(1)

A Dongfeng off-road vehicle traveled along the national highway. On either side stretched the vast and desolate wilderness, where the wind stirred up clouds of dust without cease through all four seasons, and as far as the eye could reach lay the eternally frozen snows of Mount Kunlun.

An eagle circled at tremendous height. The sky was a deep, vivid blue.

Along the road, they encountered a group of pilgrims prostrating themselves in full-body bows — their long hair matted with dust, their faces crusted with frost and snow, yet their eyes shone bright. With each prostration, they would mark the ground with their hands, measuring inch by inch the sand, stones, ice, snow, shallows, and streams beneath their palms. Every place they touched was filled with devotion.

Among the procession of prostrating pilgrims was a little girl of eight or nine, who had fallen behind the rest. She was clearly thirsty, repeatedly licking her cracked, dry lips — and the more she licked, the worse they became. Wen Xia brought the vehicle to a stop beside her, rolled down the window, and passed a bottle of mineral water through. The little girl tilted her head back and smiled sweetly. In that fleeting moment, Wen Xia seemed to hear the sound of a prayer wheel spinning, and the quiet chanting that drifts before a mani stone cairn.

After that brief pause, the Dongfeng off-road vehicle set off again. The Tibetan elder woman sitting in the backseat suddenly spoke, enunciating each word carefully in her unpracticed Mandarin: “What is your name?”

Wen Xia kept her eyes on the road ahead, her gaze calm and still. “Wen Xia,” she replied. “Xia, as in summer.”

The elder’s question had reminded Wen Xia of something. She took out the voice recorder she always carried with her, clicked it on, and spoke softly into the microphone: “This is Wen Xia. The time is ten twenty-six. I am on National Highway 109, on my way to Quma Town. The more I come to understand this land, the less I regret coming here — and the less I regret the way I feel about you. Li Zechuan, the years ahead are long, and we still have so much time.”

The township hospital was a modest affair — no proper parking lot to speak of. Wen Xia simply found an empty spot along the roadside and maneuvered the vehicle in.

The three of them — one elderly woman, one heavily pregnant, and an infant who could not yet walk — made for a sorry sight, and Wen Xia could not bear to leave them to manage on their own. She got them settled on a bench outside the pediatric ward, then pushed through her own foggy, dull headache to handle the registration and payment herself.

Once the paperwork was in order, Wen Xia handed the relevant documents and medical booklet to the elder. As she looked more closely at Cuomu, she grew increasingly uneasy about the young woman’s complexion. After a laborious exchange of words and hand gestures, she learned that Cuomu was nearly five months along — and had not had a single prenatal checkup.

Wen Xia no longer had the energy to be angry. She pointed to the empty seat beside them. “Sit down and rest for a moment. I’ll go up to the obstetrics department and register you for a prenatal examination.”

The obstetrics ward was upstairs. Climbing the staircase, Wen Xia nearly tripped over her own feet and sent herself sprawling. She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, but couldn’t gauge her own temperature that way — she only knew that wherever she touched felt burning hot.

She escorted the two of them into their respective examination rooms. Cuomu’s news was reassuring — the fetus was in perfectly normal condition, sleeping quietly in the womb. The toddler’s prognosis, however, was not encouraging. The preliminary diagnosis was meningitis, and the child needed to be hospitalized immediately.

A fresh obstacle emerged when the time came to complete the admission paperwork: between the elder woman and Cuomu, they didn’t have a hundred yuan between them. Wen Xia asked Cuomu whether she could reach any other family members. Cuomu only wept. The elder woman closed her eyes for a moment, then rose to her feet and gestured that they should simply forget about the treatment.

Wen Xia stopped her. She rummaged through the inner pocket of her shell jacket and produced a bank card — an old one she hadn’t used in a long time. She had no idea whether there was any money left on it.

She slid the worn card tentatively into the ATM. The progress bar reached its end, and a balance appeared on the screen — 50,000 yuan.

Wen Xia blinked, and then it clicked. It had to be Wen’er — her brother, six years her senior.

Unable to reach her, he had simply topped up every bank card registered in her name, so that she would always have something to fall back on in an emergency.

Her brother. The best brother in the world.

Wen Xia felt a faint, familiar sting behind her nose. She wanted to call him, only to realize she had left the satellite phone in the car. She had no choice but to use the public telephone in the hospital lobby to dial Wen’er’s number. The moment the call connected, she heard him explode: “Wen Xia? Is that you? The nerve of you — disappearing for over three months without a word! Don’t think that just because you’re an adult I won’t still give you a thrashing! I don’t care what you’re doing — pack your things and get back here right now!”

Wen Xia suspected she must be a closet masochist, because taking that full barrage of scolding straight on left her not the least bit angry — if anything, she felt warm. She sniffled and called out the word “brother,” her voice coming out hoarse. “I found him. The person I like.”

Wen’er was quiet for a moment. “He’s not coming back, so you’re not coming back either. Is that it?”

He knew her so well. His aim was unerring.

A sob caught in Wen Xia’s throat. She hung up quickly.

She stood with her back against the wall for a good long while. When she felt she was no longer on the verge of tears, she went to the payment window to put down the hospitalization deposit, and left two thousand yuan with the elder woman. Cuomu wept and kept repeating the same phrase in Tibetan — Wen Xia couldn’t understand it, but guessed it must be an expression of gratitude.

