Bathed in moonlight, the earth was a stark contrast of black and white.
The fine grains of sand reflected the moonlight, and the surface of the desert faintly glead white with a solitary black spot conspicuously appearing upon this silver carpet.
The enormous cals bent their long necks to drink, their heads lowered to the ink-black water that rippled with layers of dark and glossy waves.
Bi Fang crouched on one knee, dipped his hand in the water, brought it to his nose for a sniff, flicked his fingers to shake off the droplets, then rubbed them dry on the sand.
"No strange sll, it should be a normal water source."
Today was not a full moon, and visibility was limited, so Bi Fang could not determine the water's purity by sight alone and had to make a rough judgnt using his sense of sll.
"In the desert, all oasis water sources are running water; stagnant water cannot exist here for long. This region has the world's highest water vapor evaporation rate. A 100-milliliter cup of water placed in the most ordinary glass can evaporate completely in just a few minutes."
"However, even if it is running water, one should not be careless; there are large numbers of wild cals in the desert, which often defecate in water sources."
"Especially along certain fixed routes, where hundreds of cals drink and rest daily, they can even directly turn the water black."
"Such water wouldn't affect cals naturally, but humans do not share the sa resistance, nor can they withstand such water sources."
"No strange sll and no dangerous wildlife nearby, the water is most likely safe."
[Aweso, found water!]
[Master Fang may just observe for fun, but when it cos to finding water sources, you need , Alpha]
[Are you even polite?]
Bi Fang stood up, prodded the bushes with a tree stick to avoid any venomous insects or scorpions hiding within, then began breaking off dry branches to prepare for boiling water.
This oasis was long and narrow; seen from above, it resembled a banana. It covered an area approximately the size of a football field—not too small, nor too large—flanked by a narrow green belt less than three ters wide.
It took Bi Fang almost half a circle to gather enough firewood.
These dead plants had lost their ability to draw water and, unlike the humid climate of the rainforest, just one day in the desert would completely dehydrate them, turning them into kindling that was extrely easy to ignite—a convenience among the few in the desert.
From his backpack, Bi Fang removed two pieces of Flint Stone, rubbed them with one hand and a few sparks drifted onto the dry twigs. After several attempts, a ring of orange light soon ignited in the darkness.
The flas drove away the cold and darkness. Bi Fang picked a thicker tree stick, held it up, and approached the water's edge.
The water clearly reflected the firelight, but its true color remained elusive.
Bi Fang abandoned this train of thought and continued to boil the water.
"If you haven't found a direct water source in the desert, but have only found green plants, you can also cover the vegetation with a plastic bag, wait for the dayti transpiration, and use the day-night temperature difference to distill and obtain clean water."
"In ancient tis, they said a thousand miles carries no provisions, aning that the provisions carried over a thousand miles would no longer suffice for the mules, horses, and escorts."
"Carrying 50 pounds of water and sweating out 40 pounds is pointless; one should rationally distribute the load according to one's physical condition and the length of the journey. Normally, 4000 milliliters of water is sufficient in the desert."
"But well, I have Alpha; carrying three tis the water supply is no problem at all. What limits us instead is the container."
"Storing water demands high-quality containers and proper storage, and the best are actually animal stomachs or, if you're more skilled, their skins."
Bi Fang rifled through his backpack and extracted several dead rattlesnakes that he had encountered on the road over the past few days. So had been eaten, leaving only their skins and stomachs, which had now beco excellent materials for water storage.
"Although rattlesnakes aren't very large, their stomachs have an extraordinary ability to expand. A single snake can hold two liters of water without any problem, and it's like a balloon, just tie a knot at the end, and it won't leak."
Bi Fang laid the snakes out on his arm one by one and brought them to the pond to begin washing and preparing them.
With four snakes, plus a water bottle, he could carry nearly ten thousand milliliters of water, enough to last him a little over a week if he rationed it carefully.
"It's better not to sleep too far from the water source at night, it's easy to run into other animals, and we can co back here tomorrow."
After taking so water, Bi Fang chose not to stay and endure the entire night. Instead, he led the well-hydrated Alpha toward the southwest, not specifically seeking shelter. He dug a hole and roughed it out for the night.
