“Which snake? Are there really snakes in this desert?” he thought to himself.
The traces wound down into the sand valley where they referred to as the “Graveyard of the Heartbroken,” a chaotic burial ground containing over a thousand corpses. This made Li Cu feel quite uneasy.
“It seems something crawled out from the pile of dead bodies. From the looks of this trace, it should be something long and slender. Did we notice any snakes or similar creatures when we moved the corpses just now?” Wu Xie asked.
The other two shook their heads. Wang Meng added, “Even if there were snakes, judging by the trace, it shouldn’t be very big; otherwise, the trace wouldn’t be so shallow. They couldn’t have pulled down the tombstones either.”
Li Cu disagreed with Wu Xie’s assessment: “No, these traces weren’t formed on the surface of the sand; they were caused by something twisting beneath the sand. Could it be that there is some kind of snake or long creature moving under the sand here?”
Wu Xie stroked his chin, looked at the nearby camping area, and shook his head, “So that’s it. There’s a contradiction here; I don’t know if you all noticed.”
The contradiction Wu Xie referred to was that all the corpses they discovered were under the vehicles, indicating that they had been lying on the sand before. If all the sand here is dangerous, wouldn’t that be quite unwise?
Wu Xie said, “Let’s analyze this. All the people were lying on the sand, which should indicate that even if something exists beneath the sand, it shouldn’t be particularly terrifying. But just in case, let’s stay inside the truck bed. We shouldn’t have to worry too much tonight.”
“Maybe when they were trapped, the thing beneath the sand didn’t exist yet and only came later. Let’s still be cautious,” Li Cu said.
Wang Meng replied, “Caution is necessary. But your idea is quite gloomy.”
Just as he finished speaking, all three of them saw something moving in the sand valley where the dead were buried. Wu Xie was taken aback and said to them, “Grab your weapons.”
Wang Meng asked what he was doing, and Wu Xie replied, “It’s better to take the initiative. Let’s go take a look.”
The three of them rushed down the hill. Wu Xie picked up an iron rod and poked it into the spot where the sand was moving, stirring it for a while but finding nothing. He continued to poke around, realizing that whatever moved in the sand had to be a living creature, but in sand, unlike in water, it couldn’t move too quickly.
The creature should still be nearby, at most deep within the sand. With this thought, he dug into the sand more forcefully. After digging for a while, he still found nothing, so he started poking around randomly, trying to scare whatever it was out of its sandy hole.
After about the time it takes to smoke half a cigarette, Li Cu and Wu Xie realized something was wrong. Wu Xie said, “We didn’t bury the bodies that deep, did we?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been poking for ages and haven’t hit anything. Where are the corpses?” Wu Xie said, “Let’s dig this sand away and see if those dead bodies we buried before are still there.” The group bent down and started to dig. After digging six or seven small holes, they found that not a single one of the dried corpses they had buried was there.
Wu Xie wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and said, “I’ve changed my mind; we can’t stay in this place.”
“Why?”

“This place is filled with things we cannot understand; it feels like a ghostly trap. If we stay here, something terrible will surely happen to us. Although I am very curious about what would happen if we stayed, I feel that no matter what, we must leave. There’s no need to take this risk. Hurry, fill up everything that can hold water. Take all the things we can use, and leave here immediately before dark.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Wang Meng suddenly let out a terrible scream, and something dragged him into the sand. Li Cu thought he had stepped into a sand pit and was trapped. Just as he was about to pull him out, he heard Wang Meng scream again, his whole body seemingly sucked in by something and disappearing into the sand pile.

Li Cu was stunned and frantically dug through the sand, but found nothing inside. He turned to look at Wu Xie and saw that Wu Xie had already run far away, shouting, “Run for your life!”

“What the hell?!” Li Cu immediately realized what was happening. Just as he turned around, the entire sand pile shifted, and something seemed to crawl a few inches toward him from within the sand. He quickly followed Wu Xie and ran. Wu Xie was also not running fast on the sand dune; after a few steps, both of them, who were several meters apart, fell to the ground.

Wu Xie wanted to get up and run again, but the slope of the dune was too steep, and after several attempts, he couldn’t get up and instead slid down. Li Cu fared worse; he didn’t even make it halfway up the dune before he immediately slid back into the pit. Almost at that moment, he heard a gurgling sound coming from the sand. Then the entire sand pile shifted, and he saw something quickly burrowing under the dune toward Wu Xie.

Then, he watched as Wu Xie climbed to the top of the dune, ready to roll down to escape the other side. But in an instant, the mass of things beneath the sand burrowed right under Wu Xie’s feet, and half of his body was suddenly buried in the sand.

Li Cu was completely stunned by this sight. Reacting instinctively, he stood up and ran in the opposite direction. After running a few steps, he looked back and found that Wu Xie had completely disappeared. The entire white desert was eerily quiet, as if nothing had ever happened.

“Oh, shit!” Li Cu shouted. He didn’t dare to move, not knowing what would happen next; all his reactions froze in place. He looked around, seeing the endless desert and the sea on the other side of the beach. He closed his eyes, feeling that his fate would not be much different from that of Wu Xie and Wang Meng; it was just a matter of time.