The worry that had filled the elder woman’s eyes finally gave way to a flicker of emotion. She took Wen Xia’s hand in both of hers — her palms hard and rough as weathered bark — and murmured in her halting Mandarin: “Wen Xia. Wen Xia.”

Wen Xia smiled.

She had to make it back to the nature reserve station before nightfall. She had no experience surviving in the wilderness, and walking alone after dark would be far too dangerous. The stairwell was empty and quiet. Wen Xia was on the second-floor landing when the world suddenly tilted — a wave of dizziness, her legs going soft beneath her. She reached out and braced herself against the wall. Something dripped from her nose. She raised a hand and wiped it away.

Her palm came back red.

She quickly pulled out tissues to press against her nostril — four or five sheets layered together — and they were soaked through in an instant.

The dizziness grew worse. Her heart was racing, pounding as though it had gone mad. A tall silhouette stepped into her path. Wen Xia looked up. The person lowered a face mask to reveal a pair of peach-blossom eyes full of lingering warmth, a teardrop mole at the corner of each eye, and a small circular ring stud through one nostril, radiating a sort of unruly, untamed air.

That was the last image she saw before she lost consciousness.

Li Zechuan and Lian Kai had set out early that morning, escorting two individuals suspected of illegally shooting wild yaks to the Ge’ermu Forestry and Public Security Branch Bureau. By the time they returned to the reserve station, night had fallen. The yard was lit up with floodlights, and the moment the vehicle stopped, Yuanbao came pelting toward them at full speed, launching himself into the air — his enormous head colliding squarely with Li Zechuan’s chest, nearly knocking him clean off his feet.

Li Zechuan let out a grunt and laughed. “Take it easy, will you? Your old man’s collarbone only just knitted back together!”

Ke Lie heard the commotion and came out of the building. Lian Kai waved at him. “Has Station Chief Ma come back yet? Have the new volunteers all been sorted out?”

“Station Chief Ma got caught by an old comrade-in-arms and is being wined and dined — he won’t be back tonight,” Ke Lie replied. “Four new volunteers have arrived and been settled in. There’s also a journalist whose paperwork ran into a snag — she’s staying on in Xining for now and will make her way here in a few days.”

Li Zechuan rubbed his dry, cold hands together. “We can deal with the small stuff later. Lian Laolei and I picked up some new information over in Ge’ermu. Get Zhaxi in here — I’ll brief everyone.”

“You remember that herder we caught a while back — the one we found heading deep into the protected zone in the dead of night?” Lian Kai stepped inside and immediately poured himself a mug of hot water, then pinched a measure of good tea from the canister Ma Siming had stashed on the bookshelf and dropped it in, taking a contented sip. “Not bad tea. Station Chief Ma is getting more refined in his old age!”

Ke Lie rapped on the corner of the table. “Get to the point!”

Lian Kai gave a good-natured chuckle. “The man’s name is Du Jianyi. The branch bureau interrogated him for two straight days and nights — he couldn’t hold out in the end and spilled everything. All that ‘my boss just told me to take this hide to Longhua Zhen and find someone called Lao Hei’ — pure fabrication. He’s a member of the poaching ring led by Nie Xiaolin.”

With the establishment of the nature reserve and the increasing intensity of anti-poaching efforts, poachers had all but vanished from Kekexili. Only the one surnamed Nie still moved freely about, setting his sights on Tibetan antelopes.

Nie Xiaolin — nickname “Old Ghost,” ancestral home in Nancheng, somewhere around fifty years old. He had come to the Qinghai region ten years earlier and joined a criminal gang with triad undertones, led by a man named Xu Kun, making a living by various petty illicit schemes. After Xu Kun was arrested, Nie Xiaolin absorbed his men and turned to illegal activities including the poaching of wildlife. He had become the most active poaching ring leader in the Kekexili region in recent years. He was also personally responsible for the murder of the station’s founding chief, and had been at large ever since.

“Nie Xiaolin’s background doesn’t need much elaboration — we all know him well enough, old enemy that he is,” said Lian Kai. “A month ago, the brothers at the Wudao Liang reserve station found a batch of bear paws and marmot hides concealed inside a timber container. During interrogation, they learned that the seller was none other than Nie Xiaolin — the one nicknamed Old Ghost. The reserve station intercepted his goods and detained his people. Nie Xiaolin, nursing a grudge, decided he wanted to teach us a lesson. He had his subordinates deliberately create a light signal to lure us out, then set up an ambush deep in the protected zone — the praying mantis stalking the cicada, while the oriole lay in wait behind.”

“That dirty old snake!” Zhaxi ground his teeth in fury. “He’s got more tricks than a sack of foxes. Did Du Jianyi give up the location of Nie Xiaolin’s base? I want to go in and root the whole lot of them out!”

Lian Kai sighed. “Du Jianyi is one of the lowest-ranking members of the operation — he’s never even met Nie Xiaolin in person. And this group has always worked by moving from place to place; they can set up anywhere and never stay long. That said, Du Jianyi did mention hearing that Nie Xiaolin has apparently taken on an overseas order — a buyer who specifically requested antelope hides, at a substantial price. In recent years, the intensity of patrols across the protected zone has kept growing. With multiple departments working in coordination, several underground workshops processing Tibetan antelope products have been shut down, which has effectively cut off Nie Xiaolin’s channels for fencing stolen goods. On top of that, he’s getting on in years and needs a large sum of money to see him through his old age — so he will absolutely take desperate risks.”

