The unconscious man sent from the desert was rushed to the hospital. After a series of rescues and treatments, he finally woke up, but he was mentally impaired, unable to understand or express himself.

No matter how the doctors guided and treated him, it was all in vain.

The police found a notebook among his belongings.

This notebook had been hidden in the interlayer of his clothes. It wasn't discovered at first, but was found later at the hospital when they changed his clothes.

The words "Tianjing University" were stamped on the leather cover of the notebook, and the words "Archaeology Department • Chen Liren" were written on the title page. The police immediately went to Tianjing University to investigate based on the clues in the notebook. After some investigation, they learned that the owner of the notebook was indeed Professor Chen Liren of the Archaeology Department of Tianjing University. A month ago, Professor Chen Liren participated in a joint Sino-American Lop Nur scientific expedition project, leading a team of eight teachers and students from the Archaeology Department to Xinjiang for archaeological research. They had not yet returned.

Later, after family identification, it was confirmed that the rescued person was named Liu Kailin.

The joint archaeological team consisted of ten people from China and the United States. Except for Liu Kailin, all were missing. According to the recollections of the exploration team that discovered Liu Kailin, the body of a woman in her twenties who had been dead for a long time was buried under the sand near where Liu Kailin was found in the desert. Apart from that, no other people or bodies were found.

The female corpse buried under the sand should be the remains of Liu Xiaojuan.

All indications were that the remaining nine members of the archaeological team had all died during the archaeological process. As for what happened to the archaeological team during the archaeological process, it was unknown. All the secrets, along with Liu Kailin's dementia and silence and the disappearance of the others, were submerged in the boundless sea of sand.

At this point, all clues about the archaeological team were interrupted.

…

"Cough cough cough cough..."

The Fatty crawled out of the sand as if he had been drowning, kneeling on the ground and vomiting sand. Rou Yi wasn't much better. After crawling out of the sand, she kept cleaning the sand from her mouth, nose, and clothes.

However, when they came out of the sand vortex, they had a wonderful experience. It was as if it wasn't sand, but water. They felt like they were swimming in water, drifting with the current, without the oppressive feeling they had when they fell into the quicksand and entered the underground ancient city.

After cleaning the sand, Rou Yi asked the Fatty, "Fatty, do you know where we are now?"

The Fatty stood up, looked around, and saw nothing but yellow sand, one dune after another, stretching as far as the eye could see.

The Fatty spread his hands, indicating that he didn't know where they were.

They had nothing with them: no food, no drink, no warm clothes. If they wandered around in the desert like this, they would die of dehydration in less than a day.

The Fatty said, "Let's look around to see if there are any camel caravans or expeditions. If we can find an oasis, vegetation, or a well, we can survive for another day or two."

The two of them searched for signs of human habitation and water in the boundless desert.

Perhaps it was because they had taken the elixir, but the Fatty and Rou Yi didn't show any signs of dehydration under the scorching sun, nor did they feel hungry. They also felt their meridians were clear and their bodies were comfortable.

The Fatty even joked, "Do you think we've mutated?"

Rou Yi rolled her eyes at the Fatty, "I'm evolving, you're mutating."

"Hey—why are you talking so arrogantly, you foreign chick?" The Fatty seemed to have thought of something, and then smiled wickedly, saying in a strange tone, "You weren't like this in front of the Young Master before."

Rou Yi's face turned red when she saw the Fatty teasing her. She punched the Fatty in the back, not very hard, but it sent him flying several meters away.

The Fatty stuck his butt in the air and was upside down in the sand. He struggled out of the sand and looked at Rou Yi, complaining, "Damn... where did you get so much strength?"

Rou Yi didn't expect to send the Fatty flying. He really did fly. From the current situation, it seemed that the elixir had taken effect.

The two looked at each other, knowing that it was the effect of the elixir.

…

It was getting dark, and the Fatty and Rou Yi sped up their pace, thinking that they had to find a place to shelter from the wind and keep warm before dark.

After crossing a few large dunes, the Fatty accidentally discovered a campsite next to a rock formation a few kilometers away. He told Rou Yi the news.

Rou Yi looked left and right but couldn't see anything. It had to be said that the Fatty was a reconnaissance soldier, with excellent eyesight.

The Fatty led Rou Yi towards the camp. Halfway there, Rou Yi discovered that there really was a camp in the direction the Fatty was pointing. The Fatty and Rou Yi were afraid of causing unnecessary trouble, so they took off all the Hei Shui Company (Blackwater Company) markings and other items related to their origins from their clothes and threw them away, including the forged identity documents.

The two walked quickly one after the other, and finally reached the campsite before dark. From a distance, they could see a fire burning in the campsite.

A fire meant that there were people in the camp.

The Fatty shouted at the camp from a distance, "Hey! Is anyone there? We need help."

The people in the camp heard the Fatty's shouts and came out one after another, looking at the two people who had come from the desert, looking very vigilant.

Judging from their faces, there were both Han Chinese and Uyghur people. It seemed that they were a domestic exploration team or a scientific expedition team.

This was an uninhabited area in the desert, and the sudden appearance of two people could easily arouse suspicion.

The leader of the camp walked up to the two of them, with an unwelcome expression on his face. He looked the Fatty and Rou Yi up and down for a long time, staring at them until the Fatty and Rou Yi felt very uncomfortable.

The leader asked the Fatty and Rou Yi, "Who are you?"

The Fatty and Rou Yi had already agreed on a story on the way here, claiming that they were explorers who had come to the desert to explore and had become separated from their team, and asked for their help.

The leader looked at them suspiciously, especially Rou Yi, the foreign woman.

Seeing that the leader was very wary of Rou Yi, the Fatty quickly said, "Although her parents are both foreigners, they settled in China a long time ago. They are both university professors, and she grew up in China."

Rou Yi saw that the Fatty's ability to make up stories was really amazing, and he could come up with any nonsense. She really admired him.

Obviously, the person opposite didn't believe the Fatty's statement. The leader said to Rou Yi, "Do you have any documents to prove your identity?"