Qin Lie turned and walked back into the night market, his tone casual, “Let’s go find her grandmother.”

Ma Lao Liu’s restaurant was unusually lively, with half the people inside taking shelter from the wind.

Qin Lie stood with his hands in his pockets, leaning against the glass door, listening to Fan Mingsu call her granddaughter.

“Where are you? Why aren’t you back yet?”

“Someone’s waiting here for you. Come back quickly.”

Half an hour passed, and Qin Lie still hadn’t waited for anyone to return.

Zhou Ning and Wang Danyang began complaining about the old lady.

Fan Mingsu felt guilty and dialed the phone again.

Chen Xi, on the other end, said only a few words before trying to hang up.

Fan Mingsu angrily shouted at her, “Just try hanging up on me!”

Seeing this, Qin Lie took the phone from Grandma Fan.

He spoke unhurriedly to the woman on the other end of the line, “There’s a drone in the bag, a DJI Matrice M300, retail price 280,000 yuan, plus a phone, Huawei foldable screen, retail price 30,000 yuan.”

“You should know that robbery involving large amounts is punishable by more than ten years in prison. The things you stole are worth 300,000 yuan, which meets the criteria for a large amount sentencing.”

He looked down at his watch and said flatly, “I’ll give you ten minutes. If you don’t come, I’ll call 110 to report it.”

There was silence on the other end for a few seconds, then came a light, mocking laugh.

“Threatening me?”

Qin Lie replied, “Warning you.”

Before his words had even finished, the other party had already hung up decisively.

Qin Lie was silent for two seconds, then dialed 110 to report to the police.

Fan Mingsu panicked, quickly snatched the phone from Qin Lie’s hands to hang up, then called Chen Xi again.

Qin Lie watched silently as the old lady glared, jumping up and down as she scolded her granddaughter on the other end thoroughly.

Finally, the old lady instantly changed to a smiling face toward him and handed over the phone.

Qin Lie took the phone and put it to his ear, saying nothing, waiting for the other party to speak.

On the other end, the woman said briefly, “Come to Shazhou Police Station.”

Qin Lie raised his eyebrows. “Going to turn yourself in?”

The woman ignored him and hung up directly again.

Qin Lie looked down at the darkened phone screen.

Before long, something suddenly flashed before his eyes, and an object was stuffed into his arms.

He came to his senses and saw the chain-smoking old lady’s wrinkled face full of apology.

“You like this bag, right? I’m giving it to you.”

Qin Lie’s gaze fell on the canvas bag the old lady had stuffed into his hands.

Fan Mingsu apologized profusely, “I’m sorry, my granddaughter can’t stand to see me smoke. Whenever she sees someone give me cigarettes, she gets furious and acts up.”

Qin Lie asked, “You said earlier that the painting on this bag was done by her?”

Fan Mingsu nodded quickly, then remembered something and hurriedly bent down to unzip the burlap bag.

She pulled out a roll of T-shirts from inside and stood up to stuff them into Qin Lie’s arms.

“All these clothes have her paintings on them. If you like them, take as many as you want.”

Qin Lie placed the T-shirts on a nearby dining table and casually picked up one to shake out and look at.

Fan Mingsu continued apologizing, “This is my fault, I shouldn’t have asked you to buy cigarettes for me.”

“You can tell at a glance that you’re a kind-hearted young man. Don’t take it personally with that stinky girl.”

While the old lady chattered, Qin Lie selected several T-shirts with different designs.

He folded the T-shirts and put them in the canvas bag, saying to the old lady, “Thanks.”

He told Wang Danyang and Zhou Ning to wait in the shop while he pulled open the restaurant’s glass door and walked outside.

Fan Mingsu quickly called after him, “Young man, wait a bit more, she’ll be here soon.”

Qin Lie waved back at her, “I’ll go find her.”

The city was only the size of a palm, and in less than a few minutes, Qin Lie’s SUV was parked in front of the police station.

The wind and sand were still strong, and between heaven and earth, everything was a vast expanse of yellow.

Qin Lie quickened his pace and, through the dusty glass window, saw the woman’s tall silhouette.

