Against the Fate

Chapter 5: Attacked

The Prisoners team and the Classical Exploration Company team moved forward during the evening, and finally reached the old professor’s destination. Standing on the dunes, looking at the horizon, it was an endless sand sea, sand formed high dunes surrounded by sand valley, although there was only sand, the desert was not flat at all.

“Tomorrow, begin to search from the north dune, every 20 meters drill a hole and put a flag in.” at dinner that night, the old professor convened a meeting with the prisoners : “There is no need to put flags in the low point between two close dunes. Every group will be composed of three people. The groups will go forward, maintaining a distance of 50 meters between each other, report anything unusual to me.”

Cui Ming asked: “How far do you want us to go forward?”

Old professor replied: “Thirty kilometers to the North. If nothing is found, we will return to this place, to locate the north direction and start again. Later we will no longer use the camel, just walk. Start at seven o’clock in the morning, camp to avoid the sun at eleven in the morning, restart at six in the afternoon and rest at ten in the evening.”

F*ck you. If we die, it means that the thing you need to find was in our dead area. If it was as simple as the old professor say, Classical Exploration Company would have done it alone, and all the signs points that the Classical Exploration Company failed in its first expedition. It’s easy to conclude that the role of the prisoners was that of a mine detector, looking for the first ones to die and explore the place. Otherwise, in the vast Dawn Great Desert, how could that damned old man accurately locate a region, a direction?
But on the other hand would there be a need to hire prisoners if there was no risk? Cui Ming eyes looked at North Luna, sat on the edge of the fire, slowly eating food. Ding Ze was speaking by her side, North Luna rarely opened her mouth, mostly nodded or shook her head. Cui Ming whispered in Xiao Jiang’s ear: “Believe me this once, if you meet any danger, do not stay, run, run back, remember, as fast as possible run towards North Luna and Ding Ze position.”

Xiao Jiang looked at Cui Ming, then looked at North Luna and Ding Ze, he did not speak, only nodded. After this ten-days contact, Xiao Jiang also had his own impression of Cui Ming. Cui Ming was a very humorous person, go with the flow, can sleep with a pillow, can sleep without a pillow. What to eat, where to sleep, Cui Ming had an indifferent attitude. At the same time Cui Ming had a very good sense of people, if he seriously said one thing about someone, that matter was basically correct. Such as Cui Ming said the old professor’s female assistant’s panties color was pink … …

Knowing the female assistant’s panties color was pink, was not an easy task. The security here had guns, peeping was impossible. Then how did he do it?

The female assistant had lost her lipstick; while searching she passed by a group of prisoners playing poker, inadvertently heard that they were gambling the ownership of a lipstick, she sneered in her heart, pretended to be interested in gamble, and joined them.
Cui Ming made a bet, if the female assistant won, then he would give the lipstick to her, if she lost, lipstick would also be given to her, but she must tell everyone her panties color.

How to gamble? Very simple, Cui Ming took out three playing cards, namely J, Q, K, the female assistants must chose one, if her card is higher than Cui Ming’s, she wins. She had a total of three opportunities, as long as she win once, she will be declared the winner.
Cui Ming showed three cards, and then swapped their position, on the first try the female assistant ended up with a J, and lost. The second was also J, and lost, on her third try she also picked a J, to no one’s surprise, she lost.

The female assistant was very generous, she not only told them that her panties was pink, but also deliberately pulled out a bit to show everyone, it won every prisoner’s cheers. Then the female assistant asked for the lipstick, Cui Ming pushed a prisoner out, and said: “Take it.”

“I want the lipstick.” Female assistant was quite angry.

“He’s nicknamed lipstick, we are betting his tonight ownership.” The female assistant froze for a few seconds, she knew that they have been toying her ,she hid her face and ran away.
After this Xiao Jiang asked Cui Ming: “You played her, are you not afraid of her revenge? We can all be in need of her help.”

Cui Ming replied: “If we are in distress, she isn’t the one who can save us.”
…
The hardest work began,

Carrying a 50 kg metal detector, three people could be seen in the hot sun, one to control the detector, the other two to hold the fuselage, every 20 meters they would dig a hole and put a flag in. They also needed to carry tents, food and water. The most annoying thing was that the old professor, every ten minutes would take a walkie-talkie to ask what did they find. In the evening, because the distance was relatively far, the walkie-talkie lost its range, they could finally have some peace
.
Three security guards followed the three metal detector groups forward, escape was impossible, but slowing down was still possible. The security guards changed their shifts once per day and oversaw the prisoner’s work. After a hard day, they would return to the camp and rest a day.

Among the prisoners, Cui Ming was the smallest, he was responsible for the operation of drilling holes, Xiao Jiang and Big Guy were responsible for holding the fuselage. After finishing, Cui Ming saw the instrument and said: “Operation.”
It was a very convenient job, press the button to drill, then press the button to recover the drill bit, and it only needed to be charged twice a day.