By early the next day, Bi Fang returned to the pond to continue boiling water, surveyed the surroundings, and even took a bath, washing away the heat and gri before starting to look for suitable plants around the oasis to weave soft baskets.
Alpha nibbled on the tender shoots in the oasis, moving his mouth from side to side, making up for the losses of the past few days, and even urinated, which after being reabsorbed multiple tis, was as concentrated as pus. Although it was a bit extre for so, it still amazed many viewers.
"[Seriously, has Master Fang filled them too much? It looks like they might burst.]"
"[This creamy color is giving so unpleasant associations (Dog's head)]"
"[What are you thinking? Be bold and say it!]"
"[Too avant-garde.]"
"[We conservatives can't stand this.]"
"[But really, isn't it going to burst?]"
The baskets woven from branches were hung on both sides of the cal, and Bi Fang placed the swollen snake stomachs inside, which looked like milky white balloons filled with water. It was clear enough to see the freshwater flowing inside, naturally making one worry whether they were overfilled.
"Don't worry, the snakes' stomachs have a huge capacity to expand, and I've specially woven soft baskets, so they're not likely to burst."
Bi Fang pinched the baskets on both sides of the cal, made of long devalued leaves; calling them fras wouldn't be quite right, they were more like openwork bags, securely holding the water sacks.
After finishing this, Bi Fang looked back at Alpha, who was still grazing in the thicket.
"[Definitely starved.]"
"[Speaking of which, it's been quite so ti since Alpha ate, right? (Dog's head)]"
"[It did eat a bit, Old Fang also encountered so plants, didn't he find two trees last ti? It just doesn't seem enough to fill up.]"
"[Poor thing, even its humps are deflated quite a bit.]"
A healthy adult cal, when fully fed and watered, can go without food or water for 15 to 30 consecutive days.
Under normal circumstances, a cal can consu about 13 kilograms of dry matter in one al and drink approximately 10 liters of water.
In extre situations, like returning from the desert, it can eat at least 30 kilograms of food in one go and drink up to 120 liters of water.
"They eat and drink far more than their bodies need every day, which is actually a form of storage, and you can tell because their humps are full and upright."
"Eating and drinking in excess lays the foundation for the cal's future ability to endure hunger and thirst."
"Following Bi Fang for so long, just as the audience said, the hump indeed isn't as inflated as it was at the beginning; it looks sowhat listless, the peaks even a bit saggy—of course, that might also be due to sitting for too long."
"The fat in the hump also needs replenishnt, so Bi Fang decided to wait for a day, or even two if necessary, to set off tomorrow and allow Alpha to return to peak condition as much as possible."
"There's still plenty of ti, so let's see if there's any food to gather next."
"There are a few doum palm trees in the oasis, and perhaps so fruit can be found as well."
"It's also possible to look for fish in the pond to further supplent our supplies."
"Fish can't live without water, and water just happens to be the scarcest resource in the desert, so many people might assu it's impossible to find fish in the desert."
"However, the desert isn't entirely devoid of life; oases are commonly found in deserts, and the water in these oases may contain fish, especially in deserts with many underground rivers, such as the oasis in our country's Taklamakan Desert, which has crucian carp and grass carp."
"Besides oases, it's also possible to find fish in the desert's subterranean rivers, lakes, and caves."
"[Oasis, lakes, subterranean rivers—aren't these all the sa thing? (shivering)]"
"[How dare you! How reckless! Are you questioning Master Fang? Dog's head for protection]"
"[Master Fang could never be wrong!]"
"There's still a distinction," said Bi Fang, touching his head and laughing, "Generally, a lake in the desert is an oasis, but there are exceptions."
"In Northern Bahia's Lencois Maranhenses, there's a desert spanning 1,500 square kiloters known as the 'Desert of a Thousand Lakes.'"
"Brazil is primarily known for its tropical rainforest climate, which everyone should be aware of, so it's indeed rare to find deserts there, but the formation of this particular desert is actually strongly connected to the tropical rainforest climate."
