When the City Lights Fade

In Dunhuang, everyone says Chen Xi is a dazzling wild rose – there’s no car she can’t fix, no road she won’t race down.

Weekends mean bonfires in the Gobi, gatherings with friends, and nights of revelry.

Qin Lie, a cigarette dangling from his lips, watches her from the edge of the crowd- Chen Xi, perched atop a car, luminous under the desert sky.

The world thinks she’s his prey.

But only he knows: She’s the rose that burns in the dark, fierce and untamed.

And he?

He’s content to be her lone devotee…