"It's so beautiful. It's a pity that I couldn't take a photo..."
Dozens of kilometers away from Zhuang Rui's camp, several people also made the same sound. The beauty and mystery of the mirage made Professor Man and his party mesmerized by the sight, and their hearts were filled with longing for the dreamlike scene.
It wasn't until the mirage slowly disappeared in mid-air for more than ten minutes that everyone finally came back to their senses as if from a dream.
"Mr. Erdan, I'll leave it to you to find the ruins of the ancient temple today..."
After packing up his things, Zhongchuan walked to Erdan and bowed deeply. After witnessing the wonder of nature just now, Zhongchuan felt a strange feeling in his heart.
There is no doubt about the beauty of mirage, but this beautiful scene appears in a desolate and even extremely dangerous desert, forming a great contrast.
Nakagawa wonders if his father, who disappeared in this desert decades ago, also witnessed this spectacle with his own eyes.
The two camel teams, tens of kilometers apart, set off almost at the same time, and the sweet sound of camel bells resounded throughout the desert.
The sun rose, and the hot sunlight shone on everyone, which made everyone miss the sea water in the mirage just now. If they could take a bath in the sea at this time, Nakagawa would definitely pay a staggering price.
The morning passed quickly, and due to the mirage, it was delayed for almost an hour. Near noon, Zhuang Rui and others arrived at the place where Zhongchuan and his party camped last night.
"Brother Zhuang, there are traces of barbecue here. They camped here yesterday..."
Peng Fei jumped off the camel, came to the sandpit, dipped his finger in some water, put it in his mouth, and said: "These guys are more lucky than us. This groundwater can be drank directly..."
Yesterday, Peng Fei kept struggling until midnight to equip his empty water bag with some water. Unexpectedly, Erdan and others dug a sand pit and there would be drinking water, which made Peng Fei feel very unbalanced.
Zhuang Rui saw that Mengzi did not get off the camel, but followed the camel footprints left in the desert. After walking a few dozen meters, he returned to the green space again. He couldn't help but asked strangely: "Brother Mengzi, what's wrong?"
?”
"The direction they are going is to the place where the accident happened. It is most likely the quicksand area..." After Mengzi got off the camel, he took off his gauze scarf with a solemn look on his face.
Although after spending a few days with Zhuang Rui and others, Mengzi no longer said anything about the devil's restricted area, but the fear of that area has been buried deep in his heart since he was a child.
After following Erdan and the others for several days, Zhuang Rui guessed that the Japanese didn't have much patience anymore. He was not surprised that they were going to the quicksand area today, so he asked Mengzi: "From here to that quicksand area?"
, how far is it approximately?”
Zhuang Rui had just released the spiritual energy in his eyes, but he did not find Erdan's camel team. This meant that the distance between them and him must be at least ten kilometers.
Mengzi lowered his head, estimated in his mind for a while, and said: "It should be about forty or fifty kilometers away. If I guessed correctly, they should have reached the edge of the quicksand area..."
Due to the warnings of Lao Liutou and the old people in the town, the tour guides in the town have always avoided the devil's restricted area. Even Mengzi did not dare to go deep and could only tell a rough distance.
"That far away?"
Zhuang Rui was stunned for a moment when he heard this. It was almost a day's walking in the desert for 40 to 50 kilometers. If something happened ahead, it would be too late to rescue even if he chased after him.
"Well, let's eat something and rest first. Let's try to get there before dark..." Mengzi understood what Zhuang Rui meant, and he also regretted it. If he had known this, he would have brought the two parties closer.
Peng Feilai was naturally responsible for lighting the fire and cooking, while Mengzi led the camels and fed them one by one. Maintaining the camels' physical strength was far more important than having enough food for themselves.
After a short rest, everyone got on the camels again and followed the tracks left by Erdan's camel team. Mengzi was a little anxious and kept urging the camels to trot, hoping to catch up with Erdan and others as soon as possible.
…
"Brother Erdan, Zhongchuan asked you, how long will it take before we can reach the quicksand area?"
For some reason, Zhongchuan felt a little uneasy all the time while sitting on the camel. After almost ten minutes, he urged Translator Yan to ask Erdan.
"Tell him not to worry, it's still five or six miles away..."
Erdan replied impatiently, "Why did you go so early? I had to drive you around in circles for the past two days, but now you know it's urgent?"
After hearing what Erdan said, Professor Man used his legs to clamp the camel, and rushed to Erdan and said: "Erdan, I think our team needs to be adjusted. Put the supplies on the two camels together.
one camel, and then let the other one walk in front..."
