The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 25: Desert Corpses

The haizi's surroundings had calmed down and there were endless sand dunes in sight, but the sand here was a rare white—almost as white as snow. If it weren't for the heat wave, Li Cu would probably have thought he was on a snowy mountain.

Wang Meng rowed the raft, and when they pulled it onto the sandy shore, Wu Xie warned, "Pull the raft all the way up. If the haizi moves again, we'll be fucked."

"Do you think this haizi is the train here? After dropping a few guests off at the station, it'll keeping going?" Li Cu was immersed in a fantasy.

"I estimate it's a loop, but I don't know how long it would take to walk around it." Wu Xie leaned forward and scooped up a handful of scalding white sand, while frowning slightly. "There's quartz in it, just like the sand outside. But why is it so white?"

"Is there anything special about white sand?"

"Most sand comes from stone, and white means that calcium is especially abundant." Wu Xie shook the sand off his hand and said, "I don't remember any images of this area in the aerial photos."

"Maybe it's the light, so it's not so obvious in the sky." Li Cu said.

"Aerial cameras aren't common cameras." Wu Xie said, holding his hand in mid-air, "Besides, there's no wind here."

Li Cu followed suit and found that he was right, there really was no air flow at all.

At that moment, Wang Meng, who was pulling the raft up, suddenly shouted, "Boss! Come and look at this!"

Li Cu and Wu Xie rushed up a sand dune and looked to the edge of the haizi, where they saw Wang Meng pointing to the sand dune nearby. The sand on the dune had slid aside as he dragged the raft across it, and the whole surface had collapsed, revealing what was buried underneath.

Li Cu and Wu Xie ran over, while the raft slipped more and more. Soon, the corner of an old truck emerged from the sand dune. The collapsed part revealed the bed of the truck, which was full of the kind of dangerous container they had found at the bottom of the haizi.

The three men dug hard at the sand, and a dilapidated liberation truck soon emerged. Rust spots formed in the desert were different from those produced in other places, so they could obviously see that the truck was corroded by an alkaline substance. Many places on the iron plates were covered with a layer of white rusty dust, which broke and fell as soon as it was touched.

"See, this truck must have broken down here a long time ago." Wang Meng said through gasps. "And Boss, when we went into the water, we pushed the raft together. Why didn't you help me pull it up? I'm the only one pulling it."

"Observing the environment is more important than pulling a raft." Wu Xie replied. "Things rust slowly in the desert. According to this degree of corrosion, the truck has been here for at least twenty years."

"Not necessarily." Li Cu retorted, "I learned in class that the temperature difference between day and night in the desert is very large, and there will be water vapor at dusk, which will accelerate the corrosion rate of objects. Besides, there's a water source nearby. The container we saw in the haizi probably fell into the water here and was carried by the current to the oasis where we were resting."

"I didn't expect you to be a good student." Wu Xie was surprised.

Li Cu silently thought, the reason why I remembered so clearly is because the teacher who taught this at that time had a big chest and was especially pleasing to the eyes, so I listened attentively to the class. Later, an old man took over, so I was no longer interested in listening.