Ke Lie suddenly lifted his head. “And what about Song Qiyuan? What is his role? He’s one of Nie Xiaolin’s lieutenants as well, isn’t he?”

Lian Kai didn’t answer directly. He turned to look at Li Zechuan.

Li Zechuan had both long legs propped up on the table. He slid a document envelope across the surface and said evenly, “Nie Xiaolin once took in four orphans and kept them close as trusted aides. After several confrontations with the patrol teams, one of the four died, two were captured. The only one still at large is Song Qiyuan. He was also present during the murder of the founding station chief. The last time, at Kuksai Lake — that was my second encounter with him.”

Ke Lie pulled the contents from the envelope and flipped through them with Zhaxi, frowning as he did so. “Last time at Kuksai Lake, what was his actual purpose in showing up? To gloat? To warn us?”

(2)

“To intimidate.” Li Zechuan’s eyes tilted upward, a razor-sharp cold light gathering behind his thin eyelids. “He came specifically to put on a show of force. He believes none of us can match him — that we will never be able to catch him. He thinks he can do as he pleases on this land, while we remain powerless to stop him.”

Lian Kai gave a derisive snort. “Old scores and new grudges combined — looks like this pack of them is determined to fight us to the last.”

“You have it backward,” Li Zechuan said, lowering his gaze to the spiked knuckles hanging from his hand. “It is we who will fight them to the last. Blood debts repaid in blood — that is what they owe us.”

“After all this time, Song Qiyuan is one thing,” Zhaxi said suddenly, “but how is it that even the photograph of Nie Xiaolin himself is still that old one from over a decade ago? The face is so blurred you’d never recognize him. We’ve issued wanted notices, posted reward money — how is it there isn’t a single person who’s come forward with information? It’s absolutely maddening!”

Kekexili covered more than four hundred thousand hectares, most of it uninhabited wilderness. Trying to catch a group of poaching fugitives who moved constantly from place to place was like searching for a needle in the ocean. And on top of that, the area had poor signal coverage, difficult transport links, and erratic weather — blizzards and sandstorms liable to strike anywhere at any time. Each of these alone could be counted as a legitimate obstacle to bringing Nie Xiaolin’s poaching ring to justice.

Li Zechuan’s mind drifted back to that ambush — sudden and brutal, with no warning. The founding chief had received word and brought him along to the site, where they had stumbled upon Nie Xiaolin and his men in the act of slaughtering Tibetan antelopes. He had been unarmed. The chief had told him to hide and stay still. But he had been too desperate to capture a clear photograph of a face head-on.

The moment the shutter clicked, the lens caught a glint of reflected light. In the next instant, he heard the sound of a bullet — and the founding chief, gathering every last ounce of his strength, shoved him out of the way. In the split second of hitting the ground, he watched a vivid, lurid flower bloom across the old chief’s chest.

A man in a Zhongshan suit walked toward him with the light at his back. Their eyes met, and for a moment, both men froze. Nie Xiaolin was the first to smile — half mockery, half something like wistfulness. “To think I’d run into you here. Heaven really does have a cruel sense of humor.”

He didn’t know what expression was on his own face in that moment, nor how much hatred a single pair of eyes could possibly hold. Nie Xiaolin’s men forced him to his knees. He watched as his camera was smashed by a bullet. The memory card was pried out and flung into a fire — a small tongue of flame leapt up, then was gone.

One of them grabbed him by the hair and wrenched his head back. He seized a shard of shattered lens glass and slashed it sideways, tearing through that man’s face mask and leaving a gash across his jaw.

The man wiped the blood from his chin and fixed him with a long, searching look. He raised his gun and pressed the barrel to the center of Li Zechuan’s forehead. On the wind came the sound of the firing mechanism drawing taut, fraction by fraction.

Nie Xiaolin spoke. “Fourth, let him go.”

The fourth man didn’t move. His peach-blossom eyes were full of cold, glacial light.

Nie Xiaolin’s voice dropped. “Song Qiyuan. I said, let him go.”

Only then did the one called Song Qiyuan step back, turning away with icy indifference.

Nie Xiaolin crouched down before him, pressing one hand onto his shoulder — a heavy, crushing weight. He struggled violently, trying to rise, to throw out his fist, to shatter the face before him, to shatter the nightmare that had haunted the entire first half of his life.

Song Qiyuan stood watching nearby. Seeing this, he drew back his leg and delivered a precise kick into Li Zechuan’s stomach with his boot, wrenching upward sharply. The pain was so severe that Li Zechuan nearly blacked out from it. He collapsed against the ground, retching in dry, wrenching heaves.

Nie Xiaolin hauled him upright by the collar, fingers closing around his throat. “I’m not going to kill you. I’ll even return the old man’s body to you. Go back to your station and carry a message to your leaders and colleagues for me: there’s money enough for everyone — why do we have to draw battle lines and slaughter one another? Think carefully about which side is worth more — the life of a beast, or the life of a man.”

