Zhou Ning followed Qin Lie’s gaze toward the street bathed in lamplight.

She only saw a motorcycle driving away, the rider’s long hair flying in the wind.

“Nothing.”

Qin Lie withdrew his gaze and took a sip of beer.

Zhou Ning really liked the local apricot skin tea—the sweet and sour apricot flavor with a hint of medicinal dried tangerine peel.

After finishing one cup, she asked the lady boss for a second.

Tonight, Qin Lie’s table was the only one with customers.

When the owner finished in the kitchen and came out to smoke, he saw Qin Lie and greeted him with a smile.

“I was wondering who wanted flatbread with oil-splashed green chili. Is that enough? Should I add two more?”

Qin Lie shook his head, saying it was enough.

When he was in high school, he loved eating the flatbread that this small shop baked itself—it had a rich wheat aroma.

The bread was originally sold with meat filling, but he preferred it with oil-splashed green chili. When he occasionally craved this in Beijing, he couldn’t find anywhere to eat it.

Wang Danyang was a social butterfly and invited the owner to have a beer.

The owner waved his hand, “Beer is like water, what’s the point of drinking it?”

He then walked to the curb, squatted down, lit a cigarette, and took a satisfying drag.

Wang Danyang picked up a skewer of red willow barbecue covered in chili, bit off a large chunk of mutton, and was immediately choked by the dried chili until his face turned red.

Zhou Ning quickly handed him her apricot skin tea.

Wang Danyang gulped down the tea but still coughed violently for a while, until his eyes were red.

When he finally stopped coughing, he suddenly looked at Qin Lie with red eyes, “Old Qin, you still hate me, don’t you?”

Qin Lie replied, “You’re overthinking.”

He looked up to meet Wang Danyang’s gaze, his dark eyes showing no emotion.

Qin Lie and Wang Danyang had founded a game studio called Dawn together during their computer science graduate studies.

In the fifth year of the studio’s existence, they finally secured angel investment, and two years later, their game “Tunnel” was born.

It was an open game where players could freely travel between ancient and future worlds. As soon as it was released, it exploded in the online gaming community.

With successive rounds of financing, Dawn successfully went public, and Qin Lie and Wang Danyang made it onto the rich list.

Dawn had hastily expanded from a small boat into a ship.

Unfortunately, the good times didn’t last long, and the two founders had disagreements about the direction of this ship.

Qin Lie advocated investing in technology research and development, working on AR and VR technology to seize technical dominance in the virtual field.

Wang Danyang thought such investment was like charity—money thrown into the water.

Qin Lie was decisive, and Wang Danyang thought he was crazy.

By then, Dawn had gone public, and Qin Lie’s proposal also met strong opposition from several other major shareholders.

The board elected Wang Danyang as chairman.

Qin Lie simply stopped participating in Dawn’s operations, transferred some shares, and became a year-end dividend shareholder.

In just two years after he left, Tunnel lost a large number of players due to destructive operations.

The newly launched “Sword of Sky” was also boycotted by many players because its money-grabbing operations were too obvious.

Soon after, the company followed trends to speculate on metaverse concepts and lost miserably.

Wang Danyang pleaded with liquid courage, “Old Qin, after managing the company for two years, I realized I’m just a tech geek who can’t handle company operations at all. If you don’t come back, Dawn will sooner or later be ruined in my hands.”

Seeing Qin Lie remain silent, Wang Danyang continued, “The new map for 3.0 is the ancient Silk Road. This game was developed by you single-handedly.”

“You’ve been in Dunhuang, this ancient Silk Road city, for almost two years. No one understands better than you how this game should be made.”

Zhou Ning also said, “The most crucial thing now is the effect of Tunnel 3.0’s launch. Although we lost many players before, Tunnel still has a group of loyal players. As long as 3.0 can restore our reputation when it launches, Dawn still has hope.”

After they finished speaking, both looked expectantly at Qin Lie.

Qin Lie smoked quietly.

The dim yellow light from the street lamp fell on his strong nose bridge, casting a small shadow.

After a long while, he finished the cigarette in his hand and got up to pay the bill.

Zhou Ning panicked. On this trip to Dunhuang, he had treated them the same as before.

But whenever returning to Beijing was mentioned, he became completely stubborn.

She suddenly stood up and chased after Qin Lie, saying with red eyes, “Qin Lie, Danyang came to beg you this time. Name your conditions.”

Qin Lie stopped and turned back to look at them both. “I’ll find someone to help you with this Silk Road version.”

When it came to Dawn, he couldn’t stand by and watch, but with different aspirations, they could never return to the same path.

Wang Danyang asked nervously, “Who?”

Qin Lie said, “The person on the motorcycle this afternoon.”

Wang Danyang’s expression changed from excitement to disappointment in a second, “That crazy woman?”

Qin Lie nodded.

