Ling Yu truly did not care much about the accusations. Still, in her present state she was unsuited to drawing another comic. She believed she needed more training before attempting a second one.
Whatever a person did these days required extra effort.
The man on the other end remained silent for a long time.
At last Ling Yu continued, "If this is how you want to handle things, I can apply to leave the studio. You've taken a considerable share of the money from my exhibitions. If anyone owes anyone, the studio owes me."
She could have chosen a better company. At the time, she signed because her agent was easy to negotiate with, promised more room for development, and—most importantly—offered few restrictions.
The present situation completely violated their original agreement.
Ling Yu hated people who broke their word.
Without waiting for her agent's response, she ended the call.
The studio had not paid a cent toward this trip. She had covered every expense herself.
After glancing at her phone, she fetched the hair dryer from the bathroom. By the time her hair was dry, her agent still had sent no message, so she went to bed.
...
Ling Yu rose at her usual time the next morning. She had not forgotten that Pei Jin was coming to meet her downstairs.
Before doing anything else, she hurried to the window to inspect the street. Sure enough, Pei Jin soon appeared below.
He parked beside the barbecue shop and leaned against the vehicle, gazing into the distance.
Dawn had only just broken.
Ling Yu left the window and prepared quickly for the appointment. By the first quarter hour, everything was ready.
She secured the drawing board on her back, took the elevator to the lobby, and walked out of the hotel.
"I thought you might break your promise, Mr. Pei." She gripped the board's strap.
Pei Jin looked up. Her clothes were different today.
She wore a long white dress beneath a very short jacket. The dress followed the lines of her body and lent her an indescribable air.
Returning to himself, he smiled. "I wouldn't refuse something I promised you. Besides, I promised someone else I would settle this matter."
Ling Yu smiled back. "Then you sound dependable."
A few seconds later she asked, "What about our contract?"
Pei Jin tilted his head. "Whatever terms you agreed with Old Wang can remain the same with me."
"And the fee?"
"I don't need one."
"Oh? You won't abandon me halfway too, will you?"
Pei Jin seemed to have expected the question. It was a legitimate concern. After thinking, he said, "In that case... I brought a contract. If you're certain, I can give it to you—"
"Fine. Then we're both protected." She cut him off quickly.
As long as they reached an arrangement that satisfied them both, she had no other demands.
From their first meeting, Pei Jin had thought she spoke decisively and never dragged matters out. That was why he had visited Old Wang the night before to ask what exactly had happened.
He had not expected to find Old Wang in a condition far worse than he imagined.
...
In the past, a short rest at home had been enough for Old Wang. But last night...
Pei Jin remembered finding him curled tightly in a corner, muttering, "I really saw them," and, "Why are they still haunting me?"
At first Pei Jin assumed Old Wang was talking about matters from his wife's family. Then he realized that could not be right. Old Wang strongly believed the legends, but this was the first time they had frightened him so badly.
Pei Jin immediately approached to ask what happened.
Old Wang sensed someone near and raised his head. The instant he saw Pei Jin, he seized his hand like a drowning man grasping a lifeline.
Pei Jin's heart lurched. For a moment, he had no idea how to handle the situation.
Before he could speak, Old Wang rushed out the words: "Miss Ling... Ling Yu! You must take her to the Line and find out what is happening! Otherwise... we'll all die! The desert beneath the sun will swallow us!"
The sun? The desert?
Pei Jin immediately recalled the tale of "the sun that never falls," then remembered what Ling Yu had drawn and said. She truly was unlike an ordinary person.
When the sun falls, the gate opens; shadows are born, and souls depart.
But why did they need Ling Yu?
Was it because she had witnessed what happened yesterday?
He could find no convincing answer.
When he tried to question Old Wang again, the man had already regained his former quiet and withdrawn completely into the darkness.
"Ah Jin, why are you here?" another voice suddenly called from outside. "Has something happened to Old Wang again?"
The speaker hurried inside, frowned at the sight of him, and began murmuring words beneath her breath. Her hands rose together before her eyes as though in prayer.
