Chapter 450 The Essence of Travel

Before leaving Darwin, the last thing Huaishi did was to take out her cell phone and turn it off.

According to Crow: Since you are pursuing excitement, then follow through to the end... Well, although the original words are not this, it always means the same thing.

After all, this is the current situation, and there is no place where the astronomical society cannot receive signals.

Not to mention emergency rescue, we can even prepare orbital strikes for you.

If you have your phone on all the time, scrolling through Weibo, singing songs, and posting on Moments, wouldn’t there be no sense of adventure at all?

Then not long after, he discovered that he was blind.

--He is lost.

Australia has more than 16% of the world's iron ore.

Well, that’s what the high school geography books said, at least it’s true in the current situation.

However, Huaishi didn't think of this until the compass started spinning like a mad dog... Who knows how much magnetite is buried in this desert!

When he was about to turn around, he found that he couldn't even find his way back.

What's even worse is...even the positions of the stars are constantly changing.

The Big Dipper in this crappy place is like the big lottery wheel on some unscrupulous lottery website. You just spin it around when you have nothing to do. It points in any direction, but it doesn't tell you where the correct direction is.

I am in Australia and have lost contact with you.

The entire vast desert is like an invisible maze. It looks like the same wasteland and yellow sand, but in fact it is constantly changing.

Like a senior patient in a lunatic asylum, Huaishi would burst into sarcastic, shrill laughter whenever she felt depressed.

If you don’t move, I will move. If you move, I will move randomly. If you move randomly, I will move blindly...

The seemingly monotonous and desolate world actually seems to be a chaotic field that is constantly rotating and churning. Once you step inside, you will be lost in the endless heat and desolation.

Fortunately, even though the place is so chaotic, the sun still maintains its original pattern of rising in the east and setting in the west, allowing Huai Shi to barely find his direction at the alternation of morning and dusk.

And a handful of local ‘friends’.

"Excuse me, which way is south?"

Huai Shi squatted next to a cactus as if she was crazy, grinned and stretched out her hand to press on its thorns, and took the trouble to ask for directions: "Don't be so fierce, brother, you have a bad temper... Don't be angry, I'll just ask. A road, south, where is the south? Then where does the sun rise? Brother, you look only four or five years old, why do you have Parkinson's disease? I can water you, right? Over there, right? "

Bearing the hard thorns that pricked his hands, Huaishi finally determined the direction after repeatedly asking three nearby cacti, sea buckthorns and shrubs.

Then, while the night was getting dark, Huai Shi glanced around to make sure there was no one on both sides, then whistled and poured water for the three little brothers.

Everyone got what they needed and got along quite happily.

Of all the flora that Huaishi has seen, the one in the desert can be said to be the most exclusive and stingy.

To be able to survive in such a harsh environment means that it has to pay close attention to all sunlight, water and even nutrients.

Just like Darwin's black-hearted businessmen.

For foreign mountain ghosts like Huai Shi, they didn't bother to talk to them at all, and some were even extremely repulsive, directly rejecting Huai Shi's communication at the moment of contact.

Resolutely not give any moisture or nutrients to foreign vegetative people.

Unless Huaishi also takes out the water to change it.

But after so many days, Huaishi has gained some experience and gains - especially after he discovered that these local guys don't care what kind of moisture you provide...

In this way, during the two days of advancement, I found a shady place to sleep during the day and traveled at night.

When Huaishi checked the map, he looked at the active volcano spewing lava intermittently in the distance, and finally determined his approximate location.

He has gradually passed through the edge of the desert and is officially about to enter its official range.

Looking up at the gray sky in the distance and the sound of thunder, Huaishi reached out and took off the gas mask from the suspension of the backpack and put it on his face.

Then fasten the zippers and buttons of the clothes.

Before he could finish his preparations, dark clouds drifted in from the sky, and then, dust fell from the sky like a blizzard.

The dust was mixed with fine ice crystals, which crackled when they fell on the mask's goggles.

In the hurricane, Huaishi could only bend down and carry the backpack forward with difficulty.

Otherwise, I'm afraid it will be rolled into a rolling gourd by the strong wind, and when climbing some sand dunes, you will even have to take out the rope first to fix yourself.

Otherwise, it will easily be buried by the turbulent sand dunes.

From time to time, pollution clouds from distant industrial cities will drift into the desert, bringing dust and pungent haze, making the desert environment even worse.

He finally understood why Lucien's list repeatedly emphasized the need to carry a gas mask.

After a heavy snowfall, a filter element that could work for three days in industrial pollution was completely exhausted. Huaishi's filter element reserve was simply not enough.

He can only use his brain to transform himself.

Now on both sides of the mask, outside the filter element, there are two happy water bottles that Huai Shi welded with his hands. After being layered to imitate the structure of a hookah, the filtrate commonly used in alchemy is poured into them.

Every time he took a breath, he could hear a low gurgling sound coming from the jar, and even the filter could not completely isolate the pungent smell.

