Pandora's Box

I came to consciousness and found myself sitting in the driver's seat of a pickup truck. The engine was dead. Outside the windows it was nearly pitch dark, nothing to see. I raised my head and through the sunroof caught a palm-sized patch of sky — we were at the bottom of a deep pit.

I began forcing myself to remember what had happened. My colleague Wu Wei and I had formed a team for an online live-streamed treasure hunt. We had streamed ourselves following the clues, worked out the coordinates, and driven out to a desert. We arrived at the spot to find nothing but endless yellow sand in every direction. Then, just as we were giving up in frustration, the ground gave way. Truck, us, and all — we plunged into a pit buried beneath the rolling dunes.

"Damn. Where are we?"

Wu Wei had been knocked out beside me and was now coming around.

"Looks like we fell into a hole. You hurt?"

He stretched his arms and rolled his neck. "Upper body feels fine. Just a sore backside."

He pushed open his door, meaning to get out and stretch his legs. But the moment it swung open, something erupted from outside: "tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—"

Loud, dense, rapid — like the stampede of a thousand tiny feet. I scrambled out after Wu Wei. When we swept our flashlights around, my stomach lurched: the floor and walls of the pit were alive with cockroaches.

I had never seen cockroaches that size. Every one of them was palm-sized — black ones, brown ones — their shells gleaming in the flashlight beams.

"God. So many cockroaches."

As he said it, Wu Wei raised his foot and crushed one that was scurrying past him. A wet crunch, and the cockroach was mashed into a black-and-white smear on the ground.

I wanted out of this hellhole in the worst way. I pulled out my phone and tried to call for help. No signal whatsoever — not even an emergency call would go through.

Wu Wei was unruffled. He seemed in no hurry to leave; he swept his flashlight around the "cockroach pit" with something like curiosity. While I was climbing onto the roof of the pickup to hunt for a signal, Wu Wei suddenly called to me from the darkness: "Get over here — look at this!"

I followed his voice and found him kneeling before a raised stone platform, examining something on top of it: a square copper box. I called it copper because the whole surface was thick with green verdigris. The craftsmanship was exquisite, each side engraved with what looked like plant patterns — sinuous stems carrying a few heart-shaped leaves. On the lid was carved an oval shape that, after centuries of wear, had grown indistinct. At first glance it looked to me like a legless cockroach.

"Is this the treasure the game sent us to find?" Wu Wei said, reaching out to pick it up. The box wasn't large — you could cradle it in one hand — yet no matter how hard he pulled, it wouldn't budge, as though its base had been fused to the stone. He tried to open the lid instead, but it had rusted shut.

The more I thought about it, the more wrong it felt. Was this thing really a prop for the treasure hunt game? The age-worn surface made it obvious it hadn't just been placed here. And the game organizers were supposed to profit off our livestream — so why was this hiding place completely dead to cell signals?

Wu Wei had produced his Swiss Army knife and was prying at the lid. I was about to voice my doubts when the lid popped open. We leaned in together in breathless anticipation — and found the box empty.

"Damn." Wu Wei let out a heavy sigh. "All that for nothing. Not a single—" He stopped mid-sentence.

The pit had begun to shake. Stronger and stronger, the rumbling building to a roar. Simultaneously every cockroach on the walls and floor came to life at once; they all bolted in the same direction, the thunder of their tiny legs almost drowning out the groaning earth. Then they were gone — every last one pouring into a black hole in the wall.

Before our shock could settle, sand began falling from above. It hammered down on our heads with stinging force. We covered our skulls and retreated toward the truck, but around the pickup the downpour was even fiercer, nearly knocking us off our feet. We had no choice but to fall back toward the stone platform. Sand was already knee-deep and climbing; soon we wouldn't be able to move, and the rain showed no sign of stopping. In that moment I felt the despair of a man about to be buried alive. I forced myself to stay calm and search for an escape.

"The hole! Wu Wei — that hole in the wall!"

The black opening where the cockroaches had vanished was our only chance of survival. Wu Wei grabbed my arm, and together we threw ourselves headlong into the cockroach-filled darkness —

Then I woke up. In my own bed. Outside the midnight window there was nothing but black. My wife, Ruoli, lay asleep on the pillow beside me. From the next room came the soft snoring of our three-year-old son, Xiaobao.

I am Teacher Tuniu — the creator of "Desert Treasure Hunt."