There was a suffocation in his chest, as if something was blocking his throat, making him unable to breathe.

He touched his chest and pulled out his necklace from under his collar.

It was a bead that had been taken out of the small wooden box left by my grandfather.

"I don't know, what did Grandpa give me this bead for......"

In the blink of an eye, it was already dawn, Chen Tao and Haozi each took something and called a car with Ye Rong.

The car drove all the way west, and soon after leaving the town, it walked straight for a few kilometers to the edge of a desert that was inaccessible.

Chen Tao raised his eyes and found that the surrounding area was full of golden sand dunes, and only a few families stood alone in this world, so it was not desolate.

A few camel bells rang in the distance, and they entered the vast desert, which was difficult to trek through the desert with no grass and easy to get lost, and it was called the sea of death. Among the many livestock, only the camel is suitable for long-distance crossing the desert, the camel has a hump, can endure hunger and thirst, can trek in the desert for more than ten days without eating or drinking, there is a thick meat pad under the flat hooves, it is not easy to fall into the quicksand, stable as a mountain, running like the wind, and relatively tame, has a strong ability to know the way, plus the camel is tall, a camel can carry a weight of about 180 kilograms, walking on the wild sand of the Dead Sea, there is no better livestock than the camel. If you can find a team of camels and an experienced guide, the danger of crossing the quicksand will be minimized.

Ye Rong walked to a house, pushed open the door of the fence, and shouted a few words into the house in a language that Chen Tao couldn't hear.

In the middle of the night, a thin old man came out, with a gray cloth felt hat wrapped around his head, a pair of windproof goggles wrapped around the cloth edge, and a gray-red gauze scarf around his neck.

"Miss Ye is here, it's okay now, you can go." The old man went out of the house and brought out four camels from the backyard.

"This is the guide we are looking for, and he is the only one in this town who will take us deep into the desert." Ye Rong explained.

"Well, don't worry! I think when my old man was young, he came back alive across the desert, and as long as the price was in place, he could go as far as he wanted! "The old man's name is Takji, a Uyghur who has lived in the desert for a long time, his skin is tanned, and his face is like weeds on the side of the road.

Ye Rong should have been prepared, I don't know when there were two more backpacks in my hand, Chen Tao took it, and it contained a lot of things. Goggles, scarves, wolf-eye flashlights, compressed dry food, hand-held illuminated flares, and several weapons such as folding shovels and daggers.

The four of them traveled as lightly as possible, and hired two camels to bring enough water and stuffed a few large bags of air-dried meat. This is when I embarked on a trip to the desert.

Before leaving, the old man of Takji took a blanket and spread it on the yellow sand unhurriedly, the person knelt on it, his eyes were slightly closed, his expression was pious, he stretched out his hands to the sky, and then crossed his chest, bowed his head and recited the scriptures that Chen Tao did not understand, and then kowtowed reverently, and his head was almost the whole body lying on the ground.

"What is he doing here?" Haozi was puzzled.

"You outsiders don't understand!" Takji took the blanket after worshipping: "Be in awe of the desert, I am praying for you to be like the true god of the desert, asking him to bless us to come back smoothly." ”

The camel bell rang, and the four marched over the dunes.

"I don't like camels, they are dirty, they stink, and they spit." Haozi rode on the back of a camel with the reins in her hands.

"This little brother, it's not right for you to say that!" Old man Takji raised the whip in his hand, "This camel is a friend of mankind." When I was in the desert, I relied on camels to survive, and when it mattered, it would save your life! ”

Ye Rong touched the hair on the camel's head and said with a smile: "I think it's okay, these camels are quite cute." ”

Chen Tao smiled and did not speak.

The scorching sun hung in the sky, and as far as the eye could see, there were only endless yellow sand dunes. Truly walking on the desert, one can experience its horror.