Nie Xiaolin released his grip. Before he could even find his footing, a bullet sliced through the air and buried itself in his abdomen. Blood sprayed outward — another lurid, vivid flower. He pressed his hands over the wound and sank to his knees, the pain splitting him apart from the inside.

Song Qiyuan’s gun still carried the smell of burnt powder. He said, in an unhurried tone, “You cut me with that piece of glass. I had to collect.”

His voice was soft and gentle — like something not of this world.

Nie Xiaolin’s men worked with swift efficiency, slaughtering and skinning, not even sparing the horns — prying them loose with knives and stacking them layer upon layer in the vehicle. One of the men accidentally tore a lamb skin while processing it, and Nie Xiaolin turned and delivered a sharp backhand slap. “That is more valuable than gold, and you’ve ruined it like that!”

The little lamb had only just begun to grow its horns, with fuzzy ears and liquid, glistening eyes. Song Qiyuan walked over and looked at it for a moment, then smiled. “If the hide can’t be used, the meat still can. Roast the lamb over an open fire, eat it with rice — incredible flavor. Finish eating, then find a woman, sleep warm through the whole night!”

The men laughed together. Amid the laughter, Song Qiyuan raised his blade and brought it down, and the lamb’s head fell — landing right in front of Li Zechuan.

Fuzzy ears. Glistening eyes. And those small horns that had only just begun to emerge.

Li Zechuan let out a low, hoarse cry, like a beast cornered with nowhere left to run. He watched as those men loaded the freshly stripped hides into the vehicle — thirty, or fifty, he couldn’t remember — only that there were so many. Folded into soft rolls, they looked like cotton wadding, bearing the color of the cold, windswept sands.

He forced himself upright, blood all over his mouth and his belly, his legs shaking so badly they could barely hold him — but his voice was absolutely unwavering: “You are suspected of poaching first-class nationally protected animals. No one is going anywhere.”

Nie Xiaolin and his men broke into laughter together, as though they had just heard a joke. Someone called out, “Oh! By that logic, I’ve committed a crime, have I? I’m absolutely terrified! Ha ha ha ha!”

Through the grating laughter, Song Qiyuan walked over and rifled through his pockets, pulling out a work identification card — Suonan Baohuzhan Volunteer, Li Zechuan.

Song Qiyuan drew a knife from his boot — unusually thin and short, but with a blade that gleamed like washed glass, a rare and exceptional sharpness. He seized Li Zechuan’s shoulder and yanked him sharply toward him. The blade sank into his abdomen, leaving only the handle visible.

“Fourth,” said Nie Xiaolin, without inflection. “I said to leave him alive.”

Song Qiyuan made a soft sound of acknowledgment and leaned close to Li Zechuan’s ear. In a quiet voice he said, “Do you know how to treat a gunshot wound? You heat the tip of a blade in liquor to sterilize it, then work it into the flesh to lever the bullet out. I was afraid you might not have a knife, so I’ve left you one. But you’ll need to move quickly — it’s over sixty kilometers back to Suonan Baohuzhan from here. If the time it takes you to get back outpaces the rate at which you’re bleeding out, there won’t be a life left to salvage.”

Snow had begun to fall. The wind carried a bone-deep chill. Li Zechuan stumbled and fell where he stood. Song Qiyuan didn’t look back at him and headed toward where the vehicles were parked.

He had taken no more than two steps when he felt something pull at his ankle. A hand had closed around his trouser leg.

Li Zechuan had half-raised himself from the ground. His eyelids were thin and single-folded, their shape elegant — and beneath them gathered a cold so sharp it could cut. He was gripping Song Qiyuan’s trouser cuff with white-knuckled force, the bones of his fingers going pale. “I told you,” he said. “You cannot leave.”

He coughed. Bright red froth spilled from the corner of his mouth — yet still he repeated the words: “Not one of you — not a single one — is leaving here.”

Out of memory and back to the present — a curtain of dust and sand swept up and crashed against the glass window, setting off a shrill, grating sound. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled — ancient and bleak, like the frozen snows of a great desert — and somehow it only deepened the silence inside the office.

Li Zechuan brought his fist down on the table. “Lian Laolei, write up a report. Request authorization from our superiors to increase the reward amount on Nie Xiaolin’s wanted notice, and have it distributed nationally as quickly as possible.”

Lian Kai shook his head with mild skepticism. “Heavy rewards do bring out the bold, but…”

“The purpose of increasing the reward is not to find bold men,” said Li Zechuan. “It is to trap them here. Transportation and communication in Kekexili are both unreliable — but under a wanted notice that has gone out nationwide, this place actually becomes the safest option for them. They won’t leave easily. So tell me: would you rather try to catch a turtle in a jar, or search for a needle in the ocean?”

Before Lian Kai could answer, the wooden door was suddenly shoved open and Nuobu burst in, eyes red-rimmed and face taut with distress, blurting out: “Sang Ji, Brother, I was wrong! I shouldn’t have let Xiao Xia drive to Quma Town alone! I really was wrong — go ahead and shout at me!”

(3)

Wen Xia was woken by hunger.

The air was thick with the smell of food — something like vegetable congee, she thought, flaring her nostrils to take it in. She opened her eyes slowly.

