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墨書 Inktalez
I was momentarily stunned, having made a mistake that would earn me a serious reprimand from Liu Squad Leader. I lowered my head and crawled out of the Sealed Chamber. The two doors of the Sealed Chamber faced each other, and without pausing, my head emerged in another Sealed Chamber.
Inside this Sealed Chamber were only two people. Liu Squad Leader had also made a mistake; he was seated in position four. Just as he didn’t turn to look at me, I didn’t look at Liu Squad Leader either. Instead, we both focused on the person sitting in position one—Song Guilong.
He wore the same khaki work uniform as I did, his face and body smeared with dirt and blood. He sat in position one, strapped tightly into his seat with the safety belt. He held a bulging backpack in his arms, his hands crossed over it, and his fingers were caked with yellow dirt. One of his nails had been torn off, exposing raw flesh underneath, with dirt clinging to it, forming a scar that had turned dark brown. His face was so covered in grime that it was impossible to tell whether the blood on it was from an injury or just dirt smeared across his skin.
He was fixed in position one, hunched over, and despite being covered in filth, he wore a heart-wrenching expression of fear. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, completely ignoring me and Liu Squad Leader beside him. His pupils had an eerie, dilated appearance, giving me the impression that he wasn’t looking at the limited space of one meter in front of him but rather gazing into an expansive void. Given the expression on his face, I could only imagine how terrifying whatever he was seeing must be. He emitted unconscious sounds from his mouth—not meaningful syllables formed by his tongue but chaotic noises from his throat that resembled a more jumbled version of Morse code.
My first instinct was that he had crawled back from hell and hadn’t severed his connection to it.
I shouted, “Captain Song!” hoping to bring him back to reality. But Song Guilong showed no reaction at all; he was completely immersed in his own terrifying world.
At that moment, my legs left outside the Sealed Chamber felt a sharp pain, as if someone had twisted them hard. Simultaneously, I heard shouts from behind me—Li Squad Leader and Xiao Guolin among others.
“Get inside!”
“Come out!”
“Clear the entrance!”
It dawned on me how foolish it was to block the entrance of the Sealed Chamber; I could see how anxious it made everyone else. I quickly grabbed onto the outer seats with both hands and shrank my body to squeeze into the Sealed Chamber, taking a seat on one of the outer seats.
As soon as I entered, Li Squad Leader executed a perfect roll into the Sealed Chamber. Seeing this, Liu Squad Leader quickly shifted over to make room for Li Squad Leader in position four. Xiao Guolin leaned in like I did; there was no other way for him since the Sealed Chamber was already full.
Like me, the two newcomers immediately turned their attention to Song Guilong. Xiao Guolin could only lean in halfway but was clearly the most anxious among us. In a hoarse voice, he repeatedly called out to Song Guilong, “Old Song! Old Song! What’s wrong? What happened? Tell us!”
Song Guilong showed no reaction, as if he had severed all ties with this world, at least on a mental level.
Li Squad Leader sat across from me, his gaze towards Song Guilong different from mine, Xiao Guolin's, and Liu Squad Leader's. There was a gravity in his eyes. While Xiao Guolin and I called out loudly to Song Guilong, Liu Squad Leader kept murmuring his name in a slight Shandong accent. Li Squad Leader simply stared at Song Guilong in silence.
After about ten minutes, Li Squad Leader finally said to Liu Squad Leader, "You go out and let Captain Xiao come in; he can't hold that position for long."
Indeed, leaning against the entrance of the Sealed Chamber like that was quite taxing for someone of Xiao Guolin's age. To my surprise, Liu Squad Leader rarely defied Li Squad Leader's orders.
"I want to stay and take care of Captain Song," Liu Squad Leader said quietly. His tone was calm but resolute, not the voice of a subordinate requesting permission from a superior.
The cabin fell silent for a few seconds. I knew that Liu Squad Leader and Song Guilong shared a deep bond; he had been with Song Guilong throughout the project from site selection to excavation. Song Guilong's extensive experience in Desert Archaeology had indeed earned him the respect of these young recruits. Unlike my interactions with the Engineers, Song Guilong had managed to instill admiration in them on a psychological level.
Li Squad Leader, unusually, did not assert his authority and remained silent for a moment like I did. I thought he must understand better than anyone the profound relationship between Liu Squad Leader and Song Guilong.
However, Li Squad Leader's silence was short-lived. He soon turned to Xiao Guolin, who was blocking the cabin entrance. "I need to go out and report the current situation to headquarters." He did not respond to Liu Squad Leader's statement.
With Li Squad Leader now replaced by Xiao Guolin, Cao Mingzhe stood at the cabin entrance. In this Sealed Chamber, Liu Squad Leader seemed superfluous. Yet even Li Squad Leader could not order him out, leaving us feeling powerless.
We took turns calling out to Song Guilong inside the Sealed Chamber. Outside came even louder roars; that was Li Squad Leader reporting to headquarters. The communication quality of the Walkie-Talkie plummeted as the Sandstorm approached, with noise levels far exceeding normal limits and call quality dropping to its lowest point, making it difficult to catch more than fragmented phrases.
Li Squad Leader shouted into the Walkie-Talkie repeatedly; each sentence required him to repeat it over ten times before headquarters could piece together the fragmented information and grasp its meaning. His reports were concise, yet even so, it took him a long time to relay our situation. The instructions coming back from headquarters also took considerable time to clarify. Finally, Li Squad Leader's shouting subsided.
He immediately called Xiao Guolin outside for an emergency meeting to convey headquarters' orders to the Archaeology team.
After a while, Xiao Guolin leaned in and said to me, "Zhang, come over here for a moment."
I crawled out of the Sealed Chamber and was pulled into the adjacent Sealed Chamber by Xiao Guolin. The noise inside the Sealed Chamber was somewhat less, allowing for a more normal conversation. Xiao Guolin leaned closer and said, "Li Squad Leader has ordered us from the Archaeology team to separate and be placed in two different Sealed Chambers."
"Why?" I asked, puzzled. "Song Team needs care; we shouldn't hand him over to the troops. I insist on staying with him; it would be more appropriate for us to take care of him."
"This is an order from above." Xiao Guolin paused for a moment, his tone slightly changing. "This is how Li Squad Leader conveyed it. Since we can't contact the command center, let's follow his instructions for now; after all, he is thinking of our well-being."
Then, Xiao Guolin informed me of the chamber assignment plan. This Sealed Chamber was assigned three people: myself, Xiao Guolin, and the soldier with a broken arm. In the opposite Sealed Chamber were Song Guilong, Liu Squad Leader, and Cao Mingzhe. Our neighboring Sealed Chamber also had three people: Li Squad Leader, another soldier with a severe head injury, and another soldier from the Guard Company. The other Sealed Chamber was led by Zhao Squad Leader from the Guard Company along with three other soldiers.
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