At first, the road was fine, there were a lot of shrubs growing on the edge of the desert, and you could even see sheep herders, the initial part of the journey, according to the words of the old man of Takji, was not a desert at all, but in the depths of the desert where no one could reach people, there was not a trace of wind in the air, the fiery sun hung in the sky, and the sand touched the skin, and it would burn out a pit.

The temperature difference between day and night in the desert is ridiculous, and the sun is almost dry during the day, and it can freeze people to death after dark.

In order to avoid the scorching sun at noon, everyone almost rushed overnight, and after a few days, before people arrived at the place, their physical strength could not hold on.

The scorching heat was hard to resist, and everyone's face was covered with a layer of dry skin, and there were no words along the way, and no one had the heart to say anything more. During this period, I encountered a sandstorm, although it was not very big, but it was not very comfortable, and I don't know how much sand I ate.

After riding on the back of a camel for a long time, there was a pain under my body, and my butt was about to lose consciousness. The sun was setting, and the air was hot and stuffy, and people couldn't breathe.

Chen Tao's mouth cracked several times, and his body seemed to be about to reach its limit, but he still forced himself to hold on.

Ye Rong held the route map and compass in her hand, and kept correcting the positions of several people.

This is a large mobile desert, the wind blows the sand dunes, the terrain is the same day by day, without any characteristics, although Ye Rong has a road map formed by electrons in his hand, but for the desert, the red line is far from enough, thanks to the experienced old man of Takji, although it is difficult along the way, it has also avoided a lot of risks.

After all, only being alive is the most important thing.

In the past, there should have been human activity here, and occasionally there were some broken walls, and only half of the roof of the castle, houses, and towers were exposed, and most of the bottom half were buried in the yellow sand.

What impressed Chen Tao the most in the desert were those thousand-year-old poplars, and if he hadn't seen them with his own eyes, who would have believed that there were trees in the desert. Each tree is like a vigorous flying dragon, and all the branches stretch out crookedly to the east, looking like a real dragon running in the desert. In such a harsh environment, after thousands of years, many poplars have long since died, and the trunk of the tree has been blown flat to the ground by the wind and sand, but it still has not fallen.

The afterglow of the setting sun reflected the clouds on the horizon, and the sand dunes in the desert were shrouded in a layer of glow, and the dry poplars and rippled yellow sand were all reflected in golden red, a heavy color, forming a magnificent picture between heaven and earth.

Seeing this kind of scenery, everyone couldn't help but be refreshed, Ye Rong took out the camera in her backpack and recorded this dreamlike scenery.

When everyone was drunk by the beautiful scenery, Chen Tao found that the old man Takji was staring at the sunset in the west, and there was a faint trace of uneasiness on his face.

Chen Tao saw that his face was not quite right, and hurriedly walked over and asked him, "Old man, what's wrong?" Is it about to change? ”

Although he had never been to the desert, Chen Tao read a trace of worry in Takji's eyes.

This is already the fifth day of Chen Tao's departure, the third day of entering the depths of the desert.

"It's going to be windy, and this storm will be very big, and we can't stop it with a sand wall, and if we can't survive this time, we'll all be buried alive in the desert."

Chen Tao heard him say this, and knew that this matter was not a joke, there was no shop in front of the village here, and if there was a big sandstorm, they would have no place to hide.

Chen Tao shouted and jumped on the back of the camel to beckon everyone to leave quickly, but saw the old man Takji slowly and leisurely take out his blanket from the camel and spread it on the yellow sand unhurriedly.

In the past few days, almost every time before departure, the old man of Takji will pray for blessings like the desert god in his mouth.

Seeing that he was so calm and relaxed, Chen Tao thought that he said that the matter of a big storm at night was not too serious, so he relaxed, and was thinking about enjoying this rare desert scenery with Haozi and them.

Who would have thought that after Takji finished praying, it was like a different person, his body seemed to be tightened by clockwork, he rolled up the blanket three times and twice, jumped on the camel like a spring, and whistled a long way: "Oh yo yo yo...... Run fast, you'll be buried in the sand if you're late! ”