Li Cu was about to ask him something when the person suddenly made an exaggerated gesture and said, “Shh…” Then, that person submerged himself in the water. Li Cu was puzzled but saw the person frantically waving his hands, urging him to do the same.

Reluctantly, Li Cu suppressed the pain in his back and submerged his entire body in the water. Suddenly, he heard a sound coming from the stacks of trucks surrounding the lake, a loud metallic clang. In the darkness, he couldn’t see which truck the sound was coming from.

Then, another clang echoed, and he realized this sound seemed to be moving. Li Cu felt a wave of terror wash over him as he remembered the thing that had dragged Wu Xie and Wang Meng into the sand during the day.

He held his breath and listened intently. Gradually, he realized that this was not a singular sound; similar noises were emanating from all around the stacks of trucks. It seemed as if countless things were banging against the metal walls of the truck beds. The sounds became more frequent and numerous, and soon the entire lakeside echoed with what resembled a symphony. The once peaceful desert was now filled with a cacophony of noise.

Li Cu was stunned, almost too afraid to breathe. He wished he could bury his entire head underwater to escape the terrifying sounds. In a daze, he felt someone tap his shoulder from behind, nearly causing him to scream. Turning around, he saw the person he had fought with earlier, who had silently waded over to him and whispered, “Don’t worry, they can’t get in.”

Li Cu asked, “What are those things?”

The person replied, “I’ve been wondering for twenty years what those things are. You can’t see them; they’re beneath the sand. So at that time, we surrounded the lake with all the trucks, creating a fortress. They’re not very smart; they seem to have a special reaction to metal. They will attack the trucks, but they can’t cross over them to get into this area.”

“Surrounding the lake?” Wu Xie had several interpretations of the convoy’s layout, but it seemed he had guessed wrong on all counts.

The person continued, “These things want to drink water. Once they drink, they become extremely terrifying. We can’t let them touch the water, so we took these precautions. But we made a mistake; we trapped them outside and trapped ourselves inside. Enough talking; we must stay quiet, or we’ll be kept up all night.”

Listening to this, Li Cu felt there were still many things he didn’t understand, but he also realized it wasn’t the right time to discuss these issues. The two of them remained quietly in the water. The desert night was very cold, and the icy water seeped into his wounds, gradually numbing his body and making him feel less discomfort. He didn’t ask any more questions.

Time passed, though he couldn’t tell how long, and slowly, all the sounds began to quiet down.

They waited in the lake for quite a while. The person made a gesture indicating it was safe. The two of them cautiously waded out of the water and climbed up to the edge of the truck bed where the person had been.

Li Cu was completely swollen from being soaked in the water of the lake, unable to move at all. He lay on the sand, and unexpectedly began to shiver uncontrollably. A person cautiously crawled behind the car that had its lights on, digging through the sand behind it, and eventually unearthed a box. From it, he took out a small jar and made Li Cu drink from it.

Li Cu realized it was a jar of liquor, and after drinking it, he felt warmth spreading through his body. The person then took out several particularly smelly military coats and draped them over him. At that moment, Li Cu couldn’t care less about the smell; once he put on the coat, he immediately felt warmer.

The two waited in the darkness for a while longer before the person helped Li Cu up and led him toward the compartment of the car he had been in earlier. Once inside, Li Cu sat down, and the person closed the car door. Li Cu noticed that the interior of the car was very well maintained. During their previous search, they had encountered car doors that wouldn’t open and had not gone inside, clearly missing this vehicle.

It was then that he finally saw the person’s true appearance. The man had a full beard that had grown wild, resembling a Taoist priest from a movie. His hair and eyebrows were a bit long, and his skin looked extremely dry, making him appear to be nearly seventy or eighty years old. However, judging by the man’s physique and strength during their struggle, he should be in the prime of his life. Clearly, the harsh environment had transformed him into what he was now.

The man was also sizing up Li Cu. Suddenly, he chuckled and spoke in a strangely accented Mandarin, “I finally see a living person! I thought I would die alone here.”

Li Cu looked at him and asked, “Have you been in this compartment during the day? There were three of us here digging through these cars, and you didn’t see us at all?”

The man shook his head and replied, “No. I usually don’t come out to move around. Those things are very sensitive to sound, so I generally stay in this car. It was buried in the sand before, and I spent all my time sleeping inside. I don’t know how long I slept; I just kept sleeping until I was so hungry and thirsty that I had to come out to eat something.”

Li Cu thought to himself: Could it be that while they were active here, this guy was just sleeping in the car the whole time? It was indeed possible, as they had dug out all the cars in the area and spent quite a bit of time doing so. However, they hadn’t carefully searched many of the cars, as there were just too many for them to check one by one. Still, he felt that something was subtly off.

This sense of unease stemmed from Li Cu’s perception of many details about this person. Most importantly, he found it hard to believe that someone could live alone for twenty years. If he had to live alone for that long, he would surely have gone insane.

However, while the man’s thinking seemed a bit slow, he appeared too normal, and that excessive normalcy felt abnormal. Yet, the man’s beard was undoubtedly genuine; with such a beard and skin like that, it was impossible to fake being trapped in such a place for so long.