Wang Danyang looked disdainful, “She can just draw a few pictures? Which designer in our company isn’t more professional than her?”

Qin Lie said, “The new map for 3.0 is the ancient Silk Road. I looked at the preliminary designs for ten characters, and they don’t match the story background.”

Zhou Ning worked in the character design group and asked glumly, “How don’t they match?”

Qin Lie replied, “Too heavily influenced by Japanese anime style, doesn’t match the desert sands, can’t support the story at all.”

Zhou Ning pouted, “And hers can support it?”

Qin Lie looked toward the empty street and said flatly, “Don’t know.”

Chen Xi, half-asleep, turned over and heard San Huang bark a few times in the yard, his voice carrying a hint of affection.

The old dog was smart—Chen Xi could tell from San Huang’s barking that Bai Yuning had arrived.

She got up and went to the faucet in the yard to wash her face and brush her teeth. Bai Yuning was already sitting under the grape arbor, eating.

Chen Xi’s aunt Chen Mei was making hand-pulled noodles in the kitchen, freshly made and eaten immediately. The newly splashed chili oil filled the yard with its aroma.

Seeing Chen Xi come out, Bai Yuning silently mouthed to her, “Baby.”

Chen Xi glanced at him sideways, “Gross.”

Chen Mei brought out reheated spicy braised lamb trotters and placed them on the wooden table. “Chen Xi, after eating, go dry the cheese on the roof.”

She had brought camel milk cheese last night, still a bit damp. She had forgotten to dry it after tying up the bag, and this morning it smelled like it was starting to spoil.

Bai Yuning quickly said, “I’ll do it.”

Chen Mei wiped the dough bits from her hands, smiling somewhat awkwardly.

She was embarrassed to ask Bai Yuning to do work.

Although Chen Xi had been dating him for over a year, in Chen Mei’s heart, Bai Yuning was Fan Mingsu’s surgeon—their family’s lifesaver.

After washing up, Chen Xi went to the kitchen to get her bowl of noodles and sat down.

Early in the morning, she wore only a loose plaid shirt, her fingertips red from the cold water.

Bai Yuning reminded her, “It’s cold in the morning, go put on a jacket.”

Chen Xi found it troublesome and said she wasn’t cold, then suddenly grinned mischievously and stuck her hand under Bai Yuning’s T-shirt.

Bai Yuning nearly jumped off his stool from the cold, so he simply grabbed Chen Xi’s hand and pulled it down.

The two were silently wrestling when San Huang suddenly ran to the gate, making cooing sounds in his throat and wagging his tail like a fan.

Bai Yuning quickly let go.

Fan Mingsu rode her small tricycle back from outside, with two cardboard boxes and several bottles in the cart.

“Grandma’s back.”

Bai Yuning stood up.

Fan Mingsu usually beamed with joy when she saw Bai Yuning, but today she seemed a bit guilty.

She laughed dryly, “Yuning’s here, sit down, eat your food.”

Then she glanced at Chen Xi’s expression.

Sure enough, Chen Xi showed no mercy and immediately exposed what Fan Mingsu had done yesterday.

“My grandmother smoked again yesterday.”

Bai Yuning had just picked up his chopsticks when he heard this and put them down again.

“Grandma, this won’t do. There absolutely cannot be a next time.”

Fan Mingsu nodded sheepishly, and to prevent a long lecture from Bai Yuning, quickly pointed to the house and asked, “Sensen isn’t up yet?”

Chen Mei said from the kitchen, “Not yet. Kids love to sleep in; let them sleep. Mom, do you want noodles or steamed bread?”

Fan Mingsu replied, “I’ll eat the northwest wind.”

She was in a bad temper, but this time she wasn’t in the right.

After breakfast, Chen Xi and Bai Yuning took two large winnowing baskets and climbed the ladder to the roof.

They spread out the cheese Chen Mei had brought, piece by piece, on the baskets.

The sunlight was dazzling, dyeing half the sky golden.

Bai Yuning leaned over and kissed Chen Xi’s forehead, then her cool nose tip, and finally her slightly dry lips.

Their tongues intertwined.

“Let’s get married.”

When they separated, Bai Yuning said with a smile.

But Chen Xi fell silent. She felt there was another topic that needed to be discussed.

“I want to resolve the work issue first.”

The desire from their kiss was still in Bai Yuning’s eyes, but his voice became calm.

“I think you’re being too impulsive. The resignation matter should be considered more carefully before deciding.”

He kissed Chen Xi’s forehead, got up, and climbed down the ladder, unilaterally ending this conversation that had repeatedly led nowhere.

When Chen Xi arrived at work, she checked yesterday’s video once more before publishing it, then had nothing else to do.

In the afternoon, Ma Kechang came to work wearing a suit.

Chen Xi noticed that even his glasses were carefully polished and gleaming.

She was secretly curious about what kind of old classmate could make Uncle Ma remember to clean his glasses.

