Shrouded Seascape

Chapter 960: 66

The desert wind was noisy at night, and there wasn't anything else around except for the glittering stars up above. Amidst the howling winds, a lone off-road vehicle carved deep tire tracks into the sand dunes as it made its way southward, pressing onward to its destination.

There were whirlwinds across the desert, and the golden sand rose up high into the air as if it were smoke rising from the ground. The sand pelted the vehicle and the faces of its passengers.

Despite the scarf covering his face, Tobba still ended up coughing sand. He glanced at the clown next to him and asked, "Hey, are you sure it's okay for us to just drive in just like this? I'm afraid we're heading straight into an ambush.

"What? There's no real danger since we still haven't reached the outskirts of the site? You'd better not be mistaken. I don't want to become a guinea pig. I'm still a baby, you know that, right?"

"Shut up!" Anna hissed. Her eyes were constantly scanning their surroundings, looking for any signs of trouble.

Tobba stuck his tongue out and went silent.

A deafening silence descended upon the vehicle, but it did not last long.

Roughly half an hour later, a sliver of white appeared in the dim horizon.

It was daybreak.

When the sun appeared on the horizon, the frigid temperatures that demanded the use of down jackets rapidly rose.

By nine in the morning, the desert heat was already sweltering. The golden sand had become hot enough to fry an egg, and the thermometer outside told everyone that it was forty-five degrees Celsius outside.

There was no way they could continue their journey under these conditions.

The people in the car could withstand it, but the vehicle's tires couldn't endure such harsh conditions.

The car was parked in a valley between the dunes. A tent with the same color as the sand was pitched, protecting Anna, the others, and the vehicle from the scorching sun.

Of course, they couldn't light a fire here, so their meals were simple—compressed biscuits and mineral water. Anna picked up a biscuit and took a bite. Her delicate brows furrowed slightly, and then she quietly cursed the barely edible biscuits.

In the end, Anna took a large bite of the biscuit and sat cross-legged on the blanket. While chewing away at the biscuit, she studied the maps laid out before her.

There were two maps—one large and one small. The large map was an overall map of the Sahara Desert, while the smaller map was the floor plan of Site 66.

The two maps were made by the clown, and the details were courtesy of its previous host, who somehow managed to escape Site 66.

A bead of sweat slid down Li Lu's face, and Anna smiled faintly at the sight. She grabbed the bottle of mineral water in Li Lu's hand and tilted her head back to down it in one swig.

The sun in the sky was still scorching, but Anna and the others were already trying to sleep. The clown didn't need any sleep to function, so it was tasked with the job of keeping watch.

When the fireball in the sky finally disappeared into the west, Anna awakened from her sleep. She wrapped herself in thick clothing, and the group set out once more.

The group continued on their journey, sleeping during the day and traveling in the middle of the night. On the fifth day of their journey, they finally reached the outskirts of Site 66.

The clown warned the group about the traps up ahead, but Anna wasn't particularly concerned about those traps. She moved beneath the golden sand and swam like a mermaid, pushing aside the mines and the sensors.

There was a stretch of road between them and Site 66, but Anna had no intentions of using that road. It'd be far too conspicuous.

Soon, it was 3 A.M., and it was the best time to infiltrate the site.

Anna got out of the car, and the swaddled Tobba was hanging from her waist. She took off the clown mask and put it into her pocket. Then, she turned to Li Lu behind her and said, "Watch the car. Wait for us to return."

"How can a baby be useful to you over there? Why don't you just leave him here? How about you take me instead of him?" Li Lu suggested.

Even a child could deduce that the operation to find and rescue Wang Sheng was extremely dangerous, and Li Lu didn't want her son to be subjected to such risks.

Instead of replying right away, Anna walked up to the vehicle's trunk and pulled out two large suitcases. The suitcases were packed to the brim with withered corpses. These corpses were what she had demanded from Wang Jianshe.

Anna crouched down and began piecing them together. "Your son is going to be very useful to me. He doesn't remember anything right now, but his future self certainly knows what's ahead of us. He can surely provide me with some help."

Tugging at the skin, bones, and entrails, Anna pieced the body parts into four humanoid figures.

The shambling figures with exposed bones and organs stood up. They grabbed the firearms at the bottom of the suitcases and loaded bullets into them. Then, they stuffed their putrid bodies with magazines and grenades.

Unless deployed in droves, these things weren't exactly helpful in fights, as they were only slightly stronger than the average male adult. However, Anna had no one else around her except for Li Lu and Tobba, and she needed cannon fodders, so she had no choice but to do this.

"Anna, can you make me a doll when we get back home? I'm sure they're going to look cute if I cover them with cartoon toy covers," Tobba said.

Anna ignored Tobba's nonsense and moved forward slowly with the spliced corpses. They crawled and moved slowly but surely in the darkness. They crawled for several kilometers until they reached the summit of a sand dune.

From the crest of the sand dune, Anna finally saw Site 66.