By evening, the rain had thinned to a fine drizzle — but Wei Lai had no intention of pressing on. The roads in Egao were terrible, especially in the highlands, where cliffs were everywhere and many stretches were outright forbidden to travel at night.

He thought spending the night right here was perfectly fine.

The centerpiece of dinner was the grilled chicken. He used his knife to split branches of varying thicknesses — the thick ones to build the grill rack, the thin ones sharpened into skewers. By the time all the preparations were done, the sky was completely dark.

The fire bloomed in shades of orange-red, carrying a damp, acrid smell. Needle-thin raindrops crowded eagerly toward the flame — not quite reaching it before evaporating into wisps of steam. Cen Jin described it as moths rushing toward fire, all turning to smoke.

It sounded rather mournful.

But the grilled chicken was genuinely fragrant. Wei Lai’s technique was impressive. By his own account, when he had lived by a frozen lake, every meal had been fish — except when fire was truly impossible to make, in which case he ate it raw. Otherwise, he always grilled it: the sheer repetition had led him, without any teacher, to naturally work out a whole set of techniques.

And the most important of those techniques was —

He handed Cen Jin a grilled chicken wing: “You need imagination. Right now you must not think of yourself as eating a simple chicken wing — you must imagine it has been braised in red wine, with a rich, lustrous color, scattered with milk-soaked onion bits, and a fine sprinkling of partially melted salt crystals.”

But all that effort was wasted — Cen Jin’s imagination had never been directed at food. The wind, the rustling leaves, the lingering sounds of raindrops — any little noise would make her turn her head again and again.

Nothing could be seen. Only the deep, dissolving darkness.

Every time she looked, she inched a little closer toward Wei Lai. He held back his laughter, refusing to say a word about it.

She finally couldn’t help herself: “Do you think… there are tigers in the mountains? A colleague of mine in Africa once said — they have padded paws, so their footsteps make no sound. They creep up slowly behind you… and then drag you back…”

Describing it gave her own back a chill. She turned to look again.

Wei Lai said: “Don’t ask me — you’re the expert on this. Does Egao have tigers? Lions and tigers are more likely out on the great savanna, aren’t they?”

Cen Jin murmured: “I don’t think so… There are Egao wolves and jackals though…”

Wei Lai sighed and told her to change positions: back against the car, facing him, with the grill rack and campfire between them.

That way there should be no more worries about anything sneaking up from behind.

He was genuinely in awe of her — she actually peered underneath the car’s chassis.

“What if something crawls out from under the car, grabs my foot, and drags me down really fast — so fast that even if you wanted to save me you couldn’t…”

It seemed she had watched as many horror films as romance movies.

Wei Lai said: “Let’s be direct — do you want me to hold you?”

Cen Jin said: “Get lost, nonsense.”

A pause. Then she added: “But at night when we sleep, you have to hold me… I’m most scared of that thing where two people sleep together and one of them gets dragged away and the other doesn’t even know…”

Even as she said it, another shudder ran through her.

The car had a tent, but the ground was uneven and unsuitable for pitching it. Besides, the highland terrain was too damp and the moisture was heavy. Wei Lai weighed things up and decided it was better to sleep in the car.

He used the tent to cover the palm-leaf mat on the roof to guard against rain seeping through during the night, and secured the tent’s corners down toward the car’s undercarriage as best he could — even if there were gaps, at least it created some sense of being enclosed.

Then he told Cen Jin: “I’ll sleep in the front. You — go sleep in the back seat.”

Cen Jin stared at him with puppy-dog eyes.

Wei Lai said: “What are you looking at? I’m being perfectly serious. Be a little more independent — I don’t want to hold you while I sleep. It makes my arms terribly sore.”

Cen Jin threw herself in indignation into the back seat, curled up, and buried her face into the seat cushion, refusing to look at him.

Wei Lai delivered a sarcastic parting shot: “Hey, Miss, do you have any dignity? Do you know whose backside has sat on that cushion? And you’re pressing your face that deep into it…”

What a sorry fate — not even a warm face pressed against a cold backside, but a cold face pressed against a cold cushion that a cold backside had once sat on.