The room was small, lit by a single incandescent bulb of modest brightness, with no furniture worth mentioning. The wall, built from flat stones, had a small window cut into it — not quite rectangular, trapezoidal in shape, framed with a black border, and topped by a short overhanging eave.

This was a Tibetan watchtower dwelling.

Wen Xia went to sit up directly — and was sent crashing back down by a sudden, heavy wave of dizziness. The bed beneath her was a plank frame with thin bedding; the fall sent pain jolting through her entire body.

The wooden door creaked open, and in walked a boy of six or seven — his hair grown out to a middling length, wearing an old padded jacket that was somewhat dirty. He was carrying a white porcelain bowl. Without a word, he set the bowl on the bedside cabinet, turned, and left.

“Hey, wait.” Wen Xia called after him, then reached into her jacket pocket and produced a fruit-flavored hard candy. “Tell me where we are, and I’ll give you a sweet. How about it?”

“Is that what this is? Trying to win people over?” A low, unhurried voice carried in, laced with amusement.

Wen Xia looked up. In the doorframe leaned a tall, rangy silhouette. With the light behind him, his face was indistinct — but Wen Xia recognized those combat boots. They had once pressed down onto Li Zechuan’s shoulder.

The doorway was somewhat low, and Song Qiyuan had to dip his head to enter. He made a gesture with his hand, and the young boy lowered his head and quickly slipped out, taking care to close the door gently behind him.

Song Qiyuan stood beside the bed and gestured toward the white porcelain bowl on the cabinet. “Eat. It’s not poisoned. Your altitude sickness is fairly severe — if you don’t replenish your strength quickly, you’ll lose consciousness again soon.”

Wen Xia lifted the edge of the blanket and checked underneath it — her clothing was intact, with no sign of any violation. Only then did she say: “I don’t have any strength to get up. Come and help me.”

Song Qiyuan raised an eyebrow. In the dim light, his peach-blossom eyes were exactly as Cao Xueqin had described Jia Baoyu in Dream of the Red Chamber — seeming to laugh even when he frowned, his gaze tender even in displeasure.

Wen Xia lay on the hard plank bed and held his gaze without flinching. After a long moment, Song Qiyuan smiled first. “I genuinely can’t tell whether you have extraordinary nerve or extraordinarily poor judgment.”

As he said it, he bent down and slipped his hand beneath her back to support her. The two of them were very close; Wen Xia caught a faint scent of tobacco from him.

Song Qiyuan made a soft sound under his breath and said suddenly, “I’ve noticed…”

Noticed what?

Wen Xia didn’t give him the chance to finish the sentence.

The shark knife rang clear as it left its sheath, its blade catching the light like a cold star. Wen Xia’s wrist dropped, and the tip of the blade sliced toward the side of Song Qiyuan’s neck in a fierce, wind-splitting arc — every last ounce of her strength behind the strike.

Her skill with a blade hadn’t come from lessons with an instructor at a martial arts school. Li Zechuan had taught her. Li Zechuan had told her: however much hatred is in your heart, that is how fast your blade will be.

Wen Xia thought that this was probably the fastest she had ever drawn.

Song Qiyuan jerked aside in an instant — but not quite fast enough. The blade caught him as it passed. A sharp sting lit up the side of his neck, and warm liquid welled up. He tilted his head and swiped at it with one hand, the corner of his mouth curving into a dark smile.

Wen Xia pressed in for a second strike. Song Qiyuan’s hand shot out like lightning, catching her wrist and wrenching it outward — the bones gave a clean, sharp crack as they were forced against their natural angle. Wen Xia went white with the pain, but clenched her teeth and made no sound.

Song Qiyuan bent his knuckles and drove them hard into the joint of Wen Xia’s elbow, simultaneously throwing his full weight onto her and pressing her flat against the plank bed.

The impact sent a shock of pain surging through her body, nearly enough to overwhelm her — yet her hand still refused to release the knife. Song Qiyuan glanced at it, then pinched her wrist and slammed it against the edge of the bed frame. The shark knife finally broke free from her grip. He caught it cleanly in midair, flipped the blade, and drew it across Wen Xia’s palm with a sharp, decisive motion.

Blood welled up, gathering at her fingertips and dripping onto the dust-covered floor below.

Wen Xia shuddered with the pain, the hatred in her eyes deepening.

Song Qiyuan looked down at her from above, his peach-blossom eyes narrowing slightly. In a low voice he said: “You’re Li Zechuan’s lover, aren’t you — willing to fight to the last to protect him. Tell me — if I used you to threaten him, what do you think he’d be willing to give?”

Wen Xia drew a slow breath. Her voice was very level. “Not only would you get nothing, you would expose your hiding place and be wiped out in one sweep.”

“Is that so?” Song Qiyuan smiled slightly. “I’m not convinced. Perhaps I should send him a few photographs first — test his reaction.”

As he said it, Song Qiyuan raised his hand toward Wen Xia’s chest.

The instant she felt the cold touch against her, Wen Xia’s mind detonated. She erupted into a frenzied struggle, heedless of the wound in her palm, clawing and scratching at anything she could reach. In the chaos, her lips met Song Qiyuan’s wrist. She lunged forward and sank her teeth in — every last shred of hatred she carried, channeled into that bite. She drew blood.

