't tolerate three days without water, it's not my fault. I never thought that I was so dependent on water sources in the past, and I didn't expect that a person's endurance would be so short-lived. We think we can walk straight forward, thinking that as long as there is always something, we will have hope, thinking that people are free...

  We didn't see the rope that tied us to the well, it was like an umbilical cord, connecting us and the belly of the earth, whoever took one more step would die.

  And we just took one more step.

  The night fell slowly, and the temperature around me dropped sharply. I got up and walked, but soon my whole body was shaking uncontrollably, despite wearing a thick down jacket. I clearly felt that my blood circulation was not smooth due to severe dehydration. The cold air in the sky was biting, but this was not just the chill of night. My teeth were chattering loudly, and my body was trembling like a sieve.

  I used to be immune to cold, but now I feel like I'm freezing to death. The reaction from thirst makes me feel like I'm dying.

  At night, it's not just the temperature that drops terribly, but also the wind starts to blow. Lin Wu Xuan and I wanted to find a place to hide, but I found out that there is no place to hide in the desert.

  The desert is as smooth as marble, it won't provide you with a bit of 'shade' during the day, and at night it will leave you without any shelter from the cold wind. There isn't a single tree, a fence, or a stone that can hide me.

  The cold wind rushed towards me like a hail-covered thing, Lin Wu Xuan dug a 'hole' and buried himself in the sand to avoid being blown away by that gust of cold wind.

  I don't know how to face the cold of night, I kept running back and forth on the sand, thinking that this way I wouldn't feel the chill. But I was wrong, until I couldn't run anymore, had no more strength, then I suddenly knelt down on the sand, burying my face in my hands.

  We've only just entered the desert for two days, and we've already suffered such a huge sandstorm, I don't know how many people have died, it's already very lucky that I can survive.

  I miss going home, I miss Guangdong's humid weather, and I miss the surging waves in the ocean.

  The hardships, difficulties and sufferings I thought were so tough in the past are nothing compared to this moment.

  I couldn't bear the sadness anymore, I wanted to cry but couldn't, that would dehydrate me and accelerate death.

  I don't know how long it took, but I couldn't feel the cold anymore. My lower body had already been buried in the sand, and it was a bit warmer, which made me feel better.

  After a while, I was vaguely awakened by the cold. I raised my head and looked around for Lin Wu Xuan, but there was no sign of him anywhere. Where was he?

  This finally made me thoroughly awake, and I hurriedly crawled out of the sand, shouting Lin Wu Xuan's name loudly, my voice hoarse and not as loud as usual.

  "Lin Wu Xuan..."

  I walked and shouted, my throat hoarse, the further I went, the more I felt afraid. Alone in this vast expanse of black sand, I couldn't see anyone or anything.

  At that moment, I just wanted to escape.

  Whoa, I was tripped up by something and then rolled around in the sand for a few rounds before stopping. My mouth was full of sand, and after spitting out a mouthful of sand, I managed to get back up.

  Taking advantage of the clear moonlight, I vaguely saw a hand. I thought I was mistaken and hurriedly rubbed my eyes hard. When I looked again, a hand stretched out from the sand.

  I was so scared that I sat down on the ground and ran away immediately. After running for a while, I started to feel suspicious.

  That can't be Lin Wu Xuan, right?

  Just as I was about to climb back up, someone tapped me on the shoulder and I froze for a moment.

  At that moment, I suddenly felt a chill all over, thinking, damn it, wouldn't have touched something dirty?

  When you're alone, especially in a place like this, your heart starts racing and you always feel like there's something behind you.

  Lin Wu Xuan just said, "They are over there."

  Upon hearing this voice, I let out a sigh of relief and turned around, only to see a group of black dots appearing in my field of vision.

  "Chen Yuesong, that kid isn't dead yet..."

  A familiar voice came from afar, and my body went limp, plopping down on the ground with a thud.