Chapter 6: The Trunk
The man drove faster than Ling Yu had expected, apparently unwilling to let go of her rudeness toward him so easily.
But when she thought about it, he had been rude first. And in their current situation, he looked exactly like the sort of person with bad intentions who wanted to start throwing punches.
Fortunately, Pei Jin seemed reliable enough. He lowered his voice and spoke quickly. “Sit tight and hold on. That man really is trouble.”
Ling Yu sucked in a breath, sat up straight, pressed herself back against the seat, and dropped the human bone in her hand onto the floor.
What followed was a genuinely thrilling car chase. It was dangerous, too. At that speed, there was no telling what lay hidden beneath the sand.
Still, Ling Yu felt that no one in the desert could match Pei Jin. He avoided every danger almost effortlessly and quickly widened the gap between their car and the man’s.
She watched the rearview mirror. The other vehicle grew farther and farther away until it vanished entirely. She had no idea what had happened to the driver.
What mattered was that they were safe.
Pei Jin noticed the car disappear from the mirror as well. Worried that something might have happened to the man, he quickly pulled over.
Ling Yu worried too. She exchanged a glance with Pei Jin, then immediately got out with him. Neither of them slowed for an instant.
They reached the spot where the man had vanished and found only his car. Its door stood open, but there was not a soul in sight—and this was not even an area of quicksand.
So how had he disappeared?
Ling Yu stared blankly for a moment before speaking. “Could those things have dragged him under?”
“No need to guess,” Pei Jin said. “They definitely did.”
Those things did everything they could to drag people underground and enlarge the ranks beneath the sand. They would not care what anyone above ground did. They no longer possessed human minds, so such behavior was perfectly natural to them.
Ling Yu did not dare approach the car. She could not be certain that their guess was right. There was another possibility: the man might be hiding somewhere, watching them hungrily from the dark.
She cast her gaze as far as she could.
“Mr. Pei, I don’t think this man is as simple as we assumed. He might already be waiting for us somewhere out of sight.”
Pei Jin smiled. “Miss Ling is even cleverer than I imagined.”
Imagined?
The phrase annoyed her slightly, but this was no time to dwell on it. They should be thinking of a way to confirm what had happened.
Pei Jin rubbed his chin. He felt that taking the initiative was best. If they did not try something, they would never draw out the real prey.
He told Ling Yu to stay where she was, then strode toward the car first, looking as though he were staging a heroic rescue. In reality, once he reached it, he simply slapped the body of the car hard.
The vibration was loud. It should have been enough to bring out anyone hiding nearby. Ling Yu was tired, so she sat directly on the sand and watched the show unfolding below.
Pei Jin moved closer to the window and glanced inside. The dashboard held only ordinary items.
There was a sundial, the sort of thing one needed for a journey into the desert, and a smooth, round sun ornament.
Everything most worshipped in this stretch of desert was inside the car.
He quickly shifted his attention from the decorations. Rolling up his sleeves, he approached the trunk. Nothing looked unusual around it, but handprints on the body of the car gave everything away.
Instead of opening the trunk at once, he slammed his palm against it with a sharp bang. Something inside made a violent sound.
Trapped in an enclosed space for too long while someone kept pounding outside was like being threatened in total darkness. Under that pressure, anyone would want to escape as quickly as possible.
But there was not the slightest movement from the trunk. Pei Jin knew the person inside was not in a hurry. Perhaps he possessed some ability that allowed him to hold his breath and remain in a particular environment for a long time.
Pei Jin was not in a hurry either.
He had more than enough time to wait for an answer. He had never met anyone in the desert so brazen.
“Miss Ling, would you mind if I spend a little time here?” Pei Jin asked, almost teasingly. “It seems you won’t get to see so many sculptures today.”
Ling Yu pushed herself up from the sand and walked toward the car. “No rush. I have plenty of time.”
She stopped beside the trunk as well.
They stood on opposite sides of it, as though prepared to drag out whoever was inside and beat him up at any moment.
After considering it, she added, “The weather looks nice. Why don’t we have a desert picnic nearby?”
They were perfectly united when it came to plotting mischief, afraid they might miss some way to threaten the man. Pei Jin did not respond to Ling Yu’s suggestion. He had intended to pull the man out directly, which was why he had not wanted her to come closer.
While Ling Yu spoke, he put his plan into action without hesitation. He seized the latch and then—
The car was not locked at all. The man inside sprang out at once, hoping to catch them off guard, but Pei Jin quickly blocked him with an arm.
The man immediately transferred the knife to his other hand. Ling Yu reacted at once and kicked his wrist. When one kick was not enough, she kicked it again, giving him no chance to explain himself.
When his wrist could no longer hold out, Ling Yu reached out, used every ounce of strength and a deft twist to wrench away the knife, and nearly dislocated his hand in the process.
Fortunately, Pei Jin moved fast enough to keep the man’s hand from actually being dislocated. He truly had not expected her to act so swiftly—or with the skill of someone who had trained.
Ling Yu relaxed her grip and looked innocently at Pei Jin. “Why is he trying to kill people?”
Pei Jin felt her two faces switched faster than he had imagined. He felt as though he were watching a Sichuan opera face-changing act.
“Good thing we moved quickly,” she continued. “Otherwise that knife would have scared us to death.” She paused and sighed. “But what do we do now? Call the police? Or question him ourselves?”
He was still caught up in her abrupt change of expression, but recovered quickly. “First, let’s ask who he is. Or what he wants. Why he tried to kill us.”