Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
“She did come here, but… don’t you know what happened recently?” he looked at Mo Han questioningly.
Mo Han felt his heart twist and had his heart in his mouth. He suppressed the rush of emotions. “What happened?”
“She left here a few days ago, and went to explore the desert with a few other youngsters. The original plan was to come back yesterday. In the end the desert they went to had a sandstorm yesterday evening, many things were wrecked and they went missing.”
Mo Han could not speak a single word after hearing what he said. It had taken almost two days from S City to reach here, and the string he had in his heart still snapped in the end.
“How… are you… related to her?” the hostel boss asked.
“I’m her boyfriend,” Mo Han answered.
The hostel boss nodded his head, walked over and patted his back reassuringly. “Don’t worry too much, the government has already sent people for search and rescue. There should be news in a day’s time; she will come back safely.”
Mo Han felt a little dizzy and sat down. “The place she disappeared at, how far is it from here?”
“Pretty far. It takes around a ten-hour drive from here.”
“Can you help me find a car and take me there?” Mo Han asked.
“No, a sandstorm just occurred, vision is going to be limited, and the road conditions won’t be good. It’s not wise to go there around this time.”
“I can pay more.”
“This is not about money… you really can’t go there… the roads here are not in good conditions, and are terrible for walking. The desert your girlfriend went to is right at the heart of the sandstorm, the roads there are probably damaged, and they’ll need time for repair.”
Mo Han lowered his head and stared at the ground, his hand unknowingly brushing through his hair. Xia Qingyi was very familiar with this small movement that he would do whenever he felt frustrated.
The hostel boss saw him looking like that, and sat down to comfort him. “Don’t worry, your girlfriend will be fine. Her tour group had their own car and a destination, it’ll be easy for rescue workers to find them.”
“Can we really not go to the desert?” Mo Han asked.
The hostel boss nodded his head. “It’s not possible to go there for a few days at least. The expressway at the west side of D City is the only road leading towards the desert. It’s blocked now due to the sandstorm and the roads are all covered in stones and sand. It’ll be extremely dangerous if you drive now. You can only wait a few days for now and wait for news from above.”
“Wait… wait… I’ve waited long enough… I don’t want to wait any longer,” Mo Han said in a low voice.
“It won’t be more than a few days, the rescue workers reached there yesterday. If you’re still worried, you can go to the Disaster Prevention and Rescue Center to ask about the progress of the search and rescue,” the hostel boss said.
Mo Han stood up and thanked the hostel boss. He listened to the boss’s suggestion and prepared to go to the center to inquire on the progress of the rescue. He could not always wait for news, not like the previous time when he waited for Xia Qingyi to come and find him.
He wanted to go and find her.
Xia Qingyi felt that there was something wrong on the day they were supposed to go back.
They had parked the car in the desert, and it was already evening. They were keeping the tent they set up yesterday, and were going to roll it up to put in the car. It was too cold at night in the desert, and their original plan to stay for three days had already been extended by one day. They planned to drive back tonight and reach the borders of the desert before looking for a hostel to sleep in.
Xia Qingyi was arranging things in the car boot when the wind around her started to get stronger. She wrapped her clothes tighter around her, and quickened her movements so that she could finish packing and get into the car.
It was around this time when the air suddenly turned silent, and the wind that had been constantly blowing at her stopped moving. The dust swirling in the air seemed to be falling down slowly.
Xia Qingyi heard someone shouting, “Look!”
The person was pointing at something behind her, up at the sky. She turned around and looked in the direction he was pointing at.
In a blink of an eye, the air became frozen.
In the west, every corner of the landscape was enveloped in gray and was rushing towards them. It kept on expanding and becoming bigger, blocking the sunlight and a huge patch of the sky like the carpet of the death god.
The entire world turned dark in that instant.
Xia Qingyi could sniff the pungent smell of sand. The winds whipped around her and made a thundering sound, trapping big and small rocks and stones within it. It seemed to slice through every single part of her body, and she felt that she was not able to stand any longer, that her legs were going to give way.
“Run back to the car quickly, it’s a sandstorm!” someone shouted.
“Wait for me, I’ll take a photo first!” Someone wanted to take out her camera from the bag.
