"The camel caravan from there (Hey Arime, Ah Arime)
The Camel Team from Hami (Xarihong Barui)
The Camel Team from Hami (Xarihong Barui)
Tianshan wild geese are calling in the sky (Hey, yarimei, eh yarimei)
Pairs of footprints in the desert (Shari Hungbari)
Pairs of footprints in the desert (Shari Hungbari)
Hey~~~~~”
Amidst the melodious camel bells, a rough singing voice rang out, and the loud voice echoed in the desert for a long time. Zhuang Rui and others were refreshed when they heard it, and the hot sunshine above their heads seemed to have become weaker.
"Brother Mengzi, good job, one more song..."
Zhuang Rui clapped loudly. Not to mention, the song Mengzi sang, which was written by Wang Luobin and reinterpreted by Daolang, was really like that. There was a hint of hoarseness in the rich singing voice. If it was paired with accompanying music,
Zhuang Rui believes that Mengzi is not much worse than Daolang's singing.
"Haha, just sing whatever you want, just don't listen too hard..."
Mengzi smiled honestly. His favorite song was Daolang's song, and he liked to roar a few times when he had nothing to do.
"Brother Mengzi, won't the people in front of you hear your singing?"
Xiao Jia was sitting on a camel behind Mengzi, his whole face was covered by a gauze scarf, and he wore big sunglasses over his eyes, and he looked weak when he spoke.
Following the camel caravan of Erdan and others, they had been driving around in this desert for two days. Although Zhuang Rui also found some relics of ancient people's life under the desert along the way, they were of little value.
The meaning of excavation.
Although the scenery of the desert is beautiful, you will feel bored if you look at it for a long time. Moreover, the climate and temperature difference in the desert are huge. It is so hot during the day that you can boil eggs in the sand, but at night you have to wear a coat, which makes everyone extremely uncomfortable.
More importantly, the desert is short of water. Although the four camels took a lot of water bags, they are all for drinking. In the past two days, let alone taking a bath, even washing your face has become a luxury. Everyone has a look like
It was covered with a layer of yellow sand and became gray.
Mengzi has been wandering in the desert all year round and has not felt anything. But Zhuang Rui and others are different. The excitement when they first entered the desert has long disappeared. Even Xiao Jia, who likes to talk the most, also uses
He licked his lips and cherished words like gold.
Mengzi stopped singing and said with a smile: "We are dozens of miles away from them, so we can't hear them..."
Zhuang Rui looked at his watch. It was already past three o'clock in the afternoon. In two hours, it would be dark. He clamped the camel with his legs, walked a few steps quickly to catch up with Mengzi, and said:
"Brother Mengzi, let's do this. Let's find a camp to stay in later, and follow us tomorrow. If they don't go to the ruins of the ancient temple, we'll go by ourselves..."
Erdan's camel team has been wandering in the desert for a few days, and Zhuang Rui is also a little impatient. He believes that as long as he can find the ruins of the ancient temple, even if there is something fishy in it, the Japanese will not be able to get any benefits.
.
"I guess they will enter the quicksand area tomorrow. That guy Erdan left me a code. If they still go around in circles tomorrow, we will go alone..."
Mengzi spent no effort tracking Erdan's camel team this time. Although Erdan spoke in a loud tone at the time, he actually didn't know what to do. Every time he camped, he would leave some secret notes for Mengzi.
As for the fact that Mengzi changed his mind and was willing to go to the quicksand area, it was all thanks to "Brother Kong Fang". Zhuang Rui discussed with Mengzi yesterday that if the ancient temple ruins could be found, Zhuang Rui was willing to pay him 100,000 yuan.
As the saying goes, money can make the world go round. Although many novels talk about heroes who value justice more than wealth, but in this world, what can we eat, drink, have sex, and sleep without spending money? So after thinking about it again and again, Mengzi agreed.
Zhuang Rui's request was met.
"Hey, there's a cactus in front..."
Xiao Jia, who was sitting on the camel, suddenly shouted loudly, and everyone looked up. Sure enough, there was a low cactus growing forty or fifty meters ahead.
"Haha, everyone is lucky, we camped here today..."
Mengzi whistled, and several camels quickened their pace and came to the area where the cacti grew. After everyone got off the camels, Mengzi directed the camels to form a round arch with an area of about twenty square meters.
.
"Brother Zhuang, please lend me your shovel..." Mengzi didn't wait for Zhuang Rui's answer, and pulled out an engineering shovel from the back of the camel carrying supplies.
"Brother Mengzi, you don't need this thing, do you?"
Zhuang Rui, who was about to take down the tent, was a little confused. He had been living here for two days and he didn't need a shovel to set up the tent?
Mengzi laughed when he heard this and said: "Hey, you are lucky, you can eat something hot today..."
