Chapter 50 (1/2)

Chapter 50 – The Storm, Pt. 2

Shen Yu groggily opened her eyes. The sun was shining again, and the wind had slowed down.

She shook her body, dusting sand off of herself, and stood up in the ditch. There was no one around her. Even Tang Can had disappeared.

For a moment, she felt scared at the prospect of being alone. Then she heard the voices again. They were yelling “gold mine, gold mine” just like earlier. The sound seemed to be coming from somewhere closer to her. Shen Yu turned around and almost screeched in fright when she saw a pillar behind her. The dust on the “pillar” soon fell off, and she could see a military uniform. She quickly calmed down after identifying the person in front of her.

Everyone around her was looking at where a soldier was pointing. About ten meters in the distance, there was a pile of gold, glittering underneath the sun.

“It must be a mirage!” exclaimed Tang Can, who had suddenly reappeared. He skeptically shaded his eyes and tried looking at the site from a different angle.

“Impossible! If the sandstorm didn’t recently go by, I would also think that was an illusion. But because the storm went by, the temperature surrounding us has gone down. It’s unlikely for a mirage to form under these circumstances,” retorted a soldier called Guo Pingan. He carefully wiped his eyeglasses with a handkerchief, but when he put them back on his face he found that his vision was worse with the glasses on. Earlier, the sandstorm had pummeled the lenses, leading to fine cobweb cracks forming. Because of that, he was unable to see the shocked and excited expressions on everyone’s face.

Shen Yu knew that, out of all of the soldiers here, Guo Pingan was the only one who had a college education. She searched back in her memory and decided that the young soldier’s conclusions were correct. Mirages only appeared when there was no wind or other moving air in the area. Anytime there was something to mix the air, it would make it difficult for rays of light to reflect perfectly. Any image that had formed before then would quickly disappear.

After Mazha heard Guo Pingan’s explanation, he fervently shouted at the other people, “Comrades, what are we waiting for then? That’s the gold mine we were looking for right there!”

At this moment, another blustering wind blew up and started picking up loads of sand. Tang Can hurriedly ordered, “Forget it! It looks like another sandstorm is forming!”

Right after he finished his commands, the storm started raging quickly. Sand filled the air, and the sky soon became dark again. Tang Can grabbed onto Shen Yu and pushed her down into a nearby ditch. Next to them, Mazha and another soldier came along. In the thick of the mess, the young woman managed to hit her nose on somebody’s head, but she couldn’t see who she had struck. Blood dripped out of her nostrils but under these circumstances a small injury like that was nothing to be concerned about. The rest of the team huddled together as close together as possible. Unfortunately, two soldiers, who had run out earlier, came back too late. The winds from the storm lifted them into the air. A couple of frightened screams tore the air but soon even that disappeared.

For the first time in her life, Shen Yu tasted despair at the back of her throat. Ever since she entered the Xinjiang province, she had been inundated with stories from other people about the hazardous desert storms. Sandstorms were more deadly than the demons under King Yama, the overlord of the afterlife. Wherever they blew, they consumed life indiscriminately. The only thing left from their passage would be a pile of bones. The animals living in the desert would cow in fear, with some just waiting to die. After they got consumed, their skeletons preserved their last kneeling position. The grisly sight reminded her of sinners receiving their punishment!

By the time this sandstorm rolled over, the group had lost several soldiers. Other than the two who were blown away in the beginning, other people had been lost after being buried alive by sand.

Shen Yu and her smaller group had been buried by tons of sand. Luckily, the three men were only under a shallow amount and their heads were not suffocated. Tang Can, Mazha, and another soldier named Xiao Xiao managed to struggle their way out of their sand coffins. When the young officer didn’t see Shen Yu around, he became frenzied, as if he was a mad man. In an effort to protect her, he had pushed her down as deep as possible. In this case, that might have harmed her more than he had anticipated!

Tang Can’s eyes were red as he desperately dug in the sand around him. Xiao Xiao and Mazha helped him. The three of them worked grimly to excavate the buried woman from the ground. Finally, they found her, but she had already stopped breathing. Her body lay limply on the ground. No matter what Tang Can screamed or hollered, there was no reaction out of her.

“Wake up! She’s dead! We can’t spend all of our time on her, we need to find our other comrades!” hollered Mazha after he saw Tang Can’s crazed state. In an effort to bring him back, the male soldier slapped the officer hard on the face. Tang Can rapidly calmed down after getting hit. Gritting his teeth, he reluctantly helped Mazha look for the other soldiers. The three of them were able to save three more people before their luck ran out. No matter how hard they tried afterwards, it was of no use!