Solving Middle Age Crisis by Intelligence System-Chapter 361 - 243: Satellite City

But there’s no other way for now, let’s give it a try.

After a brief thought, he turned and walked towards the camp, arriving at the entrance of Mamati’s tent.

"Mr. Qi, do you need something?" Mamati quickly stood up when he saw him approaching.

Qi Yun glanced at the few cars parked nearby and asked, "Do we have extra gasoline?"

"Yes!" Mamati nodded in response, "There are six barrels on Daming’s car. Even in an emergency, it’s enough for our convoy to travel another seven to eight hundred kilometers."

"And last year when I came in, I buried a few barrels at another place."

Hearing this, Qi Yun raised his hand and pointed in the direction where Zhan Hongbo was standing, ordering, "Drive a car over there, park next to him, and when it gets hot, turn on the engine and the air conditioning."

Mamati glanced over at Zhan Hongbo, feeling a bit suspicious, but he quickly obliged, "Okay."

The camp here was still tolerable, with towering sand dunes providing a backdrop and some makeshift awnings to slightly shield from the sunlight.

But at the spot where Zhan Hongbo stood, there was nothing. Even if he crawled into a tent, it wouldn’t help; the only option was to stay in the car with the air conditioning on.

By noon, the temperature had risen sharply, and just sitting there caused sweat to pour down incessantly.

Qi Yun tossed aside a small fan prepared by Zhong Rui and sighed helplessly; the wind blowing was scorching his face...

The reason Lop Nur is called the forbidden zone of life is largely due to its temperature.

There is almost no rain here; daytime temperatures easily reach forty or fifty degrees Celsius, and only a scant amount of life can survive in this desert.

Adding on the occasional sudden sandstorm that can change the landscape of an area within a short period, making it impossible to find directions. Even experienced old guides have to rely on navigational devices.

And even with various professional equipment, many people are permanently buried in this desert.

Because the signal coverage in Lop Nur is very poor, and the magnetic field is disrupted, GPS and other electronic devices become unstable, incapable of accurately determining one’s location.

In such situations, most people eventually succumb to thirst in the desert...

The last time Qi Yun and his team stayed in the desert for a week was because it wasn’t summer yet, and the daytime heat wasn’t as severe.

But now, let alone a week, without finding a sheltered spot, even three days would be unbearable.

In the camp, everyone was listless and lethargic, with Mamati and Daming, along with Lao Tu, huddled together, studying a map.

"I remember passing by this location last time, and it seemed there was a large earth pit nearby. Should we camp there?" Daming looked up at the two and suggested.

Lao Tu slowly shook his head, "It’s a bit far, almost seventy kilometers away."

"Let’s go here," Lao Tu pointed to another area on the map, "There’s a poplar forest here, we should be able to find a suitable spot."

Mamati stared at the map for a moment and nodded, "Okay, I’ll go and inform Mr. Qi." Saying this, he stood up and walked to Qi Yun’s side.

"Mr. Qi, twenty kilometers to the west, there’s a poplar forest. I plan to take two cars over to check it out and find a cooler place for the camp."

Qi Yun naturally had no objections, "Alright, go ahead, and be careful."

"Okay," Mamati responded, motioning to Lao Tu, and the two each drove off in a vehicle.

...

In Madrid, inside a certain research institute.

Ignacio and an elderly white-haired man were poring over a pile of documents together.

Suddenly, Ignacio excitedly stood up from his chair, "Teacher! Look at this!" Saying that, he hurried to the other side of the table with a book in hand, placing it before the old man.

This was a very old book, authored by Duke Tieren’s grandson. The title translated roughly to the memoirs of this person.

"It says here that during his later years, Duke Tieren once got drunk one night and told his grandson a story by the fireplace. He said he had led dozens of knights into an Asian desert in search of an ancient city, but after a long time, they couldn’t find it."

"The desert described here should be Lop Nur, right?" Ignacio looked at the old man excitedly.