It has been more than 30 years since the last time quicksand swallowed up the residents of the small town. No one knows whether the quicksand area has expanded again. For the sake of his own life, Professor Man put forward his own suggestions.
Although the caution in Professor Man's words could be heard through the gauze that blocked the wind and sand, Erdan thought for a moment and nodded in agreement. He was still a little worried about this forbidden place of death that had been rumored in the town for decades.
.
After reorganizing the camel team, a camel without supplies walked in the front, and more than thirty meters behind it was a second camel carrying drinking water and other supplies.
As for Erdan and others, the distance was even further, hanging seventy or eighty meters behind the two camels. Erdan used his whistle to control the direction of the two camels in front.
"Well, Erdan, look at the front, I feel something is wrong..."
Just after coming down from a small sand dune more than 20 meters high, Professor Man suddenly stopped the camel, took out a high-power telescope, and observed the desert in front of him.
"Teacher Man, what's wrong? Sand is very common here..."
Erdan didn't know why Professor Man stopped. This place seemed to be still five or six miles away from the legendary Devil's Forbidden Zone, and there was only a relatively large flat sandy land in front of it. This was also normal in the desert.
.
Because dry sand is soft and non-sticky, a strong wind can completely change the appearance of the desert, and the terrain becomes strange and abnormal. There are sand dunes tens of meters high, and gentle terrain hundreds of meters high, all unreasonable.
Terrain interpretation can exist in the desert.
Professor Man shook his head and said: "I feel something is wrong. This sandy area is about one kilometer in size. I think we should walk slower..."
Although the desert in front of him also had hills and ravines blown by the wind, it seemed different from the dead silence he had seen before. It gave Professor Man an unspeakable feeling in his heart, and his heartbeat seemed to be faster than usual.
Got a lot.
Professor Man saw the two leading camels, and without Erdan's instructions, they were still walking towards the sandy area that made Professor Man feel a little weird. He quickly said to Erdan: "Quick, stop the camels.
It’s already noon, let’s have a meal and then survey the sand here…”
"Is it nothing? Teacher Man, just tell me if you are hungry..."
Erdan muttered. He had been a tour guide in the desert for six or seven years and had seen a lot of landscapes like this. However, when Professor Man insisted, Erdan still stretched out his thumb and index finger and hooked them together.
He whistled loudly.
The two camels that were moving forward heard the whistle and did not react for a moment. The camel in front turned its head, but its body was still pushed forward by the inertia.
"Okay, let's go down a little bit and eat against the sand dunes..."
Erdan turned around and said to Professor Man, but he was shocked to find that the gauze scarf on Professor Man's face had been taken off by him at some point, and the old face revealed was as distorted as if he had seen a ghost.
"Gulu, Gulu..."
At the same time, Erdan's ears heard the urgent calls of camels. Generally speaking, camels usually do not bark. They only make calls when male camels demonstrate to each other during the breeding season.
Moreover, the camel's way of braying is also very unique. It first spits out the vocal cords from the throat, then inflates them inside to make a low grunting sound, and then swallows the vocal cords back after the sound.
But Erdan could tell that the vocal cords spit out by the camel seemed to have not been swallowed again! The gurgling sound seemed to be full of despair.
The reaction of Erdan's brain nerves was slower than that of his ear nerves. When he turned around, he found that the two-meter-tall camel in front had half of its body sunk into the sand.
The camel didn't understand the principle of quicksand. After the foot was in the air, it struggled desperately, but the harder it struggled, the faster the body fell into. The flat sand surface was like a black hole, pulling the camel's body closer to the bottomless black abyss.
In just a few seconds when Erdan turned around, only one head of the two-meter-tall camel was exposed on the sand. The sound coming out of its throat was so terrible that Erdan and the others sat down in shock.
The camels also started to stir.
"Er Mao... don't run, don't run, turn around, come back!"
Erdan whistled one after another. He had just calmed down the camels he was sitting on, but found that the second camel in front of him panicked and plunged into the quicksand area, struggling desperately.
"Da Mao, Er Mao..."
Erdan grabbed the telescope from Professor Man's hand and looked at the camel whose head slowly sank into the quicksand. His tears couldn't stop flowing down. For people living on the edge of the desert, camels... are them.
The best brother.
Erdan could clearly see that when Da Mao was swallowed by the yellow sand, muddy tears flowed from the corners of his eyes. This made Erdan feel like a knife. It was his carelessness that caused the two good friends to die in the desert.