Big Guy pointed towards the shade created by the dunes and said: ” Take a break.”
They walked over and touched the sand, since it was not hot, they sat down, Xiao Jiang talked to the security 20 meters away from them: “Buddy, do you have a smoke?”
The security was sitting in a chair under a sun umbrella, he ignored Xiao Jiang, and looked at his watch. The prisoners could ask and register for a few minutes of rest, this was not to say that Classical Exploration Company worried about them, it was to let them know that Classical Exploration Company was recording their behavior.

Cui Ming group was the slowest, three groups began working side by side, a distance of 50 meters between them, and now the first group had almost reached the camp, and Cui Ming group still needed to work for 2km until they reach the campsite. Fifteen criminals were divided into five groups, three groups of detectors and two groups to prepare camp, cook food and set tents. This was also a way to tell them that if today’s work is not completed, they would not eat anything.

“People are not happy, we continue.” The first group of security had yet to be shifted, so the security guard still had to accompany them under the torment in the heat . Big Guy said one sentence, stood up, pulled up Xiao Jiang and Cui Ming, the security also took back the umbrella and chairs.

Four people climbed a dune, standing on the top of the slope, Cui Ming exclaimed: “This place is good and flat.” Within a radius of 10 km there was no dunes, all flat sand, they could clearly see the camp which was set 2km away; tents had been set up.

“The second group is there.” Xiao Jiang.

The second group was 1km away from the camp, their efficiency was also good. Starting to dig the next hole, Cui Ming sniffed and asked: “Do you smell something strange?”

Big Guy thumb pointing back, Cui Ming turned back, the security was peeing, Cui Ming smiled, and continued to dig the hole. This time you could hear the first group’s song through walkie-talkie, they could hear the lyrics ” I was a snail, I climbed, climbed, climbed a beautiful girl’s mountain”. Singing finished, the first group of prisoners said: “You should be a little faster, the soup’s going to get cold.”

“You!! Animals!! Leave me a bowl.” Big Mac talked back to the shoulder radio, and continued to work.

Two groups slowly got near the camp, Cui Ming’s group after a long time reached the camp, a few prisoners came with bottles of water to express their condolences to everyone. Big Guy said: “These people still have a conscience.”

Suddenly felt the bit of movement under his foot, which gave him a shock.
“No, stay close.” Cui Ming said, and took back drill.

The intercom suddenly heard a sound: “There are worms.”

And then they heard gunfire sounds coming from the camp, there were three security guards shooting at the sand, from the sand something jumped in the head of one of the security guards, and he fell to the ground.

“What?” Xiao Jiang panicly asked.

The security responsible for his group also stood up, guns alert, suddenly the sand near him cracked, a large worm drilled out, looks like a insect magnified several times, it was green, with a big head, one pair of eyes, body scales, no foot. Its large body twisted in the sand, and was very fast. (E/N: so it’s not those giant ship like desert worms from movies, you can imagine the worm’s as an anaconda snake or something similar, from the author’s explanation it’s more similar to snake than a worm i guess… with their head being bigger than the rest of the body, similar to a leech, if im wrong im sorry =P)

The security started shooting immediately, bullets hit the big worm’s body, but did not cause any substantial damage, at least stopped the big worm from coming closer. At this time next to the security’s feet another big worm, bounced up, opened its huge mouth, and swallowed his head whole. The worm’s round mouth was covered with sharp teeth, after two seconds, the big worms left the security body, his head was gone, looking at the big worm, it had a round shaped bulge in its body, probably the security’s head.

The distance was around thirty meters, all that happened could be clearly seen, Xiao Jiang could not hold back and vomited. Big Guy was in panic: “So many worms.”

Around them a hundred meters away suddenly a dozen of worms came out, twisting its plump body and going towards the three. Cui Ming saw the worms, waved and said: “Run, run, run.”
They threw away the instruments, turned around and ran towards a sand dune. Xiao Jiang was the fastest, suddenly a big worm appeared five meters away from Xiao Jiang, and jumped in Xiao Jiang’s direction. Cui Ming pulled out a poker card and threw, poker card haa hint of red light and cut the big worm’s body in half, the large worm fell in the sand, open mouth breathing. (E/N ok… so now not only worms have eyes but they also breath… kids don’t take this as a biology class, please.)

A second poker card flew into the big worm’s mouth, and viciously penetrated out of its body. The worm screamed loudly, then its body exploded, green blood spilled all over Xiao Jiang.
Cui Ming threw out of a poker card, cutting a second large worm body fifteen meters away in half, the rotating poker cut through the worm’s hard scales, separating it into two sections. The big worms seemed to know fear, and not dared to come any closer.

100 meters away from the dunes, Cui Ming looked back, he could not see any living soul, all he could see was big worms crawling everywhere. Suddenly the earth shook, in front of him the sand dunes exploded, the sands reached dozens of meters high, a very large worm drilled out. It had a huge three-story body, opened its mouth, and released a green liquid, directly attacking a completely shocked Xiao Jiang.

Cui Ming left hand pulled something from his chest, countless golden cards flashed in front of him, Cui Ming right hand’s two fingers caught a card, and threw toward Xiao Jiang. Before the venom hit, Xiao Jiang’s body flashed a white light protection, venom hit the light protecting Xiao Jiang, he was sent flying as if he was hit by heavy hammer. Xiao Jiang fell down on Cui Ming side, at least he was safe and sound.