The campfire was finally lit with great difficulty, using flammable materials taken from the car. It was a small flame, but it was much more substantial than what Liang Wan had before. Li Cu had some doubts about what Liang Wan had burned; there was no hay or other flammable materials around. Was she burning sand?

Yang Hao was holding his jaw while skewering his rations with an iron rod to roast them over the fire. He mumbled, “If you save a pear, you get a kiss; if I save you, I get a slap. Your taste is really poor.” Liang Wan shot him a cold glance, and Yang Hao shifted aside, turning away in protest.

Liang Wan sighed and turned to look the other way, just in time to see Li Cu looking at her. Their eyes met, and Li Cu blushed slightly but didn’t shy away, asking, “Are you okay? Yang Zi didn’t mean it.”

Liang Wan didn’t respond and lit a cigarette instead. She wanted to ask what was going on, and she had a rough idea of the situation, but halfway through her cigarette, she asked, “What were those things? Why can’t we come in here?”

Li Cu gave a brief explanation, but Liang Wan still didn’t understand. She lacked knowledge in this area and was somewhat reluctant to think about it. She wanted to go back to Beijing; she wasn’t afraid of danger, even if it threatened her life, but she was more terrified of these things.

The sounds from outside had completely vanished, and Su Wan’s saxophone had been sealed in Li Cu’s bag. If it weren’t for Su Wan’s insistence, Li Cu would have definitely used it as firewood.

Once everything quieted down, the effects of their earlier exertion began to take hold, and all of them felt a bit weak. Li Cu and the others often played soccer and quickly regained their energy after relaxing, but Liang Wan was completely exhausted. Li Cu and the others took care of her, giving her water, but there was no better way to help her recover emotionally. They could only sit around the campfire and eat their rations.

The four of them ate in relative silence. Li Cu felt that Su Wan and the others weren’t really afraid of their surroundings; after all, they had never truly faced death and were just feeling awkward.

Under normal circumstances, after such a dramatic event, they would definitely talk about it at length. If Liang Wan hadn’t been so frightened, Li Cu would have stood up and demanded to talk, but given that she had been so severely scared, joking around seemed inhumane.

They didn’t dare to talk about the vines outside, fearing that it would only frighten Liang Wan more. There really wasn’t much to discuss anyway. Su Wan, chewing on a biscuit, asked, “Ya Li, have you finished your homework? The mock exam is coming up when school starts, and homework counts for points.”

Li Cu shook her head, thinking to herself that she wasn’t in the mood to think about homework. She replied, “It’s up to you; just give me two days to copy it.”

Su Wan said, “Every time you copy, you get the wrong answers, and it makes my life miserable.”

Yang Hao slapped his palm lightly, “This is so annoying. Why are we talking about this here? We should be discussing what to do tomorrow. Getting lost in the desert is one thing, but we don’t even have the luxury of being lost. How are we going to get out?”

Li Cu shook his head; he had no idea what to do. They were already trapped like castaways in a sea of sand. Without someone sacrificing themselves, it would be hard to escape this area.

Of course, there were ways to think of solutions, but right now, he just didn’t want to think anymore. Yang Hao lay back on the sand, cursing and smoking, feeling very displeased. Li Cu had no way to help; he looked up at the nearby lake, which was still dry. The worries in his heart weren’t about his own escape.

If there is no water source, then the problem in the desert is not the distance of the journey, but the imminent threat of death.

Su Wan glanced at his watch and said he wanted to take a stroll. He wandered along the lake by himself, and Li Cu knew he was going to relieve himself. Su Wan was famously straightforward; after eating for 20 minutes, he would definitely need to go. After finishing his cigarette, Yang Hao also went to wander around. These people were all accustomed to drifting about.

Li Cu didn’t move. He was anxious too, but that kiss earlier kept him by Liang Wan’s side.

Liang Wan seemed to have noticed. She relaxed a bit and asked softly, “What time are you planning to sleep?”

Li Cu replied, “In the desert, it’s generally around nine o’clock when we should sleep. If we stay up later, the temperature will drop very low.”

Liang Wan said, “Then you can’t sleep too soundly. I’m a bit scared sleeping alone in a tent.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll arrange for someone to keep watch,” Li Cu said. “I’ll help you set up the tent.”

So, Li Cu helped Liang Wan set up her tent by the campfire, and he also set up a tent for the three of them. When he finished, Su Wan came back, looked at the two tents, which were the same size, one for Liang Wan and one for the three of them, and said, “Your arrangement is unreasonable.”

Liang Wan ignored him and went into her tent to sleep. Su Wan felt frustrated and muttered, “Now three men sleeping together is quite improper.”

Li Cu checked his watch and said he would take the first night watch. After that, he would see who couldn’t sleep or was sleeping well enough to take over the second half of the night. This way, everyone would sleep a bit more soundly. Su Wan then asked if there would be wolves or something like that; wolves in the desert are fierce and can eat people.

Li Cu said that theoretically, there should be some, but the chances of encountering them in this situation were very low. Plus, since we had a fire going, wild animals generally wouldn’t approach the source of the fire. The most unfortunate thing was that with the current situation outside, any wolves would have already been caught in the sand by those vines.

Seeing Su Wan staring at Liang Wan’s tent, Li Cu thought to himself that there was indeed a lecher among them, but this lecher had too low a combat power to be feared.

Su Wan nodded and said he would keep him company for a while, sitting down beside Li Cu and taking out a book to write by the firelight.

Li Cu found it amusing: “A diary?”

What he wrote in today’s diary would turn into a fantasy novel.

Su Wan held up his notebook, which was titled “Five Years of College Entrance Examination, Three Years of Simulation,” and said, “In ancient times, Yuan Hu wrote a thousand words on horseback; today, I, Su Wan, tackle questions in the desert.”

Li Cu glanced at the several exercise books next to Su Wan, compared their thickness, and stroked his chin: a saxophone and several thick exercise books—was there anything else in his bag?

While he was pondering, Li Cu suddenly felt a change in the surrounding light. He looked up to see that the moon was covered by clouds, and everything around them darkened instantly. He had a bad feeling and stood up, only to see in the distance, where the firelight couldn’t reach, the edges of the sand dunes were enveloped in an unusual green glow.

It was a ribbon of light, like the aurora borealis, rising from the desert. This band of light surrounded the entire lake, twisting and changing like the northern lights. Because of the moonlight, this light curtain wasn’t very noticeable. Once the moonlight was obscured, the curtain of light appeared like a ghost.

Li Cu ran up to a sand dune and looked down, seeing the entire sea of sand enveloped in a green glow, dreamlike and surreal. It was like green waves surging in an irregular pattern.

“Are we in the Arctic?” Su Wan exclaimed in astonishment.

“This is phosphorescence,” Yang Hao’s voice came from the darkness. He was crouching on the sand, gazing at the green light curtain outside. “There are dead bodies beneath the sand. It got too hot during the day, and they’ve all evaporated.”

Li Cu had never seen anything like this and was puzzled as to why Yang Hao knew, but seeing Yang Hao’s serious expression, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Take a closer look. The places where this light curtain appears are where the vines are concentrated. Look closely; the shapes formed by these light curtains—are they not geometric figures?”

Li Cu examined it carefully and gasped. She realized that Yang Hao was right; the patterns formed by the light curtains were likely the various outlines of the immense structure buried beneath the sand.