1234 The Journey Continues (1/2)
”Ladies and gentlemen, good morning! It's time to wake up! Or do you want to sleep here forever like that skeleton?”
Zhang Zian was sleeping soundly, wrapped up in his warm blanket, when he was woken up by the sound of a loudspeaker.
Who was he? Where was he? What was he doing?
He sat up in a daze, taking a look at the interior of the tent, not quite awake yet. He only gradually found his bearings after a few seconds.
He hadn't slept well last night. The sand may be soft when one stepped on it, but it was a hard surface when one lay down on it. It was not a flat surface either. After sleeping in a bed for the past few days in the hotels, his poor old back had definitely suffered. He'd woken up stiff, in pain, and miserable. It was easy to adapt from a poor man's life to a rich man's life, but it was hard to go from a rich man's life to a poor one!
The worst thing was that they had sweated the entire day and couldn't shower. The temperature dipped drastically in the second half of the day, as though they were entering autumn, and they hugged their blankets close in order to retain body heat. The dirt on their skin now stuck to the blanket. Right then, he really envied the animals that didn't sweat.
He pulled down the zipper of his tent. The sky was still mostly dark. Only a sliver of orange had broken through in the east, and the cool morning breeze flooded the tent.
The camp started waking up like a newborn beast, the tents being pulled open one by one, people stumbling out still half-asleep. Only Nabari was completely awake.
Peter Lee had already dressed. He was walking around the campground with the loudspeaker, waking everyone so that they could go wash up for the day. If any tent didn't respond to his initial calls, he would point the loudspeaker towards the tent and scream unceremoniously.
Those that were already awake started heading to their designated areas to take care of their biological needs—brushing their teeth, wiping their faces with wet towels, making breakfast. They filled up with any food that they could find before taking down the tents, flattening the moisture-proof pads, folding everything back up neatly, and strapping it into the metal luggage holds on top of their cars.
It took a fair bit of time to set up and take down their tents every day, but it was a lot better to sleep in the tent than in a car. They had all of their fuel, materials, and equipment in their cars, after all. They barely had any space to stretch in them.
The speed of everyone's actions varied a lot—for example, taking a sh*t. Some of them squatted down and were done within three minutes, but some of their sessions lasted more than 10 minutes, and they almost couldn't stand up from how numb their legs were.
Peter Lee kept rushing everyone as he watched the time. Anyone who was taking too long would get an earful from him. Even He He was on the receiving end of it, forced to the brink of tears.
In an expedition team that lacked quality and experience, someone had to be the bad guy, usually the person that had the most power.
Zhang Zian could not imagine at all what would have happened if the research team had gone into the desert by themselves. They might take one entire hour to get ready and would have to rest after just a few moments of walking.
Not too many minutes later, there was nothing else left in their campground other than trash and a mess of footprints.
Each person entered their own jeep, following Peter Lee's instructions and checking the condition of their cars.
The sun finally peeked out on the horizon in the east, shooting out millions of sharp orange swords through the sky, the shadows formed by the sand dunes shifting as the sun did.