Song Qiyuan’s fingers closed swiftly around her jaw. The pressure was excruciating — like something wrenching out of joint — and her mouth involuntarily released its hold. He looked at the row of tooth marks on his wrist. Two of the impressions were unusually deep. The canine teeth.

Song Qiyuan said, without any particular expression: “That’s the second time you’ve bitten me. Perhaps, instead of the photographs, I should knock out those impressive teeth of yours first.”

Wen Xia was still struggling. Then a knock sounded at the door — three light, one heavy, like a kind of code.

Song Qiyuan’s expression changed. He pinned Wen Xia down with swift finality, brought his lips to her ear, and said in a low, urgent voice: “If you want to live, stay in this room and don’t make a sound. Not a single one. Or there won’t be anyone in heaven or earth who can save you.”

He tore the bedsheet into strips with the shark knife, working with practiced efficiency, bound Wen Xia’s hands and feet, then wadded the remaining cloth into a ball and jammed it into her mouth, cutting off any possibility of a cry for help.

He jumped down from the bed, rapped the flat of the knife handle lightly against Wen Xia’s cheek, and said with a light laugh: “Nice knife. I’ll be holding onto this — consider it your gift to me for our first meeting.”

Wen Xia’s eyes blazed with fury. Bound securely from head to foot, unable to move a muscle — unable even to shout — she could only fix him with a glare of pure, scalding hatred.

Song Qiyuan pushed open the door and stepped out. The watchtower dwelling had three floors. Directly ahead was a wooden staircase, and standing at a turn in the landing was a man — heavy-built, with a brutal face and a long scar running across his forehead.

The moment Song Qiyuan made out the man’s features, he tilted his chin slightly upward. It was a challenging gesture — the kind of arrogance that came from somewhere deep in the bone.

“Scarface” swept his gaze sideways. “Someone in the room?”

“One of the children acting up. I’ve tied him down — planning to let him go hungry for a couple of days.” Song Qiyuan clasped his hands behind his back, slipping the shark knife up into his sleeve without any visible motion. “Something you need?”

“Scarface” looked at him and said in a rough, blunt tone: “The boss is here. He’s waiting for you.”

Song Qiyuan gave a nod. As he stepped past, “Scarface” shifted his weight as if to head upstairs. Song Qiyuan moved with sudden swiftness and pressed a hand down onto his shoulder — exerting a precise, internal pressure — and “Scarface” felt pain shoot through that shoulder, half his body going numb.

Song Qiyuan lowered his voice. “I took those children in to help run the household. Not to be your plaything. Stay away from them — or don’t blame me for not holding back.”

The two men held each other’s gaze for a long moment. “Scarface” was the first to look away. He spat on Song Qiyuan’s shoe, muttered something foul and profane, then turned and went back downstairs.

The old vehicle Wen Xia had driven had a broken dashboard — most of the instruments were nonfunctional, and any thought of GPS tracking was completely out of the question. Fortunately, she had taken the satellite phone with her. Ke Lie locked onto her location quickly: Quma Town.

Nuobu was still sniffling as he spoke: “A family member of the suspect came to make trouble — they had a sick child with them. Xiao Xia said she was worried it might develop into pneumonia, and insisted on driving the family to the hospital. She said the station couldn’t be without a man, so she told me to stay behind. But she never came back, and I’m afraid—”

Before Nuobu could finish, Li Zechuan had already charged out the door — without even stopping for his jacket. Ke Lie grabbed it and followed quickly after him.

Lian Kai, staying behind automatically, jabbed Nuobu on the head and let out a long, heavy sigh: “You really know how to drive a knife straight into the tenderest part of Da Chuan’s heart, don’t you.”

(4)

Tibetan watchtower dwellings were typically three stories high: the ground floor served as a livestock pen, the second floor as living quarters, and the third could be used as a prayer hall, housing Buddhist statues. As Song Qiyuan had no religious beliefs, he had converted the third floor into a confinement room — and that was where Wen Xia had been imprisoned.

Song Qiyuan descended the stairs. The space that should have served as a livestock pen held no animals; the floor was simply covered with a layer of straw. The light bulb hanging from the pillar was of a high wattage and left flares in his vision.

Then a sharp pain struck his knee — someone had kicked him from behind, driving him down onto both knees.

Song Qiyuan knelt and raised his head. Directly before him sat a wooden chair, and in that chair sat a middle-aged man of unremarkable appearance, dressed in a Zhongshan suit — old but laundered clean, entirely out of place with everything around him.

Song Qiyuan lowered his eyes and spoke. “Foster father.”

Nie Xiaolin looked more like an ordinary small-time merchant than anything else — average in both appearance and build. He held a cigarette between his teeth and said: “Fourth, you’ve been rather disobedient lately. Provoking the reserve station’s people over and over again — do you think we need any more trouble than we already have?”

“Big brother is dead. Second and third brother were captured one after another. Only I am still here and well.” Song Qiyuan’s voice came out low and rough. “If even I don’t do anything for them, who else is left to avenge them?”

Nie Xiaolin smiled slightly, looking at the crown of his head. “Is this you blaming me?”

“I would never dare,” Song Qiyuan replied immediately. “Only reminding myself that there are certain things I cannot afford to forget.”