The tour group arrived at two o’clock.

There were ten high school students in total, all girls, wearing blue and white school uniforms.

They stood in the museum’s spacious entrance hall, their deer-like eyes unable to hide their curiosity and excitement.

The group leader was a teacher with graying hair.

She was thin as a rail, wearing a somewhat faded gray coat, with two deep nasolabial folds on her gaunt face.

Ma Kechang strode toward them.

Chen Xi saw his fingers trembling slightly.

But when they reached the teacher, Chen Xi heard Ma Kechang only say hoarsely, “You came.”

Chen Xi led the children through the museum.

She spoke very earnestly because the children listened so earnestly.

She couldn’t remember if, when she was their age, she had eyes that sparkled like theirs when seeing anything.

She showed them the Silk Road in the Dunhuang County Annals, telling them that Dunhuang was a pearl on the Silk Road, where art and culture from around the world mingled vibrantly.

She told them about the “Taichu Calendar” promulgated during Emperor Wu of Han’s reign, after which a year had 365 days and twenty-four solar terms.

She took them to see the replica of Mogao Cave No. 45, telling them how glorious Tang Dynasty sculpture art was.

One girl was short with dark skin and a high plateau red on her cheeks.

Chen Xi’s gaze fell on her rough hands, thinking they looked like her aunt’s hands that did farm work.

Another girl’s school uniform had patches of the same color fabric sewn with fine stitches at the cuffs and elbows—almost invisible unless you looked carefully.

Chen Xi roughly understood what kind of place these children came from, and she spoke even more passionately.

Ma Kechang and the teacher followed not far behind, chatting in low voices.

After the tour, Ma Kechang had arranged a time for his speech.

He pulled out a printed script from his pocket, read two sentences from it, then suddenly stopped.

Finally, he slowly folded the script and put it back in his suit pocket.

Chen Xi had already shared enough knowledge; now he wanted to talk about something else.

“Teacher Wang and I are from the same hometown. She’s the person with the strongest backbone I’ve ever met.”

He looked up toward Teacher Wang standing behind the students.

Ma Kechang smiled bitterly at her, then turned his gaze to the students.

“To get to elementary school, we had to walk from cockcrow to dawn. She once fell asleep on the road and rolled into a ravine. Her family wouldn’t let her attend high school, and her in-laws burned her borrowed books.”

“As a teacher, she went to convince people to send their daughters to school. She was driven out, but went back the next day.”

“For thirty years, she walked 100,000 li of mountain roads and brought hundreds of girls into the classroom.”

He took a deep breath and said softly, “I hope you know how lucky you are to meet such a person, and I hope that in your future lives, you’ll become someone else’s luck.”

This was Ma Kechang’s shortest speech ever, but Chen Xi listened as if in a daze.

When she came back to her senses, Teacher Wang was already talking to the ten female students.

“I brought you out mainly to let you see the outside world.”

“Outside our small mountain valley is Dunhuang, and outside Dunhuang are even bigger cities.”

“I’m not trying to tell you how good big cities are, but rather that the outside world is vast.”

“People are born into various constraints, and society has especially many constraints on girls. But the world is so big, life can be so wonderful. If you have aspirations, then fight hard for yourself.”

“If you’re not content with mediocrity, then go make a fuss. What’s there to fear? What could be more terrifying than living a muddled life?”

Chen Xi suddenly felt as if something had struck her heart hard.

Yes, what was there to fear?

Living a muddled life—that was the most terrifying thing.

She hardly heard anything else Ma Kechang and Teacher Wang said afterward.

She followed Ma Kechang to see Teacher Wang and the students off at the museum entrance.

Ma Kechang said to Teacher Wang, “Go back to the hotel and rest first. I’ll treat you to dinner tonight.”

Watching the minibus drive away, Ma Kechang said to Chen Xi, “You come tonight too.”

Chen Xi nodded, then suddenly remembered something and shook her head.

“I have something else tonight, can’t make it.”

Ma Kechang said, “That’s fine. Help me ask Yuning about something.”

Chen Xi asked, “What?”

Ma Kechang said, “Ask Yuning if he can help find a liver specialist at the city hospital.”

“She says it’s already diagnosed and there’s no need to go through more trouble, but I still want to take her for another check-up.”

It took Chen Xi two seconds to realize who Ma Kechang was talking about.

“Is it serious?”

She drew in a sharp breath.

Ma Kechang nodded, raising his hand to adjust his glasses, hiding the expression on his face for a moment.

Chen Xi said nothing and took out her phone to call Bai Yuning.

Wind blew through the treetops by the roadside, leaves rustling.

In Dunhuang, May weather was still cold.

On the way back to the office, Chen Xi remained silent.

When they reached the office building, Chen Xi suddenly called out to Ma Kechang.

“Uncle Ma, I want to resign.”