She still wore the dark green jacket on top, but had changed from the lotus-colored long dress to jeans.

Chen Xi wasn’t wearing sunglasses, her profile sharp and defined.

She stood with her arms crossed beside two dejected young men, listening to a police officer lecture them.

Outside, Qin Lie’s gaze swept over one of the young men with dyed red hair, then suddenly looked back again.

This hair and back view looked somewhat familiar.

While he was lost in thought, the three people inside had already walked out of the police station.

Chen Xi immediately spotted the man standing at the police station entrance.

She walked forward two steps and took the bag off her right shoulder, tossing it to him.

“Here, want to check it?”

Her voice was cold, the anger still not gone from her eyes.

Qin Lie caught the bag, but his gaze was on the red-haired youth behind Chen Xi—it was his cousin Qin Zhan.

“What are you doing here?”

Qin Lie saw the bruises at the corners of Qin Zhan’s eyes and mouth, his brow furrowing slightly.

This kid had just borrowed 100,000 yuan from him last week, saying he wanted to buy an eighty-percent-new jeep to rent out to tourists for desert off-roading.

The car was nowhere to be seen, but the person had ended up at the police station.

Qin Zhan looked surprised. “Bro, how did you get here?”

Seeing the bag Chen Xi had given to Qin Lie, Qin Zhan suddenly understood, “Sister Xi, the big idiot you mentioned is my brother?”

Chen Xi: “…”

Both brothers were big idiots.

She pulled out sunglasses and put them on, pretending not to hear.

Qin Lie couldn’t be bothered to argue with this woman and continued asking Qin Zhan, “What happened?”

Qin Zhan said glumly, “Don’t mention it. The guy who sold me the car said it was eighty percent new. I knew him pretty well, so I didn’t inspect it carefully. Only after I got it back did I discover it was an accident vehicle—the engine was almost completely shot.”

Qin Lie asked, “What did the contract say?”

Qin Zhan replied, “Well, he was an acquaintance, so there was no contract. When I went to that bastard for a refund, he refused, so we got into a fight.”

Qin Lie asked, “Where’s the other party?”

Qin Zhan said, “Just got bailed out.”

He patted the bruised young man beside him and introduced, “My buddy, Liu Boyang.”

Qin Lie nodded to him—he had an impression of this name.

After Qin Zhan graduated from technical school, he learned car repair from someone, and it should be him.

Liu Boyang smiled and said, “Bro, I heard from Qin Zhan that you do big business in Beijing.”

Qin Lie didn’t respond but instead asked him, “Does Qin Zhan want to partner with you to open a repair shop?”

Liu Boyang nodded and pointed at Chen Xi, “And my sister, too.”

Qin Lie glanced at Chen Xi, whose cold expression was hidden behind large sunglasses, making her emotions unreadable.

“Your sister?”

This was somewhat unexpected, yet not entirely surprising.

Small places were like this—everyone was connected through various relationships.

Liu Boyang nodded eagerly, “Her mother is my aunt.”

Just as Liu Boyang was about to warm up to Qin Lie, Chen Xi got tired of listening to their conversation and walked toward the motorcycle parked under a tree.

She straddled the bike and heard the man’s deep, magnetic voice behind her, with its rough, grainy quality, like the sand now blowing across her cheek.

“Just leaving like that?”

Chen Xi put one long leg on the ground and turned back to look at him, “What else? Wait for you to apologize to me?”

Qin Lie was almost amused by her audacity, “You stole my bag, and I should apologize to you?”

Chen Xi said, “You gave cigarettes to someone who’s had lung surgery, and I should thank you for that, right?”

“Look at my grandmother—does she look healthy to you?”

Qin Lie was slightly stunned by her words, and the chain-smoking old lady’s wrinkled face suddenly flashed through his mind.

Now that she mentioned it, he realized that the old lady’s face did seem to be shrouded in an aura of illness.

Chen Xi said, “When you have nothing else to do, wash your eyes more often. The northwestern wind and sand are strong, but not strong enough to blind people.”

After saying this, she put on her helmet, hit the gas, and sped away.

