“How can there be singing?” He held his breath, straining his ears, thinking to himself that this couldn’t possibly be another ghost haunting him. “Monsters and ghosts again, damn it, I must have crossed over to another world,” Li Cu thought, feeling utterly exhausted. His mind was blank, but he also felt that perhaps it wasn’t so bad; if he died here, he could turn into a vengeful spirit and take down that monster.

The singing reached Li Cu’s ears again. Could it be the restless souls of Wu Xie and Wang Meng singing? Those two really were lunatics; even in death, their behavior was unfathomable. But as he listened closely, he realized it wasn’t a man’s voice; it was a woman’s voice.

Li Cu’s heart sank further. He focused intently for a few minutes, gradually adapting to the quiet atmosphere, slowly peeling away the layers of sound, and discovered that it wasn’t a person singing, but the sound of a radio.

All the trucks here were equipped with radios, but after such a long time, how could one still be working? Was there a radio that hadn’t broken down and was still functioning? That seemed impossible; even if the radio hadn’t broken, the batteries would have long since run out.

He carefully shifted, inching his head out from the gap in the truck axle, looking in the direction of the sound. As he glanced over, he noticed something was off. About seven or eight trucks away from his, there was a truck with its lights on—not the headlights, but the interior lights of the truck’s cargo area.

The singing was coming from that illuminated cargo area. There was actually power; could there be people living here?

People still alive? A mix of fear and hope surged within him. If there were no living people in that truck, then perhaps it was the spirits of the dead. But if they were spirits, their behavior was too strange.

Li Cu decided to take the risk and see for himself. He carefully climbed down from the truck, and the moment his feet hit the sand, he closed his eyes, imagining that a hand might reach out from the sand to drag him into the pile.

But nothing happened. He sighed in relief and cautiously moved toward the truck, inching closer until he reached the side of it without any incident. Not wanting to alert whatever was inside the truck, he carefully climbed into the cargo area of another truck beside it, then leaned close to the front of that truck, peering through the gap to get a close look at the illuminated truck’s cabin. He saw that the light was on inside that truck, and there was a shadow moving in the light. He swallowed hard.

How strange, could he really be dreaming? When he had been clearing the trucks during the day, he had seen everything clearly—there was no one there. Could it be that there were actually people alive here, but they just weren’t around during the day?

A multitude of thoughts flashed through Li Cu’s mind, and at that moment, his fear had significantly lessened. Unlike Wu Xie, Li Cu didn’t mind the fear of the unknown that existed in his imagination.

Li Cu was just about to lean in for a closer look when suddenly the truck he was in shook slightly, and the whole vehicle sank nearly a meter into the sand. Then, all the sand above cascaded down like a waterfall, as if trying to bury the truck once again. He was startled and immediately ran awkwardly towards the back of the truck. As the weight shifted, the entire truck bed flipped over, trapping him inside like a bowl.

He was pressed down tightly and thought to himself how unlucky he was. After struggling a few times, he realized he couldn’t push the bed open at all. He could only keep digging downwards, trying to create a hole to escape from the sand beneath. However, the sand of the entire dune was shifting; even if he didn’t dig, the sand was undergoing intense changes. Every time he moved, the dune collapsed even more.

Li Cu and the truck bed sank deeper and deeper, almost burying him alive. He had no choice but to stay still. Once he settled down, he noticed that the radio had been turned off. Then he heard footsteps approaching on the sand pile beside him. He heard the footsteps walk directly to the front of the truck, stepping on the metal front panel with a “clank.” He thought to himself, “This is bad. What is that? I must have been discovered.”

He took a deep breath, preparing to escape at all costs the moment there was any opening, and then jump into the water without looking back. Just then, he clearly heard the sound of a gun being cocked. He froze for a moment, thinking, “A gun? That means it’s not a monster; it’s a person.” He immediately shouted out, “I’m a human! I’m a human! I’m a victim here, a tourist!”

The footsteps instantly moved above him, stomping twice right above him. Li Cu continued to shout, “Don’t shoot! Spare me! I didn’t mean to spy!” Then he felt the person on the truck bed jump down and start to feel around the edges of the bed, seemingly trying to rescue him.

Li Cu felt a bit relieved and took a breath, but suddenly there was a muffled bang, and the whole truck shook violently. He saw a bullet hole appear in the top of the truck bed. The person actually fired a shot at the truck bed.

“I’m a living person! I’m a human!” Li Cu exclaimed in shock. Just as he finished speaking, two more shots rang out, hitting close to his head, sending sand spraying into his face.

Li Cu gasped, thinking that they really didn’t care about his life at all and seemed intent on killing him. He dared not shout again and instead desperately pressed himself to the side, trying to avoid the bullets. The person didn’t fire again, and Li Cu saw moonlight streaming through the bullet holes, revealing a shadow moving above the door. He had no idea what they were doing. Suddenly, something reached in through the bullet hole and turned. Li Cu realized it was a hook.

The person pulled a few times and found it sturdy, then jumped down from the truck bed. He then heard the sound of chains being pulled. The truck bed was lifted up, and Li Cu sighed in relief as he watched the sand continuously sliding off the bed. He couldn’t wait to crawl out through the gap.

The air outside was cold and fresh. Although he had been trapped for only a few minutes, the suffocating feeling had already made him very uncomfortable. After this experience, he seemed unable to tolerate especially confined spaces, which changed many things for him in the future.