Past seven o’clock — the time when dinner should have been eaten — not a single person reached for their chopsticks. Everyone huddled in their tents, pulling on the thick fleece layers they had brought up to fend off the cold. The lack of oxygen meant that even though they were exhausted, no one could sleep. They lay there feeling limp and powerless; one person suspected they had developed a high fever, though it was really only psychological.

Fu Xingyue cocooned herself in her sleeping bag and still shivered from the cold. Her body felt as if it had a low-grade fever — hands and feet weak, wanting only to lie there and sleep the deepest of sleeps. She tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep at all. The words Ba Yunye had spoken in the car kept circling through her mind. She wasn’t foolish; she could tell that every sentence had been an attempt to tell her to abandon her plans.

Stop? She covered her eyes with one hand, and the memory came: Fu Yingtao had recently told her that it was time to have a child, and to move back and live with him — that after his retirement, he expected her to resign from her position to stay home and tend to his daily needs and oversee the child’s studies. And then, of course, there it was again — that eternal, changeless refrain: “Never forget — your education and your career are both things I made possible. Without me, there would be no you today. So you will do as I say, and you will like it.”

Over the past several years working at the organization, she had seen through every web of interests that held it together. Fu Yingtao, as a representative of the old guard, would lose his influence the moment he retired. That whole circle of his, advancing in age, would ultimately be displaced by the rising generation of core talent. Even if he promised her that after she resigned he would do his best to promote Jiang Ao’hang and ensure her future security — that kind of talk might fool a young girl just starting out in the world, but fool her?

All he feared was that if she developed independent capabilities and financial standing of her own, he would lose control over her. He had pushed her into university for his own face. He had brought her into the state enterprise where he worked in order to use her to reel in a son-in-law he could control, while simultaneously trapping her in this city.

He had no children of his own blood, and so he was especially insecure — and the only way he could secure himself a “devoted daughter” was to destroy another person’s independent will. From the moment she was given away, her life had been locked tightly in his grip. If she didn’t sever those hands, she would eventually be strangled by them.

After being pressured to resign, she had gone to see a therapist and been diagnosed with mild obsessive tendencies — the root of which was Fu Yingtao’s relentless insistence on the “debt of upbringing.”

Ba Yunye had told her to stop. Told her how precious life was. Yes — life was precious, freedom was precious. But she wanted both, and she refused to give up either.

“Honey, are you feeling unwell?” Jiang Ao’hang asked her again.

“Can you sleep?”

“Not a chance. Just a few more hours to go — hang in there.” He reached out and patted her over the sleeping bag, but pulled his hand back almost immediately from the cold.

Fu Xingyue thought: yes, just a few more hours. Hold on.

Ba Yunye drank a cup of glucose solution. Her altitude sickness eased somewhat. She hadn’t eaten anything, and by a little past eight she was already drowsy. When Diao Zhuo came in carrying his sleeping bag, she opened her eyes again. He lay down beside her, his voice low and gentle: “When you get off this mountain, you’ll have to head straight to Delingha to lead the next group. Can you handle it?”

She was nothing if not resilient. She let out a light scoff. “Since I’m already here, there’s nothing I can’t handle.” Having said that, she sat up — there was still something weighing on her mind. “You said you had a way to determine the year the photograph was taken. What is it, exactly?”

“I noticed the river channels differ subtly from those in the photograph — I suspect there may have been some seismic activity or other cause that altered them slightly. Also, there’s a very small glacier monitoring station in the photograph, easy to overlook if you’re not looking carefully. The establishment and decommissioning of glacier monitoring stations is an important marker for dating. I think the local gazetteers for Golmud City might contain relevant records.”

“No wonder you kept looking back as you walked — I thought you were looking at me.” She laughed shamelessly.

He made a dismissive sound. “You’re that good-looking?”

“Am I not that good-looking?” she shot back.

“Good-looking.” Stated flatly, without a moment’s hesitation.

“So then?”

