Only Wu Xie showed no signs of fear at all; he simply said, “Damn it, this isn’t a good omen. Look, this is a military uniform, and this is a soldier. If soldiers are trapped and died here, then we’re in even bigger trouble.”

“Not necessarily dead from being trapped; they might have died in a car accident,” Li Cu thought of Wu Xie’s optimism.

“Impossible. What kind of car accident could happen in the desert that would kill someone?” Wu Xie grabbed the collar of the corpse and pulled the whole body out of the sand. Although the corpse had completely dehydrated and dried out, it still had some weight.

The weight made Wu Xie stumble, causing a large amount of sand to tumble down and completely cover his feet. He tossed the dried corpse aside and said to the two of them, “Check your pockets to see if there’s anything in them.”

“Isn’t that inhumane?” Wang Meng still felt a bit apprehensive.

“They’re already dead; it’s just a stinking skin,” Wu Xie noticed that the other two were quite wary of the corpse. “Don’t be afraid; the older the corpse, the more dangerous it is. This one isn’t even qualified.”

Wang Meng glanced at Li Cu. Li Cu immediately shook his head, “I’m a hostage. According to the Geneva Convention, hostages can’t do heavy work.”

“Hostages and prisoners of war are not the same,” Wang Meng shouted impatiently, “I’m not a soldier either, just go!”

“Then can you share some of your salary with me?”

“Sure, there’s not much anyway.”

Wu Xie continued to rummage in the truck bed, pulling out clumps of sand. Meanwhile, Li Cu had no choice but to squat down in front of the dried corpse, pinching his nose and poking at it with his fingers.

This was his first time facing a corpse, and it was a completely dried one at that. His first reaction was to think how impressive it would be to tell Su Wan about this. With that thought, his fear seemed to lessen a bit. Li Cu examined the corpse more closely.

The corpse was wearing a military uniform that had large white patches from alkalization, stiff like salted fish, but the stripes on the shoulders were still clearly visible.

“Looks like a high rank, still an officer.”

“Officer? How could an officer be stuck in the truck bed? Don’t talk nonsense,” Wang Meng shook his head in disagreement.

Li Cu shot Wang Meng a sidelong glance, thinking that if he didn’t believe it, he could come and see for himself, but he didn’t argue back. He continued to carefully rub his fingers over the various pockets, and finally, from the upper pocket of the dried corpse’s jacket, he discovered a military ID, a pen, and a small notebook.

The notebook was a work journal, and the paper had become very brittle from alkalization. He didn’t apply much force, but the part of the notebook that his fingers touched immediately crumbled into pieces. He had to let it fall to the ground, thinking that it was a good thing there was no wind here; otherwise, the paper would have turned to dust.

Li Cu continued to move the other two items, but found that both sides of the military ID had stuck together, making it impossible to open, and the pen couldn’t be pulled out of its cap either.

Li Cu sighed inwardly, thinking that if he were also trapped here, would he end up in the same state? Then he noticed a watch on the corpse’s wrist, and he couldn’t tell whether it was new or old. He carefully took the watch off, guessing that it must be quite expensive, definitely not an ordinary watch, because the hands were still moving and they were quite accurate.

“This must be a corrupt official,” Li Cu said to the other two.

“Can you pay attention to something else? Check if he has any maps or compasses on him.”
“I think that any paper items he has would be useless even if we found them; they must be in terrible condition. Plus, given his state, I doubt the maps he brought would be of any help.”
After saying this, Li Zhu decided to stop searching; he was feeling a bit scared. Whatever, I’ll just slack off, let it be.
Just as Li Zhu thought this, with a “thud,” something was thrown from Wu Xie’s direction and landed beside him. It was another corpse, and once again, it was a soldier’s remains.
He turned to look, and Wu Xie had already brought down four or five corpses from the vehicle. He shouted to Li Zhu, “Damn, there must be more than one vehicle buried here. Let’s not worry about these dead bodies for now; there are still plenty of things in the sand.”
“What’s there?” Li Zhu walked over. By this time, Wu Xie had quickly dug out the front of the vehicle, revealing something in front of it.
It turned out to be a wall buried under the sand, with sand continuously collapsing down. Soon, the wall would be buried again. Wu Xie stepped up to block the sand, letting it slide off his back in another direction.
As Li Zhu slowly approached the wall, he could see more clearly that it was a concrete wall, with several large white characters written on it: “古潼京056” (Gutangjing 056).
“Is there a building under this sand?” Li Zhu asked.
“It doesn’t look like a building. 056 should be a number, so this is more likely something else?”
“What is it?”
Wu Xie could no longer withstand the collapsing sand; he took a few steps back, and the wall was instantly buried.
“This should be a boundary marker. Boundary marker number 56 of Gutangjing. We have arrived at Gutangjing.”