"Because Brazil receives so much rainfall, its two main rivers frequently overflow seasonally, carrying a great deal of silt that is deposited into the Atlantic Ocean, and massive sand dunes form at the mouth of the river. The dunes are blown inland by the trade winds coming off the ocean, creating the desert."
"[Wow, what a paradox.]"
"[Strange geographical knowledge has increased.]"
Bi Fang snapped a branch off a tree and began crafting a fishing line and hook.
"After the desert ford, because the average annual rainfall here reaches 1600 milliters, once the rainy season cos, many large and small lakes form in this desert, hence the na 'Desert of a Thousand Lakes,' but it is not an oasis because these lakes are not stable, whereas the ecology of an oasis is."
"Lakes in dried-up deserts and rivers are the sa, so there are a great number of fish species, earning it the achievent of the world's most fish-abundant desert."
Bi Fang worked on a section of flexible branch, fashioning it into a hook structure, and inserted it into a small tube, tying it to the fishing line and casting it into the lake.
"Next are the subterranean rivers; deserts' subterranean rivers form through various ans, so due to heavy rain that can't be stored and seeps into the ground, and others are bone dry, but because of the desert's significant diurnal temperature variation, moisture in the air saturates and condenses at night, seeping through the desert surface into the ground, forming flowing underground water over many years in so desert regions."
"The subterranean rivers of the desert have outlets but no entrances and are connected to other water systems, thus fish from these other water systems may enter them."
"However, after entering the subterranean rivers, because there is no light, these fish often lose their eyesight and beco blind cavefish."
"The Tuareg people living in the Sahara Desert rely entirely on the desert for their existence. As humans, they naturally need water and food. The main source of their water is the underground river, while their food cos from the fish in these rivers."
"Having lived in the desert for a long ti, the Tuareg people can accurately locate these underground rivers. Next cos the digging; when they find water, they use insects as bait on their fishhooks to fish."
[Another miracle race]
[There are Sherpa people at Mount Everest, and who was it that excelled in diving? Then there are the Maasai people. We're all humans; why are they so outstanding?]
[But Master Fang trumps all of them!]
[Got it, Master Fang is the ultimate being!!!]
[I've long suspected that Old Fang isn't human (jokingly)]
"Finally, there are caves. Apart from underground rivers, oases, and lakes, the desert also contains naturally ford caves, and so of these caves have water in them. There are fish living in these watery caves."
"The Death Valley in Ugly Country is a dry, uninhabited area. Inside lies the Mojave Desert, wherein lies a 130-ter-deep cave that was found to contain fish. These fish are less than 5 centiters in length, with an estimated number of about 300, later nad by scientists as Devils Hole pupfish."
"As for oases, there isn't much to say, as an oasis is a complete mini-ecosystem with invertebrates in the water and aquatic plants."
"However, the size of fish in these terrains generally isn't large. In most of these environnts, the abundance of food is poor, insufficient to sustain large fish species. These small fish survive tenaciously, thanks to their smaller size and lower energy requirents."
"And for this reason, we don't need very good fishing rods; a tree stick will do."
As they talked, Bi Fang pulled up a tree stick, and on it hung a small fish, no bigger than a palm, flapping its tail incessantly.
"Tilapia, the most common fish in the Sahara Desert. It seems its underground is indeed extensive."
[Wow, there really are fish!]
[Fishing in the desert, that's so skill]
[It's all you]
[Do fish from the desert taste better?]
[No, they're just pricier]
Bi Fang took it off, put it into the basket, hung fruit on the fishhook, and continued to throw it into the pool.
By afternoon, Alpha had stopped eating, and Bi Fang had reaped a rich harvest, enjoying a grilled fish feast at night.
The next day, Alpha continued to eat, chewing monotonously with a big mouth, seemingly never tiring, like a relentless grass-eating machine.
Bi Fang felt Alpha's hump and found it had almost completely recovered, indicating it was about ti to move on.
Filling the water bottle for the last ti, Bi Fang pulled Alpha away from feeding, mounted its back, and continued forward.
Underfoot lay the vast expanse of the desert, while overhead stretched the pure blue vastness of the sky, where the sky and the endless desert rged into a line at the distant horizon.
Mali had beco a backdrop, and perhaps by tomorrow or the day after, they would reach the next country.
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