(Media Interview: Guankeng, Apple Daily, XX Year X Month) I met Lanting at a cross-strait tea gathering in Xiamen. I have completely forgotten the details of the gathering, only remembering it was a rather dull forum about jadeite. I am not a particularly devoted jadeite enthusiast; my interest in collecting it was merely a sudden whim. So, during the break, I slipped out, and I was not alone in doing so—she was one of the few who joined me.

We chatted casually in the lounge outside and discovered that we were both writers, though I had transitioned to being a publisher while she was still struggling as a writer. Our conversation flowed easily, probably because we had so much in common—similar, not-so-sunny childhoods and shared experiences of helplessness. They say that two people with the same happiness may not resonate as much as two people with the same suffering, and we quickly opened up to each other.

Of course, I can’t deny that another reason was Lanting’s charm; her ethereal grace in every gesture was hard not to admire. Unfortunately, I was no longer a young boy, and while her charm was refreshing, it didn’t lead me to develop deeper feelings for her.

After that meeting, we became good friends. Almost every two months, she would send me Daifuku from Taiwan, and she was relentless in her enthusiasm. She also asked me to send her Hangzhou mung bean cakes at the same frequency. We always tried different brands and exchanged our thoughts on them.

This kind of relationship lasted for three years, which deeply moved me. In today’s society, it’s rare for someone to be so dedicated to something for such a long time. I thought our exchanges could continue for even longer, but at the end of that year, her packages suddenly stopped.

I was taken aback. That month, I must have made countless trips to the post office, all returning in disappointment. When I asked her what had happened, I found that I couldn’t reach her through either the internet or by phone.

I initially thought she might be avoiding the publisher’s deadlines, a common tactic among writers. However, after two months with no news, I learned from a friend in Taiwan that she had been reported missing since April of that year. Someone had seen her leave her home, but she never returned.

At that time, she still had two publishing contracts that were unfinished. When the police entered her home, her computer had been running for over two months, with the writing software still open, indicating that she had left abruptly in the midst of her work.

No one knew where she had gone; she had simply vanished. I didn’t know what had happened to her, feeling both worried and helpless. Given our relationship, there seemed to be little more I could do than to keep an eye on the news and silently pray for her. Soon, I forgot about the incident.

I thought that was the end of it, but unexpectedly, a year later, I received a large package from Taiwan. It had been sent just a few days prior, containing six large boxes of Daifuku and a thick stack of manuscript paper.

I was overjoyed and immediately called her, only to find out that she had returned to Taiwan safely. When I asked her what had happened during that time, she mysteriously refused to say anything and only let me look at her novel. I couldn’t help but smile as I picked up the manuscript, and at that moment, countless grains of sand fell from the creases of the paper.

This was my first encounter with “The Sea of Sand.” It is a story about the desert, and it’s hard to define what category it belongs to. I sat by the package, eating dorayaki while finishing it. After I finished reading, I was convinced that it would be a masterpiece, because when I stepped out of the novel, I felt an overwhelming thirst, as if the taste of the desert still lingered in my nostrils.

Afterward, I wondered if this novel about the desert was really written in the desert. Did she actually go to the desert she described in her writing? She vehemently denied it.

So, where did these grains of sand come from? Could they have fallen from the spaces between the words, from the world of raging yellow sand in her novel? That seemed to be the only conclusion I could reach.

(Reported by XX)