It was Old Wang's wife.
"Auntie, is he truly all right like this?" Pei Jin finally asked.
The woman lifted her head. "Don't worry. What you heard is the same nonsense he always likes to repeat. But who did he guide today?"
The abrupt change of subject caught Pei Jin unprepared, but he certainly would not reveal everything about Ling Yu.
He shook his head. "I don't know. This person is more troublesome than I expected."
The woman appeared to guess his thoughts. Rather than question him, she smiled faintly. "Thank you for helping Old Wang all this time. I have nothing with which to repay you, but I still want to warn you: you shouldn't become involved with that person. She will bring you misfortune."
The warning sounded genuine. When Pei Jin looked at her again, she appeared flustered, and beneath that unease lay an indescribable worry.
Old Wang's condition was enough to demonstrate the severity of the matter.
Having revealed nothing himself, Pei Jin could offer no useful reply.
...
His thoughts returned to the present. Looking at Ling Yu, he retrieved the contract from the vehicle and handed it to her.
She read it carefully. It was indeed almost identical to the agreement she remembered signing with Old Wang. Taking out the pen she carried, she signed both copies.
Once they were signed, Pei Jin produced a breakfast from the car as though performing a magic trick. It was not a local specialty, merely ordinary food available anywhere.
Ling Yu accepted it and nodded. "Guide Pei really is conscientious."
He opened the passenger door for her. She climbed in. The vehicle smelled much as it had the previous night, except for the added aroma of breakfast.
The figurine based on her work now had a stand beneath it.
Her gaze remained on the little figure until Pei Jin got in. "When did you buy the stand, Mr. Pei?"
"It originally came with one. I left it in the house when the figure was given to me, but I found it again today," he explained with a smile, one hand on the steering wheel.
Why did that make him sound as if he were deliberately trying to please her?
Ling Yu merely nodded, then pressed her advantage. "I still want to go in that direction. I'm mainly interested in the red sand there."
She feared that if she spoke too late, he would refuse to take her. Yet she also feared he would refuse even after hearing her. Better to warn him in advance.
Pei Jin did not reject the idea. He said, "All right."
...
He drove back along the route from the previous night.
Ling Yu watched the surroundings. Small stalls were already being erected, and the locals dressed lightly. Even before the sun appeared, the heat could be felt.
Fortunately, the air-conditioning kept her skin from becoming sticky. Propping up her head, she gazed into the distance. Without the night's commotion, the scenery seemed far better.
As they approached the desert, the sun rose at the horizon, round and brilliantly red.
Ling Yu lifted her phone and photographed it from the side. After studying the image, she could not help smiling.
An empty establishing shot was also one of the most important parts of a painting or comic. It could evoke a feeling that words could not describe.
The car unexpectedly slowed.
The shadows flashing past no longer held only color in Ling Yu's eyes. They possessed form as well, and that form was no longer so indistinct.
"Thank you." Ling Yu smiled politely at Pei Jin. "I passed this place yesterday, but every passage inspires something different."
Pei Jin nodded. He understood that artists saw more in things than ordinary people.
He could not resist glancing sideways. Ling Yu remained immersed in the landscape and never looked away.
Only when the greenery before them was completely replaced by yellow desert did she turn back. Gripping her phone, she considered her words.
"Mr. Pei, can you tell me more about this place? Things that can't be found online, for example?"
Pei Jin parked somewhere safe. Like a storyteller deciding where to begin, he first asked what she wanted. "I don't understand every part of the legend. Much of it came from friends nearby. I... don't know which part you want to hear."
"The expedition."
Her answer was decisive.
Pei Jin had not expected something to burst from beneath the sand and seize his ankle. It moved so fast that he could not even catch its shadow.
Ling Yu sprang to her feet and ran to him. She saw the disturbed sand as well, and the same question rose in her mind: Desert rock corpses—why would they come out in daylight?
Pei Jin noticed her confusion. From her reaction, she truly had not expected this.