The old man’s fingertips trembled slightly as he continued reading the remaining content.

"The grandson asked Duke Tieren what they were searching for that ancient city for, and Duke Tieren replied that it was about the secret of immortality..."

The book’s description ended there.

The old man removed his glasses and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, "It should be Lop Nur. Combined with previous information, we can almost be certain that Duke Tieren was indeed carrying orders to search for clues about immortality..."

"Let’s continue reviewing the documents. We should be close to uncovering the truth."

...

At 10 PM, deep within the desert, the sun still hung on the horizon.

Zhan Hongbo was flipping through a notebook with recorded data, drawing a line in the sand with his finger, and turned to Qi Yun, saying, "It’s in this direction."

"I still need to collect some sand within a ten-kilometer range ahead to determine the exact location."

Qi Yun nodded and called over Daming and Chen Wei, "You two drive and accompany him for a trip. Don’t go too far."

"Okay," Daming responded, returning to the camp to drive the other car, while Chen Wei climbed into the driver’s seat of the Wrangler beside him.

An hour or so passed quickly, and the sky finally darkened.

Mamati and the others returned from searching for a new campsite.

"Mr. Qi, we found a living poplar forest to the west, there’s shade there, so it’s cooler during the day." Mamati said as he got out of the car.

"Alright, let’s move there tomorrow," Qi Yun said while putting down the water bottle he had in hand. Within just this short afternoon, he had already gone through four bottles of water.

Not long after, Chen Wei and the others returned safely, having gathered the necessary sand samples for Zhan Hongbo.

It was too hot, and no one had much of an appetite, so no special dinner was prepared. They just ate a couple of watermelons and returned to their tents to rest.

Qi Yun and Zhan Hongbo remained seated on small stools, continuing to analyze the location of the ancient city.

Zhan Hongbo placed several sealed bags containing different regional sand samples on the wooden table.

He picked up one bag labeled "ten," poured some sand into his palm, and rubbed the grains with his fingers, "Qi, look, this is sand from ten kilometers away at the edge of the Yadan Group. It has a high quartz content and coarse grains."

"This sand layer from two kilometers away is noticeably finer. When the Ancient Loulan people fired ceramics, they would specifically select this iron-containing sand."

"..."

After analyzing all the sealed bags of sand, Zhan Hongbo took out a notebook and pen, starting to write and draw on paper.

"Based on sand grain differences combined with the solar shadow data measured during the day... I estimate that the underground structure should be in this fan-shaped area with a radius of no more than one kilometer."

"One kilometer?" Hearing this answer, Qi Yun’s brows furrowed involuntarily.

They only had a few folding shovels. To excavate the ancient city ruins within a one-kilometer radius seemed unrealistic.

"Can we narrow down the range further?"

Zhan Hongbo took off his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed, "Without professional detection equipment here, I can only estimate this distance, I can’t narrow it down further."

Hearing this, Qi Yun gave a slight bitter smile.

Though difficult, at least they had a direction now; they could start digging tomorrow, and if that didn’t work, they could return with more preparation.

"Alright, let’s rest first. We’ll try looking tomorrow."

Zhan Hongbo nodded, packed up his notebook, and got up to return to the tent.

But after taking just a few steps, he stopped, turned to Qi Yun, and hesitantly asked, "Qi, do you have any other clues? If you could tell me, maybe I can narrow down the range a bit more."

Qi Yun looked up at Zhan Hongbo, somewhat helpless.

He thought to himself that this guy was really led astray by Wei Xueming, convinced that he must know something.

But in reality, apart from this coordinate point, he didn’t know anything else... Even the possibility of this place having ancient city ruins was deduced by Zhan Hongbo.

Qi Yun sighed, pondered for a moment, then spoke, "Actually, I came across this coordinate point by chance, felt quite curious, so I came in to take a look. I really don’t have any other clues."

Upon hearing this, Zhan Hongbo didn’t press further, simply nodding with a "hmm" and returning straight to his tent.