Zhuang Rui reacted quickly and asked, "Huh? Brother Mengzi, you mean, there is underground water down here?"
In the desert, heat and drought are the biggest killers for explorers. Most of the victims of desert expeditions are caused by stroke due to lack of water. Once you lose your way in the desert, you must ensure enough and clean water before getting out of the predicament.
Drink water, otherwise the hope of survival is slim.
There is no water on the surface of the desert, and it is difficult to dig out water in most areas. However, most deserts are basins, and there are many seasonal rivers in them. There are also water sources, but I have not encountered them in the past few days.
.
After staying in the desert for the past few days, Zhuang Rui and his party gained a new understanding of water. The water bags were kept by Mengzi. Only when they were very hungry and thirsty would Mengzi allow everyone to take a sip.
Although I have heard that people will drink camel or even their own urine when they are hungry and thirsty, but there was no intuitive understanding before. Now Zhuang Rui and others know that if there is really no water in this desert, then what will happen if there is no water in the desert?
This kind of thing is not impossible.
Just two days of desert life gave everyone who had just come out of Huaqing Hot Spring a feeling of being in the ninth heaven of ice and fire. Thinking of the past waste of water, they all felt a little feverish on their faces.
"Yes, if there is sufficient water, you can probably wash your face..."
Mengzi laughed and walked to the plants with a shovel. After looking at them for a while, he walked three or four meters to the right and dug down with the shovel.
"Brother Mengzi, if there are plants, there must be water?"
In the past two days, the group of them could see a few green plants from time to time, but they had never seen Mengzi behave like this. Zhuang Rui did not distinguish between these cacti and the ones he encountered a few days ago.
what is the difference?
Seeing Mengzi's actions, the aura in Zhuang Rui's eyes quietly seeped down through the surface of the sand.
Different substances have different colors in Zhuang Rui's eyes. Sand appears gray in aura, without a trace of aura, while water is clear and transparent, with a faint trace of aura present.
"Zhuang Rui, having plants does not necessarily mean that there is water. Many plants can absorb trace amounts of water molecules from the air, but since Brother Mengzi said it, there must be..."
Compared to Zhuang Rui, Dr. Ren has more confidence in Mengzi. When they were doing archaeological research at the desert settlement site, Mengzi left a deep impression on him.
"There really is..."
Before Dr. Ren finished speaking, Zhuang Rui had already sensed that about one and a half meters deep under the sand, there was a trace of spiritual energy in the sand. Although it was not much, it was indeed the existence of water.
The sand was soft and it was easy to dig. In seven or eight minutes, it was dug down to a depth of more than one meter. At this time, the sand shoveled out was already a little wet and even clumped together.
"Brother Mengzi, why don't you dig anymore?"
When Xiao Jia saw Mengzi digging another half meter, he stopped and asked curiously, there were obviously traces of water, why not dig down?
"There is already water..."
Mengzi answered casually, then took a transparent plastic sheet, covered the entrance of the hole he dug, and pressed it with sand on all sides. Then he walked to the camel and drank some water that he had drunk in the past few days.
The bag was brought over.
"This...can we have water?" Xiao Jia stared at the sun that was about to set, lying on the sand, looking at the sand pit covered with plastic sheet, and muttered.
"Hey, there is really water..."
After Xiao Jia waited in silence for five or six minutes, he couldn't bear it anymore. He secretly opened a corner of the plastic sheet and found that a layer of water actually seeped out from the bottom of the sand pit, and the plastic sheet was also full of tiny drops of water.
beads, and drop a few beads down from time to time.
"There is too little water here. We can get a little more water this way..." Mengzi smiled and covered the plastic sheet again.
In fact, covering the pit with a transparent plastic sheet is equivalent to a simple solar still. The air and soil in the pit heat up rapidly and generate steam. When the water vapor reaches saturation, it will condense into water droplets on the inside of the plastic sheet.
Although Mengzi didn't understand this common sense, he lived in the desert all year round, so he was very good at fetching water.
After about an hour or so, Mengzi opened the plastic sheet, took out the water from the bottom of the pit with a ladle, poured it into the basin, and let everyone wash their faces.
Although there was groundwater in the water, the salt content was very high. Mengzi took out some water from the bottom of the pit, put it into the prepared pot and burned it, and asked Peng Fei to look at the pot.
Mengzi himself led the camels one by one and asked them to drink the water from the bottom of the pit. People cannot drink the water directly, but the camels can.
After the water boiled, you could clearly see the alkali block at the bottom of the pot. Peng Fei changed the boiling water to a container, poured out the alkali block, took out a few large pieces of air-dried meat, and put it in the pot to cook the meat.
Soup.
Peng Fei also has a lot of experience in surviving in the wild. Although he is not as familiar with the desert as Mengzi, he is much better than Zhuang Rui and others. He has been doing all the camping and setting up tents these days.