After taking several breaths and wiping away the cold sweat on his face, he asked quietly, “Are you all right?”
Ling Yu saw that he was not pressing her for answers and spoke first instead. “You aren’t going to ask anything else?”
“You were surprised too. You probably didn’t expect this,” Pei Jin said plainly. “There would be no point in asking. And…this must be connected to the expedition from back then.”
Ling Yu did not deny it. She nodded.
“What exactly are those desert rock corpses?” Pei Jin crouched down and stared at the sand.
Ling Yu answered from what she had recorded in her notebook. “They drag people under the sand and torment them until they die. They cannot rest even after death.”
Then she crouched to inspect the ground herself.
The sand beneath the surface was hollow. A broken hand bone protruded from it, horribly conspicuous.
An ordinary tourist would have screamed and run. Neither of them did. If anything, both felt an urge to pull the thing out and find out what it was.
Pei Jin suddenly remembered the photograph. “There were several shadows in that picture just now. What do you think that means?”
“Maybe they were bait,” Ling Yu said directly. “For people like us, who are too curious.”
Pei Jin did not disagree.
He had followed her partly out of curiosity, but more because he worried she would be hurt. Without realizing it, he had also touched on memories from his own past—things involving lives and death, things for which people had cursed him.
Watching Ling Yu study the sand, he swept the surroundings with heightened caution, afraid something else might suddenly emerge.
After looking for a long time without finding any answer, Ling Yu decided to pull out the bone and examine its structure more closely.
She gripped the hand bone embedded in the sand and pulled hard. It took considerable effort to drag out the entire piece. Its surface had been polished smooth by wind and sand, nothing like an ordinary human bone.
She turned it in her hand and joked, “This little thing can drag people that far?”
Pei Jin gave a faint smile. “Could it have abandoned part of itself on purpose?”
Ling Yu became alert immediately. “You mean those things might come back?”
Pei Jin’s heart tightened. He did not dare gamble.
“Get back in the car. It isn’t safe here.”
Ling Yu agreed. She quickly hid the bone beneath her coat to avoid being misunderstood if anyone saw it. Most people who vanished in the desert left no remains behind, and carrying something like this openly would attract attention.
The moment they got into the enclosed car, the sense of safety returned.
Ling Yu had only just taken out the bone for another look when a dark shape appeared by the window. She jumped, and the bone fell beside the seat.
“Hello! Can I ask you something?”
A fashionably dressed man stood outside wearing sunglasses and chewing gum. His casual tone was almost overly familiar.
Ling Yu frowned at Pei Jin as he lowered the window.
“What is it?” she asked.
The man immediately held out a photograph. “I’m looking for someone. She vanished near here last night. Her phone still connects, but all we hear is wind and sand. No one speaks.”
Ling Yu shook her head. “We weren’t here last night. Ask someone else.”
Her answer was curt. The man looked careless and unreliable, and she did not want to deal with him.
But he would not let it go. “Then what are you doing in the desert this early?”
“Gathering references,” Ling Yu said flatly.
“We came to collect material for drawing,” Pei Jin added.
The man still did not leave. He pushed his phone toward Ling Yu as though forcing her to look at it.
She recoiled in disgust. Before she could refuse, Pei Jin reached out and blocked the phone.
“Sorry, but we really don’t know,” he said, his voice turning cold and his gaze sharp. “What you’re doing counts as harassment. Keep bothering us and I’ll call the police.”
The man’s face stiffened. He muttered a curse and walked away unwillingly, continuing to wander nearby.
“He won’t let it go,” Pei Jin said as he raised the window. “If we stay, he’ll keep causing trouble.”
“Thank you.” Ling Yu glanced at the bone, then at the man still lingering in the distance. “I think we have enough reference material. As for this…”
She picked it up from the floor and decided at once that they should leave.
Pei Jin started the car and drove deeper into the desert to avoid the nuisance.
But before they had gone far, the man climbed into a vehicle of his own and followed them.