**4. The Camera Mound**

As the sun sets, this desert seems to resemble the vast desert described in “The Legend of Chu Liuxiang.” Under the glow of sunlight, the sand dunes shift from a golden hue to a reddish tone; the shadowed areas grow increasingly dim, and the undulating dunes create a striking interplay of light and shadow. Standing atop a high slope, the sunset and the boundless desert evoke a breathtaking beauty.

In the presence of such scenery, even the most mundane person, the one least inclined to appreciate beauty, would find themselves moved and penetrated by this splendor.

Li Cu sat atop a camel, gazing at the travelers ahead, temporarily forgetting everything that had happened and immersing himself in this beautiful landscape. It was only when the camel in front stopped, revealing a small lake surrounded by green grass after crossing the dune, that he snapped out of his reverie, realizing he had no idea why he had come here.

Reflecting on the past week, he found the events to be incredibly strange and rapid, leaving him with no opportunity to digest or ponder them thoroughly. Just a week ago, his biggest concerns were about his father’s punishment and the trouble he might face from his teacher; now, those worries seemed trivial in comparison. First, he had been cut on his back, leaving a wound resembling the “Along the River During the Qingming Festival,” and now he was being forced to a desolate place.

Wait, just as that thought crossed his mind, he noticed several unnamed birds flying out of the lake, heading towards the sunset. So, there were indeed birds here that could relieve themselves.

How did he end up here, and why was he not worried at all about his teacher counting him as absent? His excuse for skipping class was quite impressive—he had been coerced.

The best way to make a hardship seem insignificant is to endure an even more terrifying disaster. However, if one does not personally experience it, what is deemed a significant hardship can, for Li Cu, feel like an exhilarating adventure in life.

The expedition team finally stopped to set up camp. Wang Meng and that Ma Rila were clearly the laborers, while the boss, Wu Xie, strolled over to the lake, scooped up some water to wash his face, and then sat down by the water’s edge.

Seeing that no one was asking for his help, Li Cu walked over as well, mimicking the action of washing his face. The wound on his back was extremely itchy, and the water in the lake was fresh and cool. Li Cu thought that if there were no one around, he would have stripped off his clothes and jumped in for a refreshing swim. But for now, he needed to continue chatting with the boss to build rapport; perhaps he could gain his freedom sooner, and he might learn more information through their conversation, Li Cu thought.

However, as soon as he sat down next to Wu Xie, Wu Xie said to him, “Get up. What are you sitting here for?”

“Just taking a break.”

“The camel needs a break; what do you need a break for? The scenery is so beautiful here, go take some photos,” Wu Xie said. “A photographer should look like a photographer.”

“But I don’t know how to take pictures.”

“Figure it out yourself,” Wu Xie replied. “The role of the photographer is crucial in this expedition. Don’t let it slip.”

Li Cu left reluctantly and returned to his camel. He found a secluded spot, took out an aluminum alloy box, and opened it. Inside was a seemingly impressive DSLR camera. He picked it up, fiddled with it for a moment, and realized it was quite easy to operate. He raised the camera, aimed it at the surrounding scenery, adjusted the focus, and took a few landscape photos, discovering that they turned out beautifully. It turned out that using the camera didn’t require much skill to capture professional-quality images.

Feeling energized, Li Cu climbed up a sand dune, constantly changing the focus and shutter speed, and took several hundred photos in various directions. Suddenly, he stopped. He thought he saw something flash in the lens. He put down the camera and looked in that direction, but all he saw was a stretch of yellow sand. He frowned.

The lens had moved very quickly during the photo-taking, and the focus had switched rapidly, so it was just a fleeting sensation. However, Li Cu believed he hadn’t imagined it. He immediately stopped and looked again, but the sun had already touched the horizon, and in that light, it was impossible to see anything far away.

Li Cu picked up the camera again, zoomed in to the maximum focus, and searched for the fleeting object. He wanted to check the SD card to see if the thing he had just seen had been captured. Just then, someone in the nearby camp shouted, and he turned to look, seeing a person yelling on the grass, “Come quickly, there’s something here!”

Others gathered around the shouting person, and someone asked, “What’s worth shouting about?”

Li Cu cautiously climbed down the sand dune and walked over to where the crowd had gathered, discovering that they had been digging a sand pit to start a bonfire for dinner that night, and it seemed they had unearthed something while digging.

Squeezing in, Li Cu saw that the dug-up sand pit indeed contained unusual items, mostly black, thin pieces that looked like plastic and metal, along with some colorful pieces mixed in.

“What is it? Trash?” someone asked.

Wu Xie pushed through the crowd, squatted down, and picked up a piece to examine it. Everyone immediately recognized it.

It was a burnt camera.

Wu Xie continued to sift through the plastic and metal pieces, and Li Cu was astonished to discover that beneath the sand, there were a large number of various models of burnt cameras buried. There were DSLRs as well as compact cameras.

“What’s going on?” someone whispered nearby. “How could there be so many destroyed cameras?”

“Dig them out,” Wu Xie told Wang Meng behind him. “Get everything out.”

A total of more than 40 camera remains were excavated, of various models. By the time these cameras were sorted and lined up on a waterproof cloth spread on the sand, it was already completely dark. Although the desert night was very cold, the members of the expedition wrapped themselves in coats and gathered around the cameras.

“There should be two to three tour groups,” Wu Xie said. “All their cameras are here. They must have collectively destroyed all their cameras while passing through this area.”

“Why? Did they have so much money they didn’t know what to do with it?” a professor asked.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s because they captured something that made them uncomfortable,” Wu Xie said. “Let’s take a look and see if there are any usable files on the memory card inside. That way, we can find out what they recorded.”