Desert Within the Basin

Across the boundless wasteland, endless yellow sand flowed slowly along the distant horizon with the howling wind. Apart from a few bare dunes and slowly moving oil pumps in the hazy distance, there was not a trace of human habitation in sight—nor much sign of life at all.

On a highway nearly buried beneath the yellow sand, two desert-colored military jeeps sped one after the other toward the far end of the road.

This was the heart of the Junggar Basin, home to Hua Nation's second-largest desert, the Gurbantunggut Desert.

It was also a forbidden zone for life.

Watching the rolling yellow sand in the distance, Wang Peng narrowed his eyes and said in a fairly cheerful mood.

"The weather's pretty good today."

Lu Zhou said, "...You call this good?"

"At least there isn't a sandstorm. That's already pretty good." Wang Peng grinned as he held the steering wheel and spoke to Lu Zhou in the back seat. "Do you know what Gurbantunggut means?"

Not knowing much about the humanities, Lu Zhou knew he would not be able to answer, so he simply asked.

"What does it mean?"

Wang Peng said, "In Mongolian, it means a place where wild boars roam."

Glancing outside the window, Lu Zhou said speechlessly, "...Then why haven't I seen any wild boars?"

Forget wild boars—he had not even seen a single pig hair.

Other than camelthorn bushes resembling balls of yarn, the area was filled with dead-or-alive dry branches standing about haphazardly.

Wang Peng said, "Which is why I said that was a story from a long, long time ago."

Lu Zhou said, "You sure know a lot."

Wang Peng smiled. "I heard it from someone else too."

Director Li, who was also seated in the back and had his face tightly wrapped in a