Night Journey of Chang'an: The Wind-Swept Ancient Road

During the Kaiyuan era, in Chang'an City. Eleven-year-old Pei Xingye wakes up to find his parents gone. His father's carpentry shop has been ransacked, and the porridge his mother cooked before leaving is still warm. Only his eight-year-old sister, Pei Zhiwei, hides under the table, clutching a bronze bell engraved with a strange bird. That night, an unsigned letter is delivered to the Pei household, bearing only one sentence: "They went west. If you want to find them, follow that merchant caravan that never returns." The brother and sister thus set foot on an ancient road leading to the Western Regions. Eerie post stations in the Hexi Corridor, mysterious caves outside Dunhuang, a lost ancient city that appears and disappears in the yellow sand... Along the way, more and more people pursue them, while those willing to help each harbor their own secrets. Until Pei Xingye discovers that the carpentry mechanism skills his father taught him are connected to a tragic incident in an ancient city twenty years ago. And the person who has been chasing them in the shadows was once his father's best friend. This road leads to their parents, and also to a past buried by yellow sand for twenty years. — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: Night Journey of Chang'an: The Wind-Swept Ancient Road — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