Cen Jin clenched her teeth, didn’t lift her head, reached out, found a pair of woven sandals, and flung them in his direction without looking.

Wei Lai reached out and caught them, roaring with laughter.

When everything was tidied up and the campfire scattered — bright red embers leaping and tumbling in the darkness — he went over and gathered Cen Jin in his arms, saying: “Alright, time to take you home.”

Cen Jin put up token resistance, but at last she couldn’t suppress a smile, and let him carry her.

Wei Lai leaned against the car, lifted his head and kissed her. Embers drifted upward, scattered specks of light fading one by one into the dark.

Along the mat’s edge, a raindrop that had been gathering for a long time finally fell — catching the last trace of amber water-light, it struck the back of his neck and slid all the way down his blazing-hot spine.

Tomorrow, they absolutely had to find a place with a proper roof, a proper bed, and proper walls on all sides.

——

That night they slept well — only waking once, in the middle of the night. He heard a rustling sound. His body reacted faster than his mind: the gun in his hand was raised and leveled before he even thought to open his eyes.

Through the windshield, he saw a pair of glowing green eyes.

It was an Egao wolf — lean to the point of looking slightly small. Its pointed ears stood straight up; its tail swayed gently behind it.

It was pawing through the long-extinguished campfire, rummaging for leftover chicken bones.

Wei Lai exhaled and lowered the gun.

They regarded each other for a moment. Then he mouthed the words without making a sound: “Go ahead and eat.”

The Egao wolf seemed to understand. It showed no fear of him, and simply lowered its head again to root unhurriedly through the ashes — the faint, delicate sound of gnawing bone drifting over now and then.

When it left, it was slow and leisurely, dissolving little by little into the dark of the night.

Wei Lai looked down at Cen Jin.

She was deeply asleep — her breathing soft, even, and unhurried.

Little one — if it weren’t for me tonight, you’d have been dragged away by a wolf that size. Do you realize that?

——

The second day they set off again, stopping and starting as they pleased. The short rains season was living up to its name: sometimes a brief window of sunlight would break through, but then they’d crest another hill and find themselves back in a fine, continuous drizzle.

They took turns driving. The car wound mostly through highland terrain. Along the entire stretch they passed only one large town — the only thing distinguishing it from the highland villages was that the town had concrete buildings, along with a scattering of lean-to stalls selling small goods.

Wei Lai took Cen Jin to try locally made traditional coffee.

It was the kind of coffee that Egao locals loved to drink — served inside a small thatched shelter held up by wooden posts, open on all four sides. Inside the shelter was a wok set up for roasting coffee beans; the roasted beans were roughly pounded with a mortar and pestle, then added to water in a fire-kettle and brought to a boil.

Everything was crude and simple. The coffee was served in small enamel bowls. The two of them each held a bowl, blowing it cool and sipping in small mouthfuls.

On the low stool in front of them sat a dish of sugar, with quite a few grains scattered onto the earthen floor. Many African red ants came and went, laboriously carrying the sugar grains away.

Cen Jin had two sips and then felt playful, using the handle of her spoon to trace a line across an ant’s path, cutting off its route.

Wei Lai noticed and frowned: “Can’t you just let the poor ant live its life in peace?”

Cen Jin drew a circle around the ant: “No.”

Surrounded on all sides, the poor ant couldn’t figure out what had happened and scrambled frantically on the ground with its tiny little legs.

Wei Lai said: “You’re terrified of wolves, but you pick on ants. I can’t stand that about you — always bullying the weak and fearing the strong.”

He picked up a twig, reached over to let the ant climb onto it for rescue — but no sooner had the ant climbed on than Cen Jin tapped the twig with her spoon handle.

The ant fell off.

Wei Lai rescued it again.

The ant fell again.

……

From Wei Lai’s perspective: whatever Cen Jin enjoyed, he’d play along and keep her company — it wasn’t much effort.