Xia Qingyi stopped her. “Look at the situation! Forget the photos, take care of yourself first!”
Some of them no longer bothered about their belongings, and anxiously headed back to the car. They closed the car door and windows tightly. They had never seen a sandstorm before, and they could only gasp for breath in the car, not knowing what to do next.
“Let’s sit in the car and wait. No matter how big the wind is, it can’t possibly blow away the entire car with all of us in it. Wait until the sandstorm is over before we leave.”
No one objected, and they listened to him. All of them sat worriedly in the car and waited for the sandstorm to subside.
The sound of the wind outside got louder and louder, deafening as that of cymbals and drums. The sky and land had melted into one, and the world seen from the car window was completely yellow outside. Big and small rocks hit against every corner of the car. For some reason, the entire car started to shake violently as well, as though it was going to throw people out of their seats.
There was the sound of a crash, and the car window opposite Xia Qingyi was shattered by the rocks. One hit Xia Qingyi’s forehead, and fresh blood immediately rushed out from the wound and flowed towards her eyes.
The wind flowed through the huge gaping hole and whipped towards them, the yellow sands trapped within hitting her face. Minuscule grains got into her windpipe, causing Xia Qingyi to feel asphyxiated.
Only then did they notice that it was not safe in the car as well, but before they had time to react, the sandstorm had flung the car into the air.
Everyone screamed and grabbed anything they could find near them. The car flew into the air, and as they floated they were flung back towards the ground. There was a loud sound of the impact as the car fell and crash-landed.
Xia Qingyi slowly opened her eyes. The world before her was still completely yellow, and she did not know what kind of position she was in right now, but she felt that her own face was becoming as rough as the desert. The wind was still howling outside, but it was dead silent inside the car. Xia Qingyi tried to open her mouth, but her throat was jammed by the wind and sand and she could not make any noise.
The injury on her forehead seemed to be bleeding again. Her head was spinning and throbbing in pain, and in her daze, Xia Qingyi saw a glimpse of the yellow world before her again before her vision went black.
Mo Han reached the Disaster Prevention and Rescue Center in D City, and it was chaos inside. This sudden disaster had made everyone in the city feel helpless. They had no other choice and could only come to the government to seek help. The west side of D City had sustained the most damage. All the houses in that area were destroyed by the sandstorm, and the homeless people could only carry their valuables with them to seek help here.
Mo Han managed to squeeze past the crowd after a lot of difficulty. He reached the center of the lobby when he saw an old lady sitting on the ground wailing as she hit her own thighs. The people around her wanted to pull her up but were frightened by her loud sobs, so they could only hold on to her arm and listen to her speak.
The old lady’s face was full of tears, and she cried, “How could everything be gone all of a sudden? What should I do in the future… I don’t have anything anymore… I’ve already placed everything on my house and my husband… what should I do?”
The people around her were discussing softly. The old lady’s house was a broken old house, and she wanted to follow her son and move into a new house some time later. But this sandstorm caused the wall to collapse onto her husband, and he could no longer be saved when he reached the hospital.
To outsiders, no matter how tragic things were in the world, they could only speak lightly and say how pitiful the person was. Their lives would not be affected because of someone else, and only the person would understand all the pain and misery of the events.
Only they themselves could understand the kind of despair.
Mo Han glanced at the old lady sitting on the ground crying, and felt sad for a stranger for the first time. But he could not do anything much, Xia Qingyi was still not found, so he did not have the heart to do anything else.
Mo Han followed the signs of the lobby and found the administration spot responsible for the desert rescue. The commotion was different as that from the outside. This spot appeared to be empty, probably because there was only that one tour group trapped in the desert.
“May I ask, is there any news from the team responsible for the desert rescue?” Mo Han asked.
The administrator raised her head and glanced at Mo Han. “You are…?”
“I’m the boyfriend of one of the girls from the tour group trapped in the desert.”
“You have good timing, we have just received some information.” The administrator had just hung up on a call from the rescue team.
“What kind of news?”
“They found the car in the desert, it was probably caught in the sandstorm and had toppled in the desert. They found two people in the car, but unfortunately, both of them are dead.”