Qin Lie silently watched the motorcycle disappear into the yellow sand, filling the sky.

When he turned back, he saw Qin Zhan and Liu Boyang had already walked to his car.

“Bro, give us a ride?”

Qin Zhan grinned, but the movement pulled at his mouth injury, turning his smile into a grimace.

Liu Boyang’s repair shop was located at Third Bridge, with a small convenience store selling cigarettes and alcohol on the left, and a small barbecue restaurant on the right.

When Qin Lie had driven past this road before, he had never noticed these unremarkable street-side shops hidden behind the old willow trees.

Liu Boyang got out of the car, and Qin Zhan was about to jump out of the passenger seat too, but Qin Lie grabbed him back.

Qin Zhan had to hurriedly say goodbye to Liu Boyang.

Qin Lie stepped on the gas and drove away.

This kid hadn’t been home for several days, and his parents were worried.

Outside the car window, everything was dim and hazy, with nightfall arriving early.

Usually, it didn’t get dark until around nine o’clock, but today it was dark before eight.

There were few cars on the wide street, and few pedestrians on the roadside as well.

Qin Lie suddenly thought of Beijing, where this time of day was rush hour.

From the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, looking down, he would see the Third Ring Road completely jammed.

Beijing was so big, yet still crowded.

Dunhuang was so small, yet very spacious.

Qin Lie turned the steering wheel and entered Kunlun Middle Road.

From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Qin Zhan checking his eye injury in the small mirror on the passenger side sun visor.

He spoke up, “Getting scammed buying a car, be careful of getting cheated when partnering with people to open a repair shop too.”

He didn’t name names, but it was clear who his pointed comment was aimed at.

Qin Zhan snapped the sun visor shut and looked at Qin Lie in surprise.

“Bro, what are you talking about?”

“Sister Xi is funding the repair shop independently. Liu Boyang and I would be lucky if we could get a technical stake by shameless begging—it’s not even certain if she’d be willing to let us play along.”

Qin Lie turned the steering wheel and asked casually, “She repairs cars?”

Qin Zhan said, “What’s with that expression? You don’t believe it, do you?”

Qin Lie remained silent, slightly raising his eyebrows with a look of disbelief.

Qin Zhan got upset, “Bro, don’t look down on northwestern girls. Go ask around about Chen Xi.”

Qin Lie’s expression still carried a trace of disdain.

Qin Zhan couldn’t help but shout, “She works at the Dunhuang Museum—great job! When foreign guests come, she’s the one who guides them and speaks English.”

Qin Lie asked, “If the job’s so good, why open a repair shop?”

Qin Zhan replied, “She finds it boring, doesn’t want to do that kind of iron rice bowl work anymore, wants to repair cars.”

Qin Lie gave a light scoff, “Mm.”

Qin Zhan said, “Don’t judge her just because she’s a woman, and such a beautiful one at that.”

Qin Zhan was momentarily dazed as he said this, “Her car repair skills are no worse than any man’s.”

“That broken jeep I bought—several shops looked at it and said it couldn’t be fixed, Liu Boyang didn’t dare repair it either, but Sister Xi said she could fix it.”

Qin Lie looked thoughtful, and Qin Zhan felt he still didn’t believe it.

“If you don’t believe it, come to Liu Boyang’s repair shop tomorrow and see. I don’t believe you won’t be convinced.”

Qin Lie drove into New Area One and stopped in front of Qin Zhan’s apartment building.

Qin Zhan opened the car door, and wind and sand mixed with traditional opera singing—vigorous and powerful melodies—blew into the car.

Qin Lie glanced at the small garden not far away.

Usually, every evening, several retired oil field workers would sing traditional opera in the garden.

Today, with the strong wind, the opera singers had probably moved their performance inside someone’s home.

Qin Zhan said, “Bro, come up for dinner before you go.”

Qin Lie waved his hand. “I have something to do tonight.”

Qin Zhan said, “Then I’m going.”

Qin Lie nodded, and just before he closed the car door, he suddenly asked, “What time tomorrow?”

Qin Zhan said, “Huh?”

Qin Lie asked, “What time is she fixing your car tomorrow?”