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墨書 Inktalez
The four of us sat awkwardly for a while, and I had no mood to ease the situation with conversation. In the silence, the sound of knocking on the door seemed particularly loud.
A young man entered, not very tall, dressed in camouflage casual wear, with a complexion that was dark yet vibrant, reminiscent of Xiao Guolin, but appearing a bit more energetic. It was hard to judge his age; he looked to be in his thirties, but I knew he couldn't be that old.
Captain Zhou made a brief introduction between us before leaving with a stern expression. Xiao Guolin patted my shoulder and said, "Still so impulsive; Old Zhou has it tough too." His tone carried a hint of helplessness and reproach. After that, he left as well. This young man was Liu Xiangrong, the squad leader I would be working with.
Song Guilong couldn't leave yet; he still had specific handover tasks to complete. The three of us gathered around the office desk and began discussing the details of the handover. Liu Squad Leader and I introduced ourselves to each other and laid out detailed plans for our upcoming work. For now, I could only listen and did not have the qualifications to offer suggestions.
Liu Squad Leader was very capable, exuding a unique straightforwardness typical of soldiers. Most importantly, I saw no signs of despair or frustration in him; instead, he was full of energy and confidence in our work plan. His squad was fully staffed with twelve soldiers, including him and another named Zhang, the Deputy Squad Leader. He noticed my lack of experience in Desert Archaeology and reassured me, "Our Engineering Corps has been working in desert areas for years. Digging this Test Pit is no challenge for us. You just need to guide us on where to excavate on-site; the real difficulty in desert construction lies above ground—the weather is our greatest enemy. I assure you that within three days, you'll grasp the essentials."
Inspired by his confidence and vitality, I gradually felt more assured about the upcoming work.
After dinner, I met with the Engineer team. Since they were all young people, we quickly became familiar with each other. Being the oldest among them, they affectionately called me Brother Qiang. It was fortunate there was no one older than me; being called just Qiang would have been rather embarrassing.
The next morning, I joined the team members at the Construction Site.
This was the largest Archaeological Test Pit I had ever seen, and it wasn't a typical rectangular Test Pit either. It was a rectangular Test Pit measuring 10 by 20 meters and already over ten meters deep. The Excavation Pit had protective supports installed from top to bottom to prevent collapse. This was the strongest Excavation Pit protection I had ever encountered; however, when I descended to the bottom of the Excavation Pit and looked up at the light blue supports on all sides, thinking about the quicksand behind them that could not be stabilized, a deep sense of fear arose within me.
Above the Excavation Pit was a crane-like lifting apparatus—a massive vehicle framework that wasn't isolated above any single Excavation Pit but connected in midair to form a complex lifting system. It resembled an intricate transportation network established in midair that linked several underground Excavation Pits together. On the ground were several large-scale excavated Test Pits—only seven or eight in total—spaced far apart from each other. From my vantage point, all I could see were dense supports of the Lifting System.
As I gazed at this enormous network of machinery, I couldn't help but marvel at the grand complexity of this project and deeply understood Captain Xiao's words: for some of us, this might become a lifelong career.
With such significant investment in this project, it seemed there had been long-term planning involved. According to Song Guilong's introduction on our way here, this Archaeological Activity needed to be completed before the end of the year—before the arrival of the desert wind season. However, there was one problem I couldn't comprehend: once the sandstorm season arrived, a single sandstorm would erase all traces here; against quicksand, these steel frameworks forming the Lifting System were as fragile as firewood. Though I had never witnessed a sandstorm's terror firsthand, I understood its implications from hearsay. I truly wondered what they were thinking.
A large dump truck was lowered through the lifting system, suspended by a steel cable. The soldiers filled the dump truck with the excavated yellow sand, which was then raised and transported to the Material Expert via a hoisting network. They needed to conduct a meticulous screening to ensure that there were no valuable items in this batch of sand before spreading it far away.
We also entered the Test Pit in a dump truck. Since Song Guilong had come to pick me up yesterday, Liu Squad Leader and his team had taken a rare break. Similarly, after a long interval of entering the Test Pit, the inspection of the protective walls would be more thorough. As soon as we entered the Test Pit, Liu Squad Leader led the soldiers in checking the safety measures. I was immediately drawn to something in the Excavation Pit that resembled a submarine.
It was a cylindrical tank, four meters long and three meters in diameter, with a striking orange exterior and flat ends, positioned in the center of the Test Pit. I tapped it with my knuckles, producing a metallic sound that indicated it was hollow. On each side of the cylindrical tank were two round windows, nearly twenty centimeters in diameter, resembling portholes on an aircraft. Through one of the portholes, I saw that the interior was a sealed space with four seats arranged in two tight rows facing each other. Each seat had a breathing mask attached to it via a tube, likely part of an emergency breathing system.
I circled around the cylindrical tank and noticed that while the setups inside all four portholes were identical, they did not connect to each other; they were four independent cramped spaces. The spaces within each porthole were located at either end of the tank, indicating that there was a partition in the middle of the cylindrical tank. I realized this was an escape pod designed for use in case of a collapse incident. My unfamiliarity with Desert Archaeology and my fear of this deep Test Pit sparked my interest in this escape pod.
Clearly, helping me familiarize myself with this escape pod was also part of Liu Squad Leader's responsibilities. After he finished inspecting the Excavation Pit's safety measures, he came over to explain how to use the escape pod. He first tapped on a red protrusion shaped like a peach pit located in the center of the escape pod. At that moment, two doors on either side opened upward simultaneously. Through the four portholes, I finally saw what had been hidden from view—a buffer chamber device revealed itself. There were four handwheels on either side, each over a foot in diameter, indicating that behind them lay the main escape pod.
At Liu Squad Leader's signal, one soldier jumped onto the buffer chamber and turned one of the handwheels. Immediately, a door about the size of a dog door swung inward. The soldier turned around, bent down, and entered headfirst through the opening; his body quickly vanished as he fell backward into it. While I was still astonished by this soldier's remarkable performance, another soldier jumped up next, followed by a third and fourth. In an instant, all four soldiers disappeared into the dog door just as it closed behind them.
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