146: Chapter 146 has been found.

At five o'clock the next morning, Lin Ning was dragged out of his bed by Hao Hong.

"Quick, quick, quick! Let's go!" Hao Hong was circling the living room as if he had been injected with chicken blood. "Sleeping bags packed, dry rations packed, windproof stove packed—I even specifically brought five bags of pickled vegetables!"

Lin Ning glanced out the window at the sky, which wasn't fully bright yet. "...Did you even sleep last night?"

"I did! Three hours! That's enough!" Hao Hong threw Lin Ning's jacket onto his face. "Hurry up and get up, we still need to go buy freshly slaughtered beef and mutton!"

"..."

Lin Ning climbed up speechlessly and took out his phone. Seeing a bunch of 60-second voice messages from Officer Li Feng on WeChat, he indifferently swiped them away, not needing to listen at all.

He sent a "Good morning!" to Jiang Yu before yawning and getting himself ready.

At seven o'clock, the two of them drove their rented land cruiser and arrived punctually at the agreed meeting point—a gas station in the western suburbs of Erenhot.

Hu Qing and He Guoqing had already arrived. The bald Hu Qing was tying a spare tire onto an old Pajero, while the tall and thin He Guoqing held a map, checking coordinates against his phone.

"You're here?" Hu Qing glanced at their car. "A land cruiser? Fine, that'll do. Keep up, don't fall behind."

Hao Hong leaned in. "Brother Hu, where are we going today?"

"The Wuhua Ovoo area." Hu Qing patted the dust off his hands. "There was a meteor shower before the New Year, and these coordinates were reverse-calculated from satellite trajectories. Someone found a piece over three hundred grams there last year."

"How much is over three hundred grams worth?"

"If the quality is good, it depends on luck," Hu Qing chuckled. "Some have sold for tens of thousands, others for hundreds of thousands."

Hao Hong's eyes lit up. "Hundreds of thousands? Is it the one that went viral a while ago?"

He Guoqing pushed up his glasses and interrupted calmly, "I made seven trips last year, and the most valuable piece I sold was for eight thousand."

"Not everyone is lucky enough to find a rare specimen." Hu Qing patted his shoulder. "Young man, keep a level head. The Gobi Desert is like this; nine and a half times out of ten, you come back empty-handed. But that remaining half a time is enough to brag about for a lifetime."

Hao Hong turned to look at Lin Ning, the look in his eyes saying: We won't be that 'nine and a half times,' will we?

Lin Ning ignored him.

He was actually quite confident this time because the top of Hao Hong's head had already turned gold, albeit a very light shade.

The two cars left Erenhot and headed northwest all the way.

The asphalt road quickly turned into a gravel road, which then became tire tracks, until finally even the tracks vanished. Before them lay only a vast expanse of grayish-yellow Gobi—rubble, sand, and sparse camel thorns stretching to the horizon.

Hao Hong leaned against the car window, excited for twenty minutes, before starting to doubt his life choices.

"Lin Zi, are we lost?"

"We're not lost, we're following the car in front."

"Then why does everywhere look exactly the same to me?"

Lin Ning glanced out the window. Indeed, the Gobi Desert had this temperament—grayish-yellow when looking forward, grayish-yellow when looking back, and grayish-yellow to the left and right.

"Think about the hundreds of thousands," Lin Ning said.

Hao Hong fell silent for two seconds. "...Then it really does look different."

At 10:30 AM, the two cars stopped below a gentle slope.

Hu Qing jumped out of the car, circled around with a GPS locator, and gestured over the map with He Guoqing for a long time. Finally, he pointed toward the northeast. "This area. Spread out and search. We'll regroup back at the cars in two hours."

Hao Hong was eager to try. "What kind are we looking for? Black? Shiny?"

"Anything is possible," Hu Qing said. "Meteorites burn when they hit the ground, so they usually have a Fusion Crust on the surface and sometimes Regmaglypts—which look like thumbprints."

"Got it!" Hao Hong regained his confidence. "Watch me and my Fiery Eyes!"

Hu Qing glanced at him with a look that was entirely directed at a greenhorn's joke.

Lin Ning and Hao Hong walked toward the northeast.

After walking for ten minutes, Hao Hong began to bend over to pick up stones.

"Does this look like one?"

"No."

"What about this? It has black skin!"

"That's a weathered rock."

"How do you know?"

Lin Ning paused for a moment.

"Can you use your brain? You've seen this stuff since you were a kid, and now you don't recognize it?"

Hao Hong turned it over a few times, then tossed it away dejectedly.

Then, like a broken record, he kept muttering, "Fusion Crust, Regmaglypts... Fusion Crust, Regmaglypts..."

Lin Ning quickly moved further away from him.

An hour passed, and Lin Ning looked up at the sky with vacant eyes.

Damn! He was going blind!

Hardening his heart, when he looked down again, he released a tiny bit of his Psychic Power.

It was like a thin silk thread, extending out in all directions.

This was a technique he had recently figured out.

The range wasn't large, only three to five meters. The depth wasn't great either; he could only probe the surface. Moreover, using it for too long gave him a headache.

He didn't know if it would work for finding meteorites, but he had to try now.

He walked around randomly, resting for a few minutes every so often.

Seeing that it was almost time to regroup, Lin Ning's heart stirred. He took a few steps to the left, crouched down, and brushed aside a pile of rubble.

Underneath was an egg-sized stone, dark brown with a thin crust on the surface.

He picked it up and weighed it.

It was heavier than a normal stone.

He checked it against the identification methods Hu Qing and the others had taught—Holy shit! Holy shit!

It actually worked! This is a meteorite! It absolutely is!

Hao Hong came over dejectedly to call Lin Ning to regroup. Seeing Lin Ning standing still and trembling all over, he leaned in. "What's wrong?"

Lin Ning didn't speak; he just handed him the stone.

Hao Hong took it, turned it over twice, and suddenly froze. "Holy shit... Fusion Crust? Regmaglypts?"

"Maybe." Lin Ning tried his best to keep his voice calm, but the corners of his mouth, which were about to split from grinning, couldn't hide his smugness.

"Maybe?!" Hao Hong's voice cracked. "Where did you find this?!"

He looked up and saw Lin Ning's expression. "Stop pretending!"

Then the two of them burst out laughing.

This thing was like fishing—the thrill of actually catching something was just incredible!!

After laughing, both were in high spirits. Hao Hong slapped Lin Ning hard. "Where did you find it?"

"Right there." Lin Ning pointed to the pile of rubble from earlier. "An edge was sticking out, and it looked like one to me."

Hao Hong looked at the rubble, then back at Lin Ning, saying admiringly, "You're the one with the Fiery Eyes!"

Lin Ning thought to himself: It's not my eyes!

He patted the dust off his hands and made a small pinching gesture. "Just a bit of luck."

"Keep pretending, you bastard!"

The two of them headed back to the meeting point, joking and playing around.

Hu Qing and He Guoqing had already returned. Hu Qing was squatting on the ground organizing his backpack, while He Guoqing was taking notes in a notebook.

Hao Hong walked over with his hands behind his back. "Brother Hu, guess what I found?"

Hu Qing didn't even look up. "A rock."

"What kind of rock?"

"The Gobi Desert is full of rocks."

Hao Hong stretched out his hand, and the egg-sized stone lay in his palm.

Hu Qing took one look, then another, and then stood up.