Unnoticed, the watch's hands had already pointed to eleven o'clock, and the night deepened. The sky above the forest resembled a piece of black velvet curtain dropped from above, studded with glittering, fragmented stars.
The soft, fragmented sounds within the campsite had quieted down at some unknown point, leaving only the whispering winds encircling the houses.
The campfire no longer burned, leaving only a few stubborn flames flickering atop the blackened charcoal, occasionally spilling fractured embers that sparked a dim gray.
Most of the people gathered at the campsite had already retired to their tents to rest.
Xu Xiangyang turned on his flashlight, placed it on the ground, and illuminated a small area; the two girls did the same, and the beams from their three flashlights interwove into halos, creating a bright, cold-colored, unburning campfire, quite amusing to behold.