“I genuinely wasn’t looking at you.” Blunt as a hammer, he told it like it was.

“As if I care…” Ba Yunye lay back down, closed her eyes as if falling asleep. The two lay side by side. After a long while, she said: “Diao Zhuo — come closer.”

Diao Zhuo pulled her sleeping bag nearer so they were pressed together. Neither could sleep, and they chatted in a half-hearted, disjointed sort of way, Ba Yunye asking most of the questions and Diao Zhuo answering them.

“This godforsaken place is so cold. Do you want to smoke?”

“Yes.”

“Then smoke.”

“You told me to cut down.”

“Wow — you actually listen to me?”

“Can’t ignore the boss.”

“Call me Commander.”

“Commander.”

“Yes!” The little soldier grinned with satisfaction.

There wasn’t quiet for long —

“How is it that every single time we see each other, we end up in a situation where bathing is off the table for several days? Qiang Tang was the same. The desert was the same. This time — why on earth did I leave behind a comfortable inn in Chengdu to come here and sleep in a tent… I should have waited for you to come down from the mountain and found you in Delingha.”

“No need to put the Commander to the trouble — I’d have gone to Delingha to find you on the way.”

Ba Yunye suppressed the thousand impulses inside her to throw herself at him. “Regardless of who finds whom, the point is we’re here together now — a few days without bathing is worth it.”

“If you say it’s worth it, it’s worth it.”

She lay on her side, eyes closed, murmuring in a low voice, as if she were talking in her sleep: “Many years from now, you’ll have a family to take care of, a child in each hand. I wonder if you’ll ever think back to this small stretch of time when someone called Ba Yunye turned your world upside down. And where will I be then? Probably still driving, occasionally thinking about you — as reliable as a fellow soldier. But rides in my car, even then, will be full price, no discount.”

Diao Zhuo endured patiently to the end, then said through gritted teeth: “Even with a child in each hand, they’ll be that old man’s children — and yours.”

“That’s terrifying…” Ba Yunye covered her face and turned away from him.

The wind continued its assault, like a pack of wild beasts racing back and forth outside. Ba Yunye didn’t know when she had fallen asleep. When she woke again, there was a gleam of headlamp light outside. She turned over. Both feet were ice cold. This was never going to be a pleasant place to sleep — but it was precisely because of those few hours of rest that her altitude sickness had vanished, and she felt no further discomfort.

She checked her watch. It was just half past two in the morning — time to get up for the summit push. She pulled on her down jacket and windshell. Outside, Lu Jianyi’s rallying calls could be heard, and one by one the orange tents began to glow with light. Some people hadn’t slept a wink and had been waiting for this moment. Others were half-asleep and groggy, but could only drag themselves up regardless.

“Anyone who can eat something, try to get a bit in! We depart at three o’clock sharp!” Lu Jianyi called out loudly.

The wind had grown even more savage, and there was no predicting from which direction it would strike next. The darkness was as thick as ink — without headlamps and torches, there would have been no way to tell directions at all. Everyone knew they should eat something, but no solid food could be forced down. Some swallowed a few squares of chocolate; others managed only a few sips of warm glucose water. This was to be a summit push carried on willpower alone.

Fu Yingtao once again refused the chocolate Jiang Ao’hang offered him. He took out the medicine Ba Yunye had given him earlier, tipped back a few mouthfuls of hot water from his insulated flask to wash it down, and readied himself for the summit push. His face was lit with excitement and pride; he did not appear the least bit drowsy from hunger or the sleepless night. Next to him, Fu Xingyue was chalk-white, fighting through gritted teeth, each lungful of air insufficient for her oxygen needs. When she lined up, she noticed that four people separated her from Fu Yingtao — Ba Yunye and Diao Zhuo positioned immediately in front and behind her, respectively. She steadied herself and told herself: when it comes to the final moment, she must hold on.

