August was the hottest time of year. Never-Night Village, the subject of heated discussion online in recent days, had drawn no shortage of visitors. By six in the evening the sky was already darkening, with only the distant sunset still casting its light over the village.
Yet this seemed to be the liveliest part of the day. Young and old alike displayed whatever crafts and specialties they possessed, and every open patch of ground had become a market stall.
Amid the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, one young woman stood out. She wore a white short-sleeved top and a long skirt patterned in the local style, with a drawing board held against her side. Beside her, an elderly guide hovered with an ingratiating smile.
“Miss Ling, you chose the right man. No one knows Never-Night Village better than I do. Whether you want to explore the forest around the village or admire the scenery in the hot desert nearby, I can take you there.”
The old guide had plenty of reasons to flatter her. Most obvious was the generous fee Miss Ling had offered, especially when she had asked only for a tour of the area’s most beautiful scenery.
He had never encountered such easy work.
He had even spent some time privately looking into his client.
Ling Yu was a celebrated artist who had won more awards than one could count on both hands.
She tightened her hold on the drawing board. “I want to see the desert.”
The guide snapped back to attention and immediately ushered his valuable client onto a small motorized tricycle by the roadside. As they headed toward the desert, he talked without pause about the local sights. Ling Yu showed no delight. She simply raised her camera and photographed the passing landscape.
Motor tricycles were evidently common in Never-Night Village; most of the people in her photographs were riding them. She deleted every image in which the vehicles dominated the frame.
What she wanted was mostly scenery, with only a little human presence.
The old man spoke with tremendous enthusiasm, pouring out every fact he knew.
“Miss Ling, there may be all sorts of rumors about this desert, but most of those legends are false.”
At the mention of legends, Ling Yu finally looked away from her camera. She had clearly been waiting for him to raise the subject. Seeing her react at last, the guide’s eyes lit with renewed purpose.
“What would you like to know, Miss Ling?”
“I want to ask about the expedition team from years ago.”
“That…” The guide licked his lips uneasily. “As your guide, I ought to warn you not to mention that expedition carelessly. Many people in Never-Night Village consider it taboo.”
“Taboo? Why?” Ling Yu asked.
He tried to shift the subject. “You’re an outsider, so you wouldn’t know. There’s a legend about a sundial in this region. People say that expedition stole the sundial that could have saved lives. Otherwise, Never-Night Village wouldn’t be called Never-Night Village…”
He paused as though deliberately building suspense.
“It would be called Never-Day Village!”
A faint smile appeared on Ling Yu’s face. The guide inwardly celebrated finally coaxing one from his difficult client, but he truly could not explain the legend in detail. To do so would violate the law of their ancestors.
So he changed the subject again. “What part of the desert are you hoping to visit?”
Ling Yu lowered her head and showed him photographs stored on her phone. “I want pictures of the earthen structures in the desert. Most of all, I want to see the Line from back then.”
The old man drew a sharp breath. The Line was also tied to the forbidden legend.
More importantly, something had happened there in recent days and the area was closed. Most outsiders did not know, and he had spent considerable time explaining it to disappointed tourists.
The scenery along the Line truly was beautiful.
He cleared his throat. “Miss Ling, the Line is undergoing repairs, so we can’t visit it for the time being. We can still look around nearby.”
“Fine.”
She lowered her phone and agreed without hesitation.
After all, no one understood the Line’s present condition better than Ling Yu.
*
The tricycle moved quickly, leaving Ling Yu little time to admire the scenery. Even the food stalls along the road held no appeal for her.
Only when an endless desert appeared before her did she finally look away from her phone. Few people remained on the sand after nightfall; only a handful of figures wandered nearby.
At the boundary between village and desert, the tricycle stopped in a deserted spot. The driver smoked as he said, “Ten yuan is enough.”
Ling Yu scanned the payment code without argument. She no longer cared about such a small amount and climbed out before the payment notification even sounded.
Sand scraped swiftly across her skin. Her composure wavered despite herself.
If only her parents had returned safely from this desert. But no wind had ever told her where their bones lay buried.
“Miss Ling, the Line is farther ahead. Shall I lead the way?”
Ling Yu gave a quiet acknowledgment, adjusted the drawing board higher against her back, and followed the guide.
He knew the route well, so they traveled quickly. Perhaps aware that Ling Yu still wanted to discuss the old incident, he remained silent. But just as they prepared to take a detour, a burst of headlights engulfed them.
Ling Yu turned toward the light. An off-road vehicle sped out of the distance and swept past them. In that instant, she caught sight of the handsome man behind the wheel.
An artist’s eye was trained to capture appearances quickly.
But the moment vanished, and Ling Yu paid it no further attention. She continued forward.
The desert at night was utterly still. There was not even the sound of a passing bird, and the laughter from the village could no longer be heard.
Against the vast sand, their two figures looked especially alone. Even the few people Ling Yu had seen before entering the desert had disappeared.
As if they had never existed.
Then the guide walking ahead gave a sudden scream.
Ling Yu looked up, about to ask what had happened, but his pupils were wide as though he had seen something horrifying. Frowning, she followed his gaze.
Several black figures moved in the distance. They looked human, except that beneath the moonlight, layer after layer of sand coiled around them.
Ling Yu’s brows did not ease. She had seen those things in her parents’ notebook.
Why call them things?
Because they were not people.
They were corpses.
Alarm flashed through her. “Those…”
Before she could finish, the old man began muttering in a daze. “How could they come out? Could it be what happened back then? No…”
What was wrong with him? Why had he suddenly become so delirious?
The thought was perfectly reasonable, but Ling Yu’s attention instinctively returned to the greatest danger. The black figures were accelerating, running straight toward them.
She swore inwardly.
Her parents’ notes recorded only what they had encountered, not how to defeat it. Caught unprepared, Ling Yu’s first priority had to be survival. Even so, she seized the guide’s wrist and tried to pull him away with her.
Instead, the old man dropped to his knees in the sand.
In less than a second, he began kowtowing frantically toward the approaching things, striking his head against the ground without pause.
Ling Yu had no idea how to persuade him to leave. She could only retreat until the creatures’ true forms emerged clearly before her.
There was nothing indescribably strange about them.
Their joints protruded sharply. Their clothes had long since weathered away, almost merging with the sand. They looked exactly like the dead.
The creatures stopped in front of the guide. His kowtows slowed, then ceased altogether, as though some force had fixed him in place.
Ling Yu had never faced anything like this. She reached into her bag and closed her hand around a small knife.
If she was going to die, she would at least fight until one side destroyed the other. Ending without resistance would be unbearably dull.
The instant she drew the blade, the scene turned more terrifying. The creatures completely encircled the guide as though he were an offering, and sand streaming from their bodies swiftly wrapped around him.
The guide seemed to raise his head once. In terror, he lowered it again and pressed his face into the dust.
All the creatures turned toward Ling Yu at the same time, yet none lunged.
Something they feared seemed to be approaching. The ring around the guide opened to leave a narrow path, and the old man turned his head to stare behind him.
He muttered something else, then abruptly rose, flung up his hands, and ran toward whatever was coming like a madman. He rushed straight past Ling Yu.
She watched him go. When she turned back, not a single one of the creatures remained.
Silence swallowed the desert again.
So those things had… left?
Ling Yu did not dare linger. Alert and cautious, she retraced her route, afraid the creatures might return.
What she did not know was that far more black figures stood around the distant Line, watching her walk away.