Atlas Studios

  Atlas Studios

  It was as if Death was quietly watching her from in front, waiting to take her soul from her when she finally collapsed from exhaustion. She could not be able to return to this world anymore, and she would not be able to see Mo Han anymore.

  Xia Qingyi did not dare to stop. She kept walking forward until she finally reached a stone tablet. The stone tablet was very short, not even reaching her calves and there were red words written on it. However, Xia Qingyi did not dare to look down from the strong dizziness she felt, which was why she could not get a clear look of the words on the stone tablet.

  As a result, she did not stop and continued to walk ahead beyond the stone tablet. Xia Qingyi’s breathing became heavier as she did not know how long she had been walking for. When she felt that she could no longer push herself, she dropped onto the boiling surface of the sand and there was no more movement from her.

  The rescue team from D City had made progress.

  Mo Han had gotten a call from the staff of the Disaster Prevention and Rescue Center. They had said that they had just found a survivor of the sandstorm and had safely sent them to the hospital. The survivor was still conscious and was currently being treated in the hospital ward.

  The excitement that Mo Han felt within him had not yet faded away when the staff spoke again and mentioned that the survivor was male and Mo Han’s heart dropped into the ice cellar once again.

  Nevertheless, Mo Han had still rushed to the hospital to meet that survivor. That person had interacted with Xia Qingyi, and might know where Xia Qingyi was currently. He might have a trace relating to Xia Qingyi surviving in that desert.

  When Mo Han saw that survivor, he was sitting on the bed with bandages wrapped around his head. He was looking down at the bag in his hands.

  “Ah…… you must be…… that person that they said was coming.” The person sitting on the bed looked up at Mo Han after he had heard the sound of footsteps.

  Mo Han nodded his head as he reached out his hand towards him. “Yes. Hello, I’m Mo Han, Xia Qingyi’s boyfriend.”


  That boy did not look too old as he shook his hand with a light smile. He scratched his head. “Hello, I’m Yang Qingliang.”


  Yang Qingliang laughed, “I’ve heard of you before. Xia Qingyi had told us that she had a very handsome boyfriend. She was definitely telling the truth, now that I’ve seen you.”


  Mo Han said, “She said that about me?”


  “Yes. We asked her if she had a boyfriend the day before we went to the desert. She said that she did have one, a very handsome one. She also said that her boyfriend was the nicest person in this world. At that point, I could tell that the two of you were definitely a very loving couple when I saw the happiness in her eyes. However, she stopped saying anything when we continued to ask her about you.”


  Mo Han did not speak as he kept quiet with his eyes slightly lowered. His shoulders were sunk without any energy and even Yang Qingliang could feel the desolation on him.

  Yang Qingliang passed the bag in his hands to Mo Han. “This belongs to your girlfriend. I woke up and found this with me, though I didn’t know why her bag is with me. When the rescue team had found me, I’d brought the bag along and I’m giving it back to you now.”


  Mo Han took the bag, which was a very light and simple canvas bag with a zip. Mo Han pulled open the zip of the bag, and saw only two pieces of clothing and a black canvas pouch. There was something bulky inside the black canvas pouch, though he did not know what it was.

  Mo Han took out the black canvas pouch and opened it, only to see the pair of cotton slippers that Xia Qingyi had worn when she had left.

  He sat with the pair of cotton slippers in his hand, not looking up for a very long time.

  “Why did she bring a pair of slippers? Why would she need slippers in the desert?”


  Mo Han did not speak as he caressed the soft texture of the the slippers. This was a secret between Xia Qingyi and him.

  “Did you two communicate at least once during her travel?” Yang Qingliang asked.

  “No. She left her phone at home.” Mo Han said.

  “That’s weird. I remember her telling me that she had messaged you at the airport and she had only boarded the plane after telling you where she’s going.”


  Mo Han furrowed his eyebrows. “Her phone is with me, so how did she message me? Why did I never receive them?”


  “Could it be…… that she used a stranger’s number?” Yang Qingliang said as he stared at him, “You…… didn’t set your phone to block any messages and calls from unknown numbers, did you?”


  Mo Han touched the phone in his pocket as he suddenly understood what Yang Qingliang had said. He swiped his phone and found his settings, finding all of the messages that were sent by unknown numbers and were intercepted as a result.

  Amongst the messy array of advertisements and the random codes, Mo Han saw the three messages that an unknown number had sent him a few days away straight away.

  “I’m Xia Qingyi. I’m messaging you using a stranger’s phone.”


