Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Not only was Nabari not hiding his secrets—he wasn’t even wary of Zhang Zian and Peter Lee when he was imparting his knowledge to Salem. He even let them write down the GPS coordinates of the stone, making them embarrassed.
So what if they knew the GPS coordinates? It was clearly not possible that they were going to give up on their comfortable lives and jobs in the city to snatch work away from them anyway.
Peter looked at the time. Their fifteen minutes were almost up. He spoke through the walkie-talkie then. “Everyone, return to your cars, and get ready to go.”
Zhang Zian returned to his car too. Seeing that all the elfins were back, he asked, “The road is still long ahead of us, so does anyone want to go back into the phone? I’ll let you all out when we stop to set up camp for the night.”
The journey was dull and boring, the desert looking the same no matter where they went. The scenery looked as though it stood still no matter how fast they drove. The moment they entered the sandy area, the car would dive up and down like a small boat in the middle of the sea. It was nauseating.
Even though it was already past mid-afternoon, the temperature in the desert was still more than 40 degrees Celsius. Right at noon, it was as hot as 55 degrees Celsius, the surface temperature of the desert reaching 80 degrees Celsius, hot enough to cook an egg. Even though they were wearing thick-soled shoes meant specifically for the deserts, the heat would travel to their feet after less than a minute of standing outside. It got really hot and humid in the shoe, feeling just as horrible as stepping in melting butter.
The smell of the diesel-powered engine was nauseating to the sensitive elfins too.
The sun reflected off the hoods of the cars. Without sunglasses, human eyes would be damaged quickly.
The most annoying thing was that under such high heat, the air conditioning in the car was significantly weaker. They couldn’t even keep it on constantly, or the rapid powering of the cooler would cause the engine to have lower output. They could only turn the air conditioning on when they really couldn’t stand the heat, enjoy the coolness for a moment, and turn it off again.
The moment the air conditioner stopped, their bodies poured out sweat again. The heat dissipation capabilities of humans were very efficient, but the pets, with their entire bodies covered in hair, had a hard time.
Vladimir, Galaxy, and Old Time Tea all planned to go back into the phone to rest, their curiosity sated. Pi had originally planned to write its novel on the way with the laptop in its lap, but it was too difficult to type during a bumpy ride. There was no road, after all, and the car would jerk significantly whenever they met a small stone or a divot, and the laptop had almost flown out of its hands a few times. So it gave up and requested to go back to the phone too.
Zhang Zian would’ve loved to drive stabler too, but the strong reflection of light from the desert caused him to be unable to see any details in the road too far away. If not for Nabari reminding them of divots to avoid in front, the jerkiness would be worse. They might even have a car breaking down on them.
Now, he realized why Nabari’s eyesight had deteriorated so much despite that he was only in his mid-forties. Having to bring people into the desert so often and having to stare at the sand and dry land, it was a miracle that his eyes had lasted this long.
As for Fina and Famous, it wasn’t that they didn’t want to, but they couldn’t go back to the phone. If they had to stop for any emergencies, it would certainly cause a commotion if anyone found them missing.
The one that Zhang Zian wanted to keep in the phone the most was Richard. That damned bird was really annoying, and it wasn’t afraid of getting jostled around. With its two claws firmly grabbing onto his shoulder, he couldn’t even swipe it out of the way. It absolutely refused to go back in, too. When he tried to point the camera in its direction, it turned away, even using its wings to cover its head so he couldn’t do anything about it.
If he could’ve, he would’ve really loved to keep all of the elfins in his phone so he could properly use the Great Water Bottle Trick…
After he dealt with the elfins, the car became much more spacious. The convoy continued forward.
Another hour passed. The plain scenery made people easily tired. The good news was that the sun was already approaching the horizon, and the horrible heat was starting to dissipate. Zhang Zian opened the car window, letting cool air blow through the car, not even caring about the sand that the wind carried with it as long as he could enjoy the cool breeze.
The bad news was that the dry and rocky road that everyone complained about was coming to a stop, and there was an endless sea of sand before them.
Everyone had the same thought—why not just set up camp here and enter the desert for real tomorrow?
But the main channel was still quiet, and the order to slow down and stop the cars never came. It looked like Peter Lee and Wei Kang both planned to keep moving forward while it was cooling off.
“All cars slow down. Close the gap. We’re getting ready to enter the desert, so drive carefully,” Peter Lee instructed through the walkie-talkie.
There was no distinct line between the dry, rocky roads and the sandy desert. The only way to know was through the feel of the wheels on the land, gradually going from hard to soft as an indication that they had entered the sandy sea.
Sand dunes surrounded them, and there was no chance that any kind of marking could be left here. But Nabari’s car was still constantly going forward, and his voice was confident, giving reassurance to the rest of the team.
Every sand dune looked like a roof, the wind causing the sand to pile up naturally into a triangular shape with two slopes. While on one side of the dune, the other face of the dune was a complete mystery. There might be an even taller sand dune there or an even deeper valley.
The most troublesome thing was that every sand dune’s height, angle of slope, and softness of sand were slightly different. It was difficult for a driver to estimate the acceleration that they would have to use.
If the acceleration was too much, they would have too high a speed when crossing the top of the sand dune, and they would end up airborne. They could only pray to God that they would be able to land safely then. If it was too steep or the angle was too different on the other end of the sand dune, the car could flip. If they didn’t put in enough acceleration, the car wouldn’t have enough speed to climb up the sand dune and end up sliding backwards, either flipping or crashing into the car behind them, or even sinking into the sand.
They could only rely on their experiences then, only able to tell by feel and not something that can be taught verbally. Even Nabali could only hint them by saying things like “high sand dune,””middle sand dune,” or “low sand dune.” But what were the standards for “high,””middle,” and “low”? How much acceleration did they have to give for the high sand dunes? How much for the low ones?
It had already gotten cooler, but every single driver ended up sweating due to how nervous they were. Every single sand dune was a toss-up with their lives, and they didn’t know whether they would come down safely after going up.
The most depressing thing was that there were tens of thousands more waiting for them.
Sitting in the passenger seat of the first car in the convoy, Salem held onto the handles tightly, his knuckles turning as white as his face with the effort. He seemed to understand then why Uncle Nabari preferred camels to jeeps—even though camels walked slowly, they could scale the sand dunes as though they were flat land.
“Stop! Stop! Everyone stop! Car 10 has broken down!”
An emergency call suddenly broke through the silence of the main channel.