“Whatever your reason may be,” Nie Xiaolin’s voice suddenly sharpened, “acting without orders is wrong. Say it yourself — should you be punished or not?”

Song Qiyuan said nothing. He reached up and stripped the clothing from his upper body. He was lean in build, but the muscles were full and defined, and his skin was a fine bronze color. The cold air struck it and seemed to produce the crisp, metallic ring of blade against blade. His chest and back were crosshatched with scars of every variety — knife wounds, gunshot wounds, and others with no name, simply hollowed recesses, as though chunks of flesh had been carved clean away.

“Your foster father knows you have a hard temper and a hard bone — you don’t yield to punishment, and you don’t much yield to discipline,” said Nie Xiaolin, leaning back into the chair, his expression blank. “So today, let’s try something different. In ancient times there was a practice called collective punishment — one person commits an offense, and the whole family is made to suffer. You have no family, of course — but you do have those children you’ve been raising.”

Nie Xiaolin made a gesture. “Scarface” turned and went out, returning a moment later with a small boy in hand.

Six or seven years old — middling-length hair, wearing an old, somewhat dirty padded jacket, with dark bright eyes and a face etched with fear.

It was the very one who had brought Wen Xia her congee.

Song Qiyuan went still for a brief moment, then understood quickly. His voice came out hoarse. “Foster father, I’m sorry. It was my failure to follow orders. The fault is mine. I accept punishment — whatever form it takes. I guarantee there will not be a next time.”

“Just accepting punishment is not enough,” said Nie Xiaolin, leaning forward to grip him by the throat, speaking quietly. “You need to remember the lesson. I do not like people who have too much of their own mind, and I like even less those who defy me. Remember this: the next time you dare disobey, more people will be dragged down because of you.”

Nie Xiaolin waved his hand. “Scarface” took the child back out. The very moment the door swung shut, the boy called out faintly: “Qi Ge.”

Song Qiyuan spun around quickly. From the shape of the child’s lips, he read the words that had gone unspoken — Save me. I’m scared.

The gun had a silencer fitted. When the trigger was pulled, it gave only the faintest muffled snap. Beneath the eaves, a roosting bird started and took wing — and then stillness returned, as though nothing had happened at all.

Song Qiyuan opened his mouth. He tried to speak, but could produce no sound. His peach-blossom eyes were open very wide, and yet utterly empty — full of a hollow, vacant light.

He didn’t feel any great sorrow, nor much rage. Only a crushing, stifling pressure — as though someone had packed a wad of cotton deep inside his chest, producing an overwhelming sense of suffocation.

He thought of the words he had spoken beside Kuksai Lake, the way he had mocked Li Zechuan and the people at the reserve station, the way he had sneered that they counted the life of a person as worth less than that of a four-legged animal.

And him? What was his own life worth?

Fearing that Li Zechuan’s hands might not be steady, Ke Lie had taken the driver’s seat and insisted Li Zechuan ride beside him. Banking on the fact that the national highway was nearly deserted at night, Ke Lie pushed the vehicle to its absolute limit — and even the distant snow-capped mountains seemed to blur and double in their wake.

Li Zechuan rode with his eyes closed, looking utterly spent. He bit down on his lip until it bled, then finally released it, and said in a low voice: “I thought I could protect her.”

“Don’t be like this, Da Chuan,” said Ke Lie, glancing over at him. “You cannot take every person’s safety onto your own shoulders. If you try, you won’t last until the criminals are brought to justice — you’ll break first. You are a protector. You are not everyone’s guardian parent.”

Li Zechuan kept his eyes closed. A trace of blood-red clung to his lips. He pressed his voice down until it was barely audible — almost as though talking to himself. Ke Lie had to strain to hear it. When he finally made out the words, all he could do was sigh.

Li Zechuan had said: What kind of protector am I — I can’t even keep her safe.

Quma Town had only one hospital. Li Zechuan spotted the reserve station’s old vehicle at a glance, parked on the road outside. He and Ke Lie split up — one to check the hospital’s security footage inside, the other to stay and examine the vehicle. Li Zechuan tested the door handle — locked. He gripped the spiked knuckles and drove them straight through the window. The glass shattered cleanly. He swept the shards aside, reached through, and opened the door from the inside.

Nothing inside the vehicle had been disturbed. The satellite phone was sitting in the storage space up front. Li Zechuan checked the call log — several missed calls, all from the reserve station. He also found a voice recorder. He pressed play, and Wen Xia’s voice came through, mingled with the sound of the wind, like a sigh exhaled into the open air.

“This is Wen Xia. The time is ten twenty-six. I am on National Highway 109, on my way to Quma Town. The more I come to understand this land, the less I regret coming here — and the less I regret the way I feel about you. Li Zechuan, the years ahead are long, and we still have so much time.”

Something seized his heart and squeezed — a sharp, needle-fine pain bloomed through it. Li Zechuan found himself thinking, without intending to: if he could not find her and bring her back — if she were no longer safe—

Li Zechuan raised a hand and struck himself across the face, cutting off every dark thought before it could take shape.

No. He would absolutely not allow any such “if” to happen.

By the time Ke Lie returned, Li Zechuan was standing behind the vehicle with a cigarette. He had taken only a single drag before falling into a fit of coughing that wouldn’t stop — bad enough that his eyes had gone red, the tips of his lashes catching moisture, clouded and dense.

