#527 - Chapter 527 What is here?
“Venerable One, did you hear that? It sounded like gunfire just now,” the attendant whispered.
“Quiet!” Jing Qi frowned.
The tremor had become very faint, but there was a constant, subtle rustling sound all around.
“Venerable One, why do I feel like many snakes are crawling towards us?” another attendant whispered.
Jing Qi didn't reply.
They certainly weren't afraid of snakes.
Their worry was some strange, mutated creature.
Mutated creatures were too common these days.
On the warship.
Dongfang Chen was observing the screen.
The situation now looked very strange.
Small black dots were coming from the northwest and converging towards the southeast, forming a fan shape.
It felt like they were heading towards a specific location with a purpose.
“See what's there?” Dongfang Chen said, pointing to their likely convergence point.
“Yes, Commander.”
The drone's altitude kept decreasing, and the image was further magnified.
Now the drone had descended to a height of five or six meters above the ground.
Everything on the ground was clearly visible.
However, this target area was still very large, and it wasn't easy to discover anything unusual.
It was like trying to find something special within a few square kilometers from an aerial perspective. Without knowing what that thing was or what its characteristics were, it was still very difficult to find.
It was like playing a game of "spot the difference" without a reference image, which was quite straining on the eyes.
“Dai Zheng, come and take a look. See what exactly is in this area, and what are they coming here for?” Dongfang Chen said, rubbing his eyes.
“Okay!” Dai Zheng also leaned in, staring intently at the screen.
Half an hour later…
Dai Zheng's eyes were blurry, and tears were streaming down his face.
He couldn't deny he was getting old; after all, he was over forty, and this kind of work was really strenuous.
“Hahaha, Brother Dai, you're exaggerating too much!” Dongfang Chen laughed.
Dai Zheng wiped away his tears and laughed awkwardly, saying:
“I'm old! My eyesight's failing!”
“Alright, let's split the screen and have them all take a look,” Dongfang Chen said, shaking his head with a smile.
Soon, each special operations soldier on the warship was assigned a section of the area, and they all stared at their screens, patiently observing every movement on the ground.
It wasn't that Dongfang Chen hadn't considered using nanobots to investigate.
It was just that they didn't have much advantage in probing the surface conditions, especially things that moved.
Moreover, he wasn't sure if there were any anomalies in this area, or what those anomalies were.
So, he could only use a clumsy method.
“Venerable One, another drone is coming!”
“Buzz, buzz~”
Drones had propellers, so they were very noisy.
“Conceal yourselves well! Don't move rashly!” Jing Qi reminded the others.
Right now, they didn't know what the tremor and "rustling" sounds were, but the drone must have been sent by those large warships.
Jing Qi judged that their target shouldn't be the four of them.
As long as they weren't exposed, there wouldn't be any problems.
Currently, the Sand People were still about 2 kilometers away from their hiding place, precisely in the area that Dongfang Chen was focusing on monitoring.
The drone hovered above their heads, showing no sign of leaving.
They held their breath, not even daring to breathe loudly.
It was very quiet in the warship.
All the special operations soldiers were staring intently at the screen, not even blinking their eyes.
Dongfang Chen stood up from his seat, rubbed his eyes, walked into a room, and made a phone call.
“Hello, Old Qin.”
“Little Chen, are you still in Bayingol?” Old Qin asked.
“Yes, I'm still here.”
“What's the matter with the call?”
“It's like this, I wanted to ask if you've ever seen Sand People?” Dongfang Chen asked.
Although Old Qin told him to come here to look for clues, he didn't tell him that he himself had been here, which Dai Zheng had mentioned.
However, Dongfang Chen wasn't being pretentious now and directly asked his question.
Since he had been here, he might have seen them.
“Sand People? You encountered them?” Old Qin asked.
“Yes. It seems you've seen them?” Dongfang Chen said with a smile.
“That shouldn't be! Where are you now?” Old Qin asked.
“I'm currently in the Aksu region, on the narrow passage between Lop Nur and the Taklamakan Desert. I'll send you my location,” Dongfang Chen said.
“Okay! Don't act rashly, I'll set off now,” Old Qin said and hung up the phone.
Dongfang Chen smiled slightly.
He knew he had guessed correctly; Old Qin had his own purposes for tricking him into coming here to investigate.
In the command room, the special operations soldiers were still staring intently at the screen.
As the Sand People became more and more concentrated, the area they needed to observe became smaller and smaller.
Now, each person was only responsible for an area of 500 meters on each side.
Even so, they still hadn't found anything.
“Damn it! What exactly is here? What is the goal of these Sand People?” Dai Zheng rubbed his eyes vigorously, feeling like cursing.
