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.

“No, this kind of truck can’t be driven here.” Wang Meng shoved away a lot of white sand, revealing that the car’s tires had rotted into something like cotton padding. “Boss, these are rubber tires. They’ve all been exposed to the sun.”

Wu Xie pointed to the rubber tire and explained to Li Cu: “This kind of tire can only be driven on a flat road. If there was sand all over here, it couldn’t be driven at all, and would sink into the ground.”

“That is to say, there was once a road here? Under the sand?” Li Cu looked at the white sand in his eyes and shook his head. It was really impossible to dig out the road without knowing whether it really existed. After all, the whole road was under the sand, and even if a small section was dug out, there were still continuous sand dunes ahead. Even if it took a lifetime, it would still be too difficult to dig out the whole road. What’s more, this was a desert, so you couldn’t dig a hole in the sand.

“How can there be a road here?” Wu Xie muttered to himself, and then said to the two men, “We’re already in a troublesome situation, so we might as well keep digging to see if we can dig out more trucks and find something useful when they’re exposed.”

So the three men continued to dig, but it only took a few minutes before suddenly, a withered face appeared in the sand. Then, the sand suddenly fell away, and all the sand around the face collapsed, revealing a completely air-dried skeleton.

Li Cu, who had never seen such a scene before, was in a cold sweat. Fortunately, he didn’t yell out in fright, but he didn’t dare to get too close, either. He looked at the other two and noticed that even Wang Meng wasn’t much better off.

Wu Xie was the only one that showed no sign of fear. He merely said, “Damn, that’s not a good sign. See, this is a military uniform, meaning that this is a soldier. All the soldiers were trapped and ended up dying here, so that makes it even more difficult for us.”

“Not necessarily trapped, maybe they died in a car accident.” Li Cu remembered Wu Xie’s optimism.

“Impossible, what kind of car accident in the desert can kill people?” Wu Xie took the dried corpse by the collar and lifted the whole body out of the sand. Although the body was completely dehydrated and air-dried, the weight made Wu Xie stagger, causing a large amount of sand to fall down and cover all of their feet. He threw the corpse aside and said to the two men, “Check the pockets.”

“This isn’t humane.” Wang Meng was still a little scared.

“They’re all dead, just mortal flesh now.” Wu Xie saw that the other two were terrified of the corpse. “Don’t be afraid, these things have to be old to be dangerous. This one isn’t old enough.”

Wang Meng looked at Li Cu, who immediately shook his head: “I’m a hostage. According to the Geneva Treaty, hostages can’t do hard labor.”

“Didn’t you say you were invited? It’s only natural that you should be paid to do some work. Besides, hostages and prisoners of war are different.” Wang Meng shouted impatiently, “I’m not a soldier either, so go!”

“Can you give me a share of your salary?”

“Yes, it’s not much anyway.”

Wu Xie continued to dig out the truck bed, shoving out masses of sand, while Li Cu squatted down in front of the dried corpse, held his nose, and poked it with his fingers.

This was the first time he had faced a corpse, and it was a completely air-dried one. His first reaction was, how awesome would it be if I told Su Wan? Thinking like this, the fear in his heart seemed to have decreased a little and he looked at the body more carefully.

The corpse was wearing a military uniform that had been covered in large alkalized white spots. The uniform was as hard as salted fish, but the horizontal bar on the shoulder could still be seen clearly.

“Not a small rank, but an officer.”

“Officer? Why did the officer stay in the truck? Don’t talk nonsense.” Wang Meng shook his head disapprovingly.

Li Cu gave Wang Meng a sideways glance and thought, come and take a look if you don’t believe me, but didn’t open his mouth to refute. He continued to carefully reach his fingers into the pockets, and finally found a military officer’s certificate, a pen, and a small notebook in the corpse’s coat pocket.

The notebook was for work notes, and the paper had been alkalized to the point that it was very brittle. He didn’t exert much force, but the places where his fingers touched the notebook immediately crumbled. He had to let it fall close, thinking that it was good that there was no wind here, otherwise the paper would have turned to powder as soon as the wind blew.

Li Cu moved on to the other two things, only to find that the two sides of the military officer’s certificate were glued together and couldn’t be separated at all, and the pen couldn’t be pulled out of the cap.

Li Cu sighed, secretly wondering if he would come to the same end if he was trapped here. Then, he noticed that the corpse was wearing a wrist watch, but he couldn’t tell whether the style was new or old. He carefully removed it, guessing that it should be very expensive and definitely not an ordinary watch, because the hands were still moving and they were still quite accurate.

“This must be a corrupt official.” Li Cu said to the other two.

“Can you focus on other things? See if he has a map and compass or something. “

“I think all the paper products on his body are useless even if we find them. They must have been very poorly preserved. Besides, he ended up like this, so I don’t think the map he brought will help much.”

Having said that, Li Cu decided not to look anymore. He was really a little scared and muttered to himself: Whatever, I’ll go slow. What else can I do?

Li Cu had just thought this, when something came flying at him from Wu Xie’s side with a bang. It was another corpse, and it was also a soldier.

He turned to look, and saw Wu Xie carrying four or five corpses down from the truck and shouting to him, “Shit, there must be more than one truck buried here. Forget about these corpses, there are a lot of things in the sand.”

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