Absolute nothingness. No light, no sound, no sense of time passing, not even a clear sense of "self." It was like floating in the singularity of the universe, or falling into a bottomless abyss.
For how long? Perhaps an instant, perhaps an eternity.
Intense pain returned first. Qin Yuan felt as if all his bones had been disassembled and hastily reassembled. Every inch of his muscle screamed. He painfully opened his heavy eyelids. The blinding sunlight made him shut them instantly, tears welling uncontrollably. Scorching air, heavy with the smell of sand, rushed into his nostrils, making him cough violently.
"Cough cough cough..."
Suppressed moans and coughs came from beside him.
"Captain...?"
"Su Wan? Chen Feng? Are you alright?"
"Xiao Liu? Xiao Wang? Are you there?"
Familiar voices, hoarse with the shock of survival and lingering fear. Qin Yuan fought the dizziness and discomfort, trying to open his eyes again, shielding them with his hand.
His vision gradually cleared.
What met his eyes was first the boundless, glaring gold—the desert! Still the desert! But unlike the relatively fixed dune landscape at the edge of the Taklamakan, the dunes here seemed... "newer"? The marks of wind and sand were more rugged and fierce. The air was still scorching, but the wind seemed to lack the faint, almost imperceptible odor of modern industry, leaving only the pure, primal scent of earth and blazing sun.
"Are we... still in the desert?" Chen Feng's voice was full of confusion and disbelief. He struggled to sit up, looking around. "The sandstorm... the sandstorm stopped? But... the ancient tomb?"
Qin Yuan's heart sank heavily. He quickly scanned the surroundings. Yes, it was the desert, but definitely not the location of their previous camp! No off-road vehicles, no orange-red tents, no modern excavation equipment, even... no sign of that distinctive yardang rock wall and tomb entrance! Only rolling, endless dunes, steaming with heat waves under the fierce sun.
Su Wan also sat up, her face frighteningly pale, lips chapped. She subconsciously touched the compass pendant around her neck. It felt cold to the touch, its pointer eerily motionless. "No... this isn't right..." she muttered, her gaze turning towards the distance. Her pupils suddenly contracted. "Captain! Look over there!"
Following Su Wan's pointing finger, about half a kilometer away, a lone, massive beacon tower, constructed from rammed earth and stone, stood atop a higher dune! Its shape was simple and robust, bearing the distinct style of Ming military architecture. The top seemed to retain traces of wolf smoke (signal fire). Below the beacon, a cluster of low, adobe buildings was faintly visible, resembling a small encampment.
What made their blood almost freeze was this—on the sandy ground near the edge of the encampment, a group of soldiers dressed in ragged leather armor or cloth, holding rust-speckled spears and waist knives, were gathered around a campfire, seemingly resting. Their attire, their weapons, were strikingly similar to the images on the tomb murals and General Huo Xiao's burial goods!
"Ming... Ming Dynasty?" Chen Feng's voice was as dry as sandpaper. "Did... did the sandstorm blow us onto some movie set?"
Qin Yuan's heart pounded like a drum. A movie set? In this uninhabited desert depths? He forced himself to calm down, his gaze sharp as he observed the soldiers: the weathering on their faces, their exhausted, weary expressions, their crude and simple weapons, the primitive smell of unknown meat roasting over the fire... It was all too real, real enough to be chilling. No cameras, no director, no trace of anything modern.
"Doesn't seem fake..." Qin Yuan's voice was low and grave. "Da Li and the others... aren't here." He confirmed the team members present: himself, Su Wan, Chen Feng, and the two young archaeologists, Xiao Liu and Xiao Wang—five in total. Zhang Da Li and the other several team members left on guard outside the tomb were missing. A profound unease gripped him.
"The magnetic field... completely chaotic..." Chen Feng took out his small, cracked magnetic field detector. The numbers on its screen jumped wildly before it finally went black. "GPS... no signal at all. We seem... cut off from the world."
"Time..." Su Wan's voice held a tremor. She remembered the strange mirror, the slab, and the final all-consuming white light in the tomb. "Captain, that mirror... that slab... and the epitaph... General Huo Xiao..." A wild thought formed in her mind, making her shudder.
Qin Yuan was silent for a few seconds, his eyes becoming extremely sharp. He had thought of it too. The sandstorm, the tomb, the mirror, the white light, the vanished tomb, the Ming beacon and soldiers... All these clues pointed toward a conclusion he, as a materialist, was most reluctant to believe, yet could not ignore.
"Whatever happened, survival first." Qin Yuan suppressed the storm in his heart, displaying the leader's decisiveness. "We're wearing modern clothes, too conspicuous. Must hide immediately, observe the situation. Chen Feng, look for signs of water. Su Wan, Xiao Liu, Xiao Wang, with me, find cover!"
They were currently on the leeward side of a large dune, relatively hidden. The five of them, enduring physical discomfort and immense fear, crawled on their bellies toward a natural low wall formed by weathered rock behind a higher ridge. Rough gravel scraped their skin, causing a burning pain, but no one dared make a sound.
Just as they hid themselves, through cracks in the low wall, they saw a cavalry unit of about a dozen riders galloping towards them from the direction of the beacon tower. The hoofbeats made dull thuds on the sand. These cavalrymen wore polished leather armor, carried waist knives, and had bows and arrows on their backs. The leader was exceptionally tall and burly, riding a magnificent black horse. Even from a distance, one could feel his overwhelming aura of fierceness. His face was resolute, his features sharp as if carved by an axe, with sharp, hawk-like eyes under thick brows, warily scanning the surrounding dunes.
When his sharp gaze swept over the direction of the low wall where Qin Yuan and others were hiding, the five held their breath, their hearts almost jumping out of their throats. Fortunately, the distance and the rock cover worked; the gaze did not linger.
"Alert! Wolf tracks!" the burly general's voice was loud and metallic, echoing in the vast desert. "Scouts out three li! The rest, follow me back to camp!" He sharply reined in his horse. The black horse reared with a long whinny, then turned and galloped with a sand-stirring momentum towards the encampment below the beacon. The cavalry behind followed closely.
Only when the hoofbeats faded and the dust settled did Qin Yuan and the others dare to breathe heavily.
"It's him..." Su Wan's voice held a tone of disbelief, excitement, and deeper fear. She gripped Qin Yuan's arm tightly, her nails almost digging into his flesh. "Captain! His face! Though younger, more... vivid, but that profile, that look in his eyes... and the knife at his waist! The pommel... wasn't there a dark red gemstone?"
Qin Yuan's heart sank to the depths. In that brief glimpse, he had seen it too. The burly general's appearance bore at least a seventy percent resemblance to the reconstructed portrait of General Huo Xiao from the tomb's remains! And the pommel of the knife at his waist was indeed inlaid with a dark red gemstone that could not hide its deep glow even in the dim light!
The cold truth, like the desert's cold night, instantly enveloped the five.
They had not only traveled through space.
They had traveled back in time.
To the Great Ming Dynasty, hundreds of years in the past.
And the first person they encountered was none other than that very Garrison General, Huo Xiao, destined to dye the yellow sand with his blood and finally rest eternally within that very tomb!