Ba Yunye held the cup of warm hot chocolate under Huzi’s nose again. The dog gave two confirmatory barks and trotted back and forth, tail wagging. Every person who had come into contact with the instant hot chocolate drink was tracked down, including the married couple. Seeing this, Diao Zhuo called Hema over and had him insert himself between Fu Yingtao and Jiang Ao’hang, keeping the two from having any chance to interact with each other.

One by one, everyone strapped on their crampons. The summit push began.

It had snowed heavily over the past two days, and the upward path was actually easier going than in summer. Clouds rushed at every person with the force of the wind, shrouding everything in a foggy grey haze. Those wearing goggles soon found them fogged up with condensation. Everyone moved with their headlamps on, following the person ahead, taking slow, careful steps, advancing steadily. Lu Jianyi said that the final two hundred meters might not even require ascenders — crampons alone should be enough to get them to the top.

Yuzhu Peak lived up to its reputation as an entry-level snow mountain. The gradient was modest, and the summit route was gentler than that of some peaks also above five thousand meters. Da Qiang, who had fully overcome his altitude sickness, cheerfully remarked that this was far easier than when they had climbed Baha Snow Mountain.

“When do we reach the top!” the sisters from Tangshan called out.

“Seven or eight in the morning! I’ll take a group photo for you in the rising sun!” Pu Lan cheered everyone on.

Huzi searched everywhere for the insulated flask carrying the scent of Nestlé chocolate. Ba Yunye kept glancing at it from time to time, always hoping to hear it bark. Fu Xingyue coughed sporadically, and Lu Jianyi came over several times to check on her — each time she said she was fine. Diao Zhuo felt something was off, and stayed close beside her.

Nearly two hours into the climb, the altitude had risen to over 5,800 meters. A considerably steeper slope appeared ahead. “Everyone rest for a moment,” Lu Jianyi said. “That section is quite steep — it’s the ridge! But don’t worry — the snow has covered it and the path is now broad and wide!”

Ba Yunye pulled down her face mask and rubbed her nose tip, which had gone red from the cold. The wind slapped her cheeks over and over, like someone beating at a door with a fan. She shone her headlamp around to find Huzi. In the surrounding darkness, Huzi’s two eyes glowed a luminous green. His thick fur was more than enough to withstand temperatures far colder than this, and he moved with his nose close to the ground like a fuzzy, rounded ball searching for a scent. She was just about to keep moving when — thud — something heavy dropped into the snow. She spun around and found what appeared to be Fu Xingyue lying on the ground.

Everyone crowded toward Fu Xingyue. More than ten headlamps illuminated the area around her with a bright, stark light. She was curled on her side like a cooked shrimp, face mask pulled down, coughing continuously and gasping for breath, her complexion even more ashen than before. Da Qiang helped her up, and in the light they could see that her lips had turned purple. When he opened her mouth, the lamplight revealed it to be full of small white foam bubbles.

“Epilepsy?”

“Doesn’t look like it…”

“Could it be low blood sugar from not eating?”

“Get the glucose!”

“What’s wrong with her?” Diao Zhuo asked.

Da Qiang examined her for a moment. “…Probably pulmonary edema. She bit her own lip — she must have been feeling terrible for a while already and was just forcing herself through it.” Diao Zhuo frowned and said to Lu Jianyi: “The altitude here is too high. Get her descended immediately!”

High-altitude pulmonary edema is a common condition for those who reach elevations above 3,000 meters, and if not treated promptly, can be fatal. During high-altitude climbs, it is not uncommon for climbers to be forced to descend due to sudden onset of pulmonary or cerebral edema. Several years prior, there had even been a case of a female hiker who died because the early symptoms were not taken seriously and the descent for rescue came too late. Pulmonary edema at high altitude can be triggered by many factors: the altitude itself is the direct cause, but fatigue, hunger, emotional stress, and cardiovascular, pulmonary, or respiratory conditions such as the common cold can also serve as triggers.

“How could it suddenly be her…” Ba Yunye exchanged a glance with Hema. “How is it her?”

Hema shook his head, bewildered, craning his neck to look.