Chapter 20 Don’t Touch That Thing

Wang Meng was already deeply asleep when Li Cu returned to his tent, so he turned off the camera. He suddenly felt that the desert here wasn’t very safe, and the more he thought it over, the more he thought there was something wrong here. So he shrank into his sleeping bag and covered his head.

Li Cu dreamed all night and didn’t know how long he slept, but it was already noon the next day when he finally woke up. He wondered why no one had called him and why the team hadn’t set off yet. Did they all sleep late, too? Li Cu pulled himself together, climbed out of his sleeping bag, and walked out of the tent.

The tents were insulated from both the cold and the heat, so when Li Cu walked out, a wave of heat assaulted his face, and the sun was so bright that it seemed as if it had been rendered by a computer.

As he waited for his eyes to adjust to the harsh light, he saw that almost all of the team members were standing on the edge of the haizi. Their attention was drawn by something there, so no one noticed him at all.

Li Cu looked at the team’s camels and thought that it was a good chance to escape. If only he knew how to control the camel and knew the way back, then he could make his escape now. Unfortunately, it was clearly impossible, so he quickly dismissed the idea.

He walked up to the place where the crowd had gathered and saw that several soldiers had taken off their shirts and were fishing for something in the water.

“What’s the matter?” He yawned and asked the man beside him, who said, “Someone threw all our inspection equipment into the haizi.”

“Eh? Who did that?”

“I don’t know. It’s supposed to be safe here, so no one kept guard last night. We didn’t expect that someone would do such a thing here. It’s not good. The soldiers are trying to fish them out, and putting aside the ones they managed to grab to see if they can still be used after drying.”

Li Cu turned his head and saw Wu Xie and Professor Wang fiddling with some of the things that had been retrieved. He asked, “Are these devices important?”

“If we can’t repair them, the odds are nine to ten that we’ll have to go back.” That guy said, “It’s an inspection, not sightseeing.”

Li Cu walked to Wu Xie’s side and was just about to speak when Wu Xie waved his hand: “I’m not in the mood to answer any of your questions right now.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you a question.” Li Cu said, “I just wanted to remind you of one thing.”

“What?”

Li Cu originally wanted to have another discussion about the black shadow captured by the camera, but as soon as Wu Xie had finished speaking, there was a cry from the haizi, and the crowd started getting agitated.

Wu Xie and Professor Wang immediately stood up and ran over, and Li Cu could only give up for a while. He ran after them and saw several people pointing around the equipment that had been retrieved.

“What’s going on? Anything we retrieved gets set aside here so what are you whispering about?”

“This isn’t our equipment.” One of the soldiers in charge of salvaging said.

The soldier pointed to the equipment one of them had retrieved and said, “I recognize everything else, but look at this thing. It’s not ours.”

It was an object that seemed to be wrapped in metal skin but wasn’t too heavy. It was about the same size as the wheel of a wheelchair, and its outer surface was cylindrical and rusty. There were a lot of small bumps on it, like rusty rivets.

“This isn’t our equipment?”

“Absolutely not.”

“When did you find it?”

“I don’t know, it was mixed in with this pile of equipment that we fished out together. I wasn’t paying any attention to it before, and only discovered it just now when I was tidying up. It seems like this thing is originally from the bottom of the lake.”

When Wu Xie went up and touched it with his foot, the thing rolled onto the sand and Wu Xie found that it was very light.

“No, be careful. What if it’s a bomb?!” Someone exclaimed. The crowd immediately backed away.

Wu Xie sighed and glanced at them, but also looked bewildered. At this time, Li Cu had already recognized what it was and stood there transfixed, thinking, how can this thing be here?

“This……” He tried to say, “this……this….. this is…”

“What?” Wu Xie looked back impatiently, “If you have something to say, just spit it out.”

“You’d better not touch it with your feet.” Li Cu said, “It’s better not to touch this thing.”

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