From Cen Jin’s perspective: there was nothing better to do anyway, and since someone was playing along, she might as well continue.

From the vendor’s perspective: the coffee had been paid for, but the customers had barely drunk two sips of it and were entirely occupied with messing around with ants — it was a terrible waste, and he really did not appreciate it.

From the ant’s perspective:

Are you kidding me, making a living is not easy — I am a worker ant, I don’t even have the ability to reproduce, and you two people who build your affection on the suffering of ants — can you just get lost, get lost, GET LOST?

——

They entered the Saimon highlands by evening. The area had just received a downpour, and was now greeting the last golden, moisture-drenched brilliance before sunset.

Towering, jagged cliffs rose in tiers from the plateau, bathed in the fading light — their faces shifting between light and shadow owing to their uneven surfaces. At first glance, they looked like the ruins of an abandoned amphitheater from a land of no people.

The temperature had shifted from cool to cold. Cen Jin curled herself into a ball in the passenger seat; even with two layers of gauze shawl wrapped around her, it was as good as useless. Wei Lai dug out the tent’s ground sheet and wrapped it around her — being waterproof and windproof, it turned out to be far more useful than a thick jacket.

As they neared the Mi’en National Park, there were more and more people on the road. The main mode of transport here was donkeys — carrying sacks of grain, firewood, and bundles.

Wei Lai stopped the car and asked a donkey-herder for directions. This was better than Sudan; English was passably understood here, and simple communication was mostly manageable.

After asking around, they learned that the area had seen military conflict recently, and Mi’en National Park had been closed to foreign visitors. But due to poor management and insufficient protective forces, many villagers had moved in unofficially — there were now even villages, pathways, and basic campsites inside the park.

Wei Lai was caught between laughter and exasperation: “But right now — can we enter, or can’t we?”

The man couldn’t give him a clear answer. He finally suggested they drive a bit further ahead and first settle in at the town of Gongda: it was the largest town closest to Mi’en, serving as a transit hub and the center of this entire area. Quite a few foreign visitors stopped there, and it was the best place to gather information.

Thank heavens — there was still a large town, a transit hub, and a center ahead.

They arrived quickly. It was somewhat different from what Wei Lai had imagined by “large” — but he was already prepared to accept it. The place wasn’t big, but it was genuinely lively. A sweeping glance down the main street revealed several dozen people. A few donkeys loaded with goods stood resting by the roadside, occasionally swishing their tails, letting a few round, glossy pellets of dung drop from between their haunches.

Looking up: several storefronts actually had lit signs and draped electric wiring — the surfaces were dirty and dusty, but the sight filled him with hope. Where there were electric wires there might be electricity; where there was electricity there might be running water, appliances, and everything that came with them…

Wei Lai turned to Cen Jin: “Staying here?”

——

There was only one inn in town — not a small place at all. It faced the street and had a restaurant attached; apparently it transformed into a bar after nightfall. The entrance was on the side, and inside was a large courtyard with small clusters of people scattered about. Among them were women dressed in brightly colored long skirts, loosely draped with white “shamas” over their shoulders.

When the car drove in — probably because of its distinctive appearance — it attracted quite a few curious stares.

Wei Lai smiled to himself, and suddenly felt the scene before him was like a painting, layered with depth from near to far.

These people and their gazes were the foreground.

Beyond all those various gazes, the middle distance held the low-roofed guest rooms. Several had flat rooftops fenced with railings, making open-air terraces — a small table placed up there, topped with a large sun umbrella.

And the background…

The background was a vast, blue-gray sweep of mountains, high and low, receding into the deepening dusk and blending into a long, continuous line.

The sun had set. Another day had passed.

With the conspicuous, swaggering trail he’d been leaving all along the way — if the other side moved quickly, they would be on their tail by tomorrow at the earliest, or perhaps even tonight.

Wei Lai had an obscure sense of premonition —

This place would be where certain matters came to a conclusion.