But fortunately, it only smells bad and is not harmful. Even if the mountain ghost's resilience was weakened to the limit in the desert, it could still barely handle it.

During the difficult climb, Huai Shi stumbled as his foot failed to stand firm, and was then blown to the ground by the howling wind. He rolled awkwardly. The moment the mask fell off his face, Huai Shi felt as if he had been severely injured. He inhaled a big mouthful of concentrated acid.

I instantly lost the sense of breathing.

I can no longer feel the presence of my heart.

After he hurriedly put the mask on for a long time, he finally felt the burning pain from the spasm of his internal organs.

He suspected that his eyes were burning red from this old haze.

Why is Australia’s pollution so bad?

For the rest of the day, he lay on the ground and did not dare to move. The ashes and dust buried him and were blown away by the strong wind. Finally, with the roar of the volcano in the distance, the gray dust, rain and snow gradually dissipated.

In the turbid yellow and gray residue of dust on the ground, Huai Shi finally raised his head, climbed up from the ground, shook his body with difficulty, and shook out the corrosive chemicals that had been scraped into his sleeves and trouser legs.

In the end, he sat on the sand pile with unkempt hair, looking up blankly at the rising ray of sunshine in the sky.

It's almost dawn.

He finally breathed a sigh of relief, got up, looked around, found a backlit place, and set up his tent with difficulty.

After getting in, I didn't even have time to change my clothes, so I lay down on the sleeping bag.

I don’t want to move anymore.

"It's still too weak..."

He murmured softly and closed his eyes.

After a while, snoring sounded.

Before this, Huai Shi had never thought that the most dangerous thing in this desert was not during the day, but at night.

During the day it is just unbearably hot, but at night, what awaits people is torture with no end in sight. Likewise, the most disturbing thing is not the endless stretch of yellow sand in front of you, but the dilapidated towns in the ruins that have long been abandoned...

Just getting close will make you feel instinctive suppression.

Those were either gathering points built by fugitives, temporary towns established during the great gold rush craze sixty years ago, or settlements that were gradually abandoned as water sources disappeared...most of the remaining ones are Those tattered walls and faint edges in the yellow sand.

There are invisible enemies here.

No, it should be said that everything you see are enemies...

The fighting power he was proud of in the past was of no use in this situation. After stripping away the illusion of omnipotence, the boy who remained was no different from other ordinary people in the face of the malice from the entire world. .

If it weren't for Crow and Beelzebub occasionally chatting with him, he might have tried his best to get back home.

Traveling is an incredibly difficult thing to do and is often asking for trouble.

Now he finally has some understanding of this matter.

I also have a full understanding of my own insignificance.

But it happened to be like this... He felt that he was looking forward to the next journey more and more.

It was as if the group leader secretly posted a pornographic picture without being kicked, braving the heavy wind and snow to reveal the tip of the green bud from the iceberg, and growing his own branches in this barren desert where not a single blade of grass grows.

Seeking death is so much fun.

Especially in this unprecedented adversity.

He felt that he must be sick.

But shouldn’t this be the essence of travel?

There has to be some challenge.

After a long sleep, Huai Shi got up again and stretched out towards the sunset in the distance. On the small gas stove next to it, the water in the can was boiling together with the compressed biscuits thrown into it.

It's almost ready to eat after they've been cooked into a mushy porridge.

The taste is quite unpleasant, but at least it's filling.

While waiting, he took out a pen and paper and a map and planned the next route. I checked the supplies and equipment again to confirm that the situation was still within the range that I could handle.

Huai Shi rubbed a spoon and started to wolf down her breakfast.

Rest for three minutes after eating.

Pack your things and get ready to hit the road.

A new day, a new year begins like this.

In the following hard times, Huaishi discovered that this place had at least some advantages.

That means he doesn't have to think anymore.

At the beginning, he was still thinking about everything in his mind, including what to eat at night, what the future will be like, his future life, employment direction, and even how to find a girlfriend, etc. Everything a seventeen-year-old boy is sleeping on Something that I would just think about when I wasn't working.

But as he went deeper and deeper, becoming more tired and sleepy, those messy thoughts disappeared as quickly as the sea water at low tide.

In the end, only the purest instinct remains.

Step with your left foot, then your right foot.

He wants to keep moving forward.

Other than that, nothing else matters on this long hike.

With the ever-changing starry sky above our heads, there is an endless stretch of barren desert in front of us.

When the crows stopped talking, the only thing that accompanied Huai Shi was the long silence, the distant sound of wind, and the deep rhythm from his heart.

Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe...

Repeat this, and then move forward step by step.

His heart was empty.

Stop worrying about the problems of the past few days, and stop thinking about the distant future.

For a moment, Huai Shi suddenly felt a deep realization in his heart.

- He lives in the present.

I've been stuck for the past two days, so I'll see if I can write another chapter tonight.