The wind came up from the far edge of the wasteland.
It skimmed the cracked earth, lifting fine grains of sand that rasped against the air in a low, continuous murmur—like a language that could not quite be heard, repeating itself over and over.
Lin Suo stood by the car door and did not move.
In the distance, between ridges of sand, a vast structure jutted from the ground.
It was not rock.
Its surface was too smooth, as though cut with a precision measured in fractions of a millimetre; its colour almost pure black, yet it did not reflect light so much as absorb it, swallowing brightness into a depth that made it seem unnaturally silent.
It resembled a section of a tree trunk—severed.
The archaeological designation was Structure K-17.
But in Lin Suo's mind, it had another name.
Jianmu.
The word came from a fragmentary ancient account: a tree that connected heaven and earth, along which the gods travelled.
Across different civilisations, its descriptions refused to align—and yet, in structure, they were astonishingly consistent:
In northern myth, it upheld the world;In the records of Mesopotamia, it was a stairway to the realm of the gods;In scattered Celtic texts, it was described as "a path that breathes".
These accounts had once been filed under "convergent symbolic archetypes".
Until it appeared—here—on the surface of the earth.
"Do you want another look?"
The voice came from behind.
Lin Suo turned. Chen Xiao stood in the wind, his visor catching what little light remained.
"One more look," Lin Suo said.
They walked towards the site.
The closer they came, the less the structure seemed to belong to the world around it.
The wind swept across its surface but left no trace; grains of sand settled briefly, then slipped away again, shaken loose by a vibration too subtle to be seen.
As if it refused to be covered.
The entrance to the underground work area had been sealed off temporarily; lights flickered on in sequence as they descended.
The air was dry, enclosed, carrying a faint mixture of dust and metal.
"The scan hasn't changed," Chen Xiao said. "Material unknown. Internal structure—"
He paused.
"It looks as if… something has been removed."
Lin Suo looked at him.
"What do you mean?"
"Not broken," Chen Xiao said, shaking his head. "Deleted. As if a section simply… isn't there."
Lin Suo did not pursue it.
At the centre of the table lay a black metal plate, isolated from everything else.
Roughly the size of a hand, its edges were precise, its surface bare—no ornament, no inscription.
Not an artefact so much as a component.
Lin Suo pulled on his gloves and picked it up.
It was lighter than expected.
He turned it over.
Under the angled light, a faint line of markings emerged.
Not engraved.
More like something written directly into the material.
He leaned closer.
The characters resolved:
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The air seemed to still.
Chen Xiao frowned. "What language is that?"
Lin Suo did not answer.
His gaze remained fixed on the markings.
They were not meant to be read.
There was no context, no explanation, no ornament.
Only a state.
As if a system had recorded its condition at the moment of failure.
Lin Suo spoke quietly.
"Not a language."
Chen Xiao blinked. "Then what is it?"
Lin Suo looked up.
Beyond the lights, the dark mass of the structure loomed.
The wind echoed faintly from the entrance, as though travelling from a great distance.
He said, slowly and clearly:
"A log."