Free Web NovelChapter 2122: Chapter 1985: Marching Ants of the Desert (Part 3)
Zhang Guofu let out a cold laugh and said to Zhao Ruonan: "General, desert marching ants aren’t actually marching ants found in the desert. It’s just that the places the marching ants pass by become desolate like a desert. Marching ants live in the jungle, how could they appear in the desert, and with so many of them, what would they eat?"
Zhao Ruonan glanced at Song Xiaodong.
The two of them recalled the mountains of dry bones piled up in the Ancient City of Loulan yesterday.
"Dozens of us saw it; Station Chief Li from the Cultural Relics Protection Station also sacrificed himself, gnawed to bare bones by the marching ants." Zhao Ruonan said to Zhang Guofu.
"The marching ants did this? Impossible, this sand isn’t even from here!" Zhang Guofu shook his head.
"The marching ants brought it here?" Sun Yiyi asked.
Zhang Guofu, Song Xiaodong, and Zhao Ruonan all stared at Sun Yiyi with serious expressions.
Sun Yiyi felt a wave of tension and cautiously said, "Don’t ants usually carry things around with their pincers?"
Zhao Ruonan and Song Xiaodong exchanged a glance and nodded.
"Dig!" Zhao Ruonan commanded his warriors to dig pits in the sandy ground.
Just after they had been digging for a short while, Song Xiaodong squinted into the distance and spotted a yellow cloud rising suddenly beyond the distant sand dunes on the horizon, quickly engulfing the pure blue sky.
"Sandstorm!" Song Xiaodong shouted, and Zhao Ruonan and the others turned around. The yellow cloud, like a mushroom cloud, continued to spread, becoming even denser in color.
"Get in the car!" The warriors swiftly got into the vehicles and left.
There was no way the car could outrun the sandstorm. Without any warning, the sky turned dark in an instant, everything between heaven and earth turned yellow and hazy, and the car windows rattled loudly with the impact of the sand.
"Cover your noses!" Song Xiaodong commanded.
Sun Yiyi and Chu Xianling covered their noses with their clothes and huddled in Song Xiaodong’s arms. Song Xiaodong lowered his head to shield the two ladies, as the open military Jeep couldn’t block the sandstorm. Gravel hit Song Xiaodong’s face like bullets, and he tightly closed his eyes, not daring to open them.
The sound of the wind roared in his ears, visibility was less than two meters, and beyond that, nothing could be seen. All around was dense yellow sand; looking up, the sun was obscured, and directions were indistinguishable.
But Zhang Guofu knew the direction.
He had lived in Lop Nur for thirty years and knew the prevailing wind direction of the sandstorms here. He directed the convoy, which retreated back to the camp in a dismal retreat.
The camp was in a wind-sheltered direction, hiding behind three sand dunes.
Although the dunes could block the strong winds, they couldn’t stop the sand. When the wind subsided, the sand lost its power and settled into the camp, causing the ground to rise by ten centimeters in no time.
Chapter One Thousand Nine Hundred and Eighty-Seven: Sinister Being
Song Xiaodong, Sun Yiyi, and Chu Xianling slept in the same tent.
A pile of sand had accumulated on the tent’s roof, bending it down as if it might collapse at any moment.
Sun Yiyi picked at her ear, Chu Xianling scratched her nose—sand was everywhere.
"Ah, coming out with you to suffer like this! I was better off staying home watching shows and shopping on Taobao!" Chu Xianling complained to Song Xiaodong.
"My skin has gone rough too!" Sun Yiyi added.
"The weather is truly bizarre; it was a clear day with no wind, and then suddenly a sandstorm appeared." Chu Xianling continued.
"And it stopped just as suddenly!" Song Xiaodong opened the tent; the wind had stopped, the sun hung high in the sky, and there wasn’t a trace of the sandstorm.
"This whole place is just strange." Sun Yiyi said.
At night, Zhao Ruonan led a team of warriors, along with Song Xiaodong, Sun Yiyi, Chu Xianling, and Master Benwu, to Lop Nur.
The wind and sand were strong at night. As the convoy traversed the yardangs, the wind wailed, and the sound seemed mixed with the sobs of countless people, enough to make one’s skin crawl.
They reached the predetermined target point and got out of the vehicles. frёeωebɳovel.com
The yardangs were a special feature; the layers of soil, eroded by the strong desert winds and sand, left behind only the hard rocks, forming variously shaped dunes. In the moonlight, they resembled giant hands reaching towards the sky, and walking among them felt like being in a labyrinth.
General Zhao took out a compass and found the needle constantly shaking.
With a wry smile, General Zhao handed the compass to Song Xiaodong to see.
Master Benwu took the lead, followed closely by Song Xiaodong, with Sun Yiyi and Chu Xianling just behind, and Zhao Ruonan with a team of warriors trailing them.
After passing through this yardang area, next was the original location of Lop Nur.
The Lop Nur at night was different from during the day.
During the day, it was a flat desert, but now patches of exposed dunes emerged in the sand, creating a unique yardang landscape.
On the now flat desert, many dunes had appeared as if they were huge ant nests.
The group carefully traversed between the dunes.
After what seemed like a long time of walking, they still found themselves wandering among the dunes. free𝑤ebnovel.com
Spinning in circles.
"How long have we been walking?" Song Xiaodong asked.
"Five minutes." Zhao Ruonan replied.
"How far does that look?" Song Xiaodong pointed to the central area of Lop Nur and asked.
"Three minutes."
Master Benwu stopped, holding prayer beads in one hand and a Zen staff in the other, softly reciting: "Amitabha Buddha!"
After chanting, Master Benwu thrust the Zen staff forcefully into the sand, shouting with an ample voice: "Break!"
The sharp tip of the Zen staff should have silently plunged deeply into the sand, but it didn’t. Instead, there was a crisp "ding," as if the staff had struck a gold brick, and a circle of golden ripples quickly spread from the tip of the Zen staff.
The sand underfoot began to rumble softly, like an earthquake. The sand beneath them trembled lightly, and the dunes surrounding Song Xiaodong and the others began to shake, sand sliding down from the dunes, revealing what lay beneath.