  “We both need some time to cool down. I’m going to travel by myself. You don’t have to worry, and I’ll be back in a week.”


  “Remember to eat and sleep properly, and don’t be too busy with work.”


  Mo Han’s heart hurt straight away. It turned out that Xia Qingyi had messaged him before she left. It had turned out that she had still nagged on him on the small things even though she had gone out to play by herself after arguing with him. It had turned out, that she was no longer angry the day after she had argued with him.

  Unfortunately, he had understood it all too late.

  If he knew that Xia Qingyi had messaged him at that time, he definitely would not have let her leave him to come to D City and experience a sandstorm that only happened once in a lifetime.

  However, it was a pity that there were no “what if”s in this world.

  Mo Han and Xia Qingyi had been separated still.

  Xia Qingyi survived eventually.

  A group of people had found her in the desert. She had been on her last breaths when they had brought her home. It was only when Xia Qingyi had woken up when she noticed that the faces in front of her all belonged to strangers. They looked different to Xia Qingyi. They had curly hair, green eyes and dry and tanned skin.

  She had reached another country.

  She had accidentally crossed the international border of her country and stepped into another country.

  Xia Qingyi had tried to explain to them using her poor English skill to make them bring her to the Chinese embassy in this country. However, they looked at each other, not understanding what she said.

  Xia Qingyi spoke to them in Chinese, though they still did not understand her.

  Xia Qingyi tried to use body language to explain what she had said as a last resort, though they did not understand her still.

  They had brought her to a very dirty workshop where there were countless flies flying in the air and the pungent smell of sewage water flowing around the floor. The people standing behind her forced her to stand there and watched the other women in the factory work.

  They had pulled out something similar to an intestine from a huge metal tub of red and oily water that looked like blood. They were not wearing gloves as they used their dark colored hands to wash that section of the intestine repeatedly before they threw it into a large brown tub.

  Xia Qingyi felt that it was disgusting as she watched, doing her best to stop herself from vomiting.

  The people behind her pushed her forward repeatedly. And it was that moment that she understood that these people had rescued her to send her to this factory to work as a cheap labor.

  She was forced to sit down as she held in her breath and started to do the same thing as those women around her. Her mind, however, was thinking of the ways that she could escape.

  At night, she slept in the narrow and crowded shared house with those women. The older women there were speaking in an language that she could not understand and she was stuck between them. She forced herself to calm down, wrapping herself in the old, dirty and clean blanket as she thought about what she could do next.

  The good thing was that the woman next to her had tried to speak to her in English after seeing that Xia Qingyi could not understand what she was saying. She had asked her, “Where are you from?”


  Xia Qingyi’s expression brightened up at that moment, sitting up straight immediately as she asked about the basic situation of this place. The most important thing she had asked, however, was if there was a train station or an airport in the vicinity.

  Luckily, the woman next to her had told her that there was a small airport in the vicinity. The air ticket was very expensive however, and they could not go out anyway, as she told her to dismiss the idea of leaving this place.

  It was that woman’s fourth year here, as she had also been brought here by unknown methods. When she had just arrived, everyone here had tried to escape, though no one had managed to leave this place successfully.

  She pointed to a woman sleeping on the most inside who had half of her hair white and said, “That woman is the oldest person here and she’s been here for 20 years now.”


  It was different for Xia Qingyi, however. She needed to leave this place, needed to return to her own country where Mo Han was definitely waiting for her to go home. She needed to return, to return to his side.

  Xia Qingyi was not in such a rush. She had not thought of leaving this place the next day. She need to wait, to wait until the people in charge of this place let their guard down, to wait until they thought that she would continue to work here before she acted. She would steal their money and leave this place.

  That was why she had continued to work here for a month together with those women.

  She had been preparing for her plan everyday through this month. There was only one door with four men and a vicious dog chained to the fence.

  In the next month, Xia Qingyi slowly knew that the short man who wore a dirty yellow gown had the most money on him. He usually put and locked the money in the drawer on the most inside of the security room. However, he would open the drawer every Friday night when he was on duty to count the money carefully before he placed it back in that drawer. However, he had forgotten to lock the drawer this time.

  Xia Qingyi had decided to act on Friday night.

  She had behaved exceptionally well when she worked that day. She had barely taken breaks and barely spoke, even hastily finishing her meal before she continued her work. The person monitoring her thought that she had finally accepted to work here seriously, which was why he had slackened his surveillance on her that afternoon.