Ke Lie reported: “I found the family members Nuobu described. They told me Wen Xia had driven them to Quma Town for medical treatment, and that nothing unusual happened along the way. Wen Xia was at the hospital for just over an hour and left at around five thirty-five in the evening. After that, they never saw her again. I went to the hospital security office and reviewed the footage from that same period. I found this.”

Ke Lie opened the video on his phone — a recording made by pointing his camera at a security monitor. The footage showed that at around five forty, Wen Xia entered an emergency stairwell. Two minutes later, a tall, large-framed man followed her in. He was wearing a black shell jacket, a hat, and a face mask; his movements were calculated to avoid the camera, and it had not captured his face.

Li Zechuan pressed pause and stared at the figure for a moment. “It’s Song Qiyuan. I wouldn’t mistake that silhouette.”

Ke Lie said: “The township hospital has basic facilities at best — the camera coverage isn’t comprehensive enough. There’s no footage of how Wen Xia left the building, and nothing from inside the stairwell to show what happened.”

“Contact the local traffic department and explain the situation — get checkpoints set up at every road junction.” Li Zechuan extinguished the cigarette, picked out a strand of tobacco leaf from it, and put it between his teeth to chew. “Song Qiyuan is already a wanted fugitive. This time, we cannot let him slip away. Nie Xiaolin’s gang must have a temporary base somewhere in Quma Town. I’ll go meet a few informants and find out exactly where. Song Qiyuan is unhinged — with Wen Xia in his hands, the consequences are completely unpredictable.”

Ke Lie reached out and clasped Li Zechuan firmly by the shoulder. “Wen Xia is a girl blessed with good fortune. I believe she’ll come through this safe.”

“This is the second time,” said Li Zechuan. He drew a slow breath. In the darkness, his black eyes flickered with an uncertain light. His voice dropped to a rough murmur. “The second time something has gone wrong right under my nose. Does heaven have some grudge against me? — whoever I hold dear, it goes straight for them.”

Ke Lie smiled slightly. “So you’re finally admitting it: she’s who you hold dear. You like her. Adversity reveals the truth of things — that old saying fits the two of you rather well.”

“How could I not like her,” said Li Zechuan, raising a hand to cover his face. “She has gone this far for me. All this way. But how can I let myself like her? To her, I am a surprise. To me — I would be nothing but a disaster for her.”

Ke Lie was not a man of eloquent words and had nothing fine to offer. He simply pressed down harder on Li Zechuan’s shoulder, saying nothing.

He found himself thinking, inexplicably, of a brief poem he had once read in a newspaper —

Lend me the candor of grief. Lend me the first and last of my courage that dared not show itself.

Li Zechuan was candid and upright in all things — in all things except Wen Xia. For the girl who lived in his heart, he had too many words he could not speak, and too many things he could not bring himself to do.

The Dongfeng off-road vehicle’s remote key contained a mechanical key for emergencies — for use when the battery in the remote ran out. Wen Xia worked her hands behind her back and, with tremendous difficulty, pried the mechanical key free. It cost her two fingernails — a searing, bone-deep pain.

She used the sharp edge of the key to saw through the bindings around her hands and feet. Her legs had been tied so long that blood flow had been cut off; the moment they touched the ground, a wave of pins and needles hit her and she went straight down, the skin scraping off both wrists against the rough floor. More pain.

She had no communications device of any kind on her — only a multifunction watch. She held it up to catch what little light filtered in through the window and checked the time: five forty in the morning. She had been missing for twelve hours. The reserve station should have noticed something was wrong by now.

She pressed her ear to the door and listened for a while. Everything outside was quiet. She gathered her nerve and unlatched the door, gripping a mop handle she had picked up for protection.

Wen Xia was on the third floor. She made her way down the wooden staircase, moving as quietly as she could manage. The sun had only just risen, and the temperature was hovering around zero — no fire had been lit inside the building, and the air was cold and damp. Partway down to the second floor, she came face to face with three children — boys and girls, six or seven years old, their clothes and faces uniformly grimy, each of them clutching a chipped ceramic bowl.

One of the little girls was strikingly pretty — her complexion slightly darker, her eyes very bright, her hair in plaited braids that were thoroughly unkempt, long since gone without proper care.

Wen Xia stopped where she was. All three children spoke at once, their voices edged with tears: “Please, sister — save Qi Ge.”

Qi Ge? Song Qiyuan?

The three children led Wen Xia into the main room. There was little furniture to speak of — but in the corner was a pile of several fur-covered shapes. Wen Xia looked more carefully and recognized what they were: bear paws and the heads of wild yaks, the cut ends caked with dried blood, the wounds vicious and raw. The yaks’ eyes were half-closed, blood dried at their corners like tears, their sharp horns pointing toward the sky — and in looking at them, it seemed as though she could almost hear the cry of an eagle in flight.

These had been among the most tenacious lives on this land, having endured bitter cold and blinding storms — and yet they had not survived a single bullet.

Her hand at her side slowly closed into a fist, fingernails pressing into her palm, a dull, grinding pain. Wen Xia pointed at the pile and asked the children: “Did Qi Ge bring these back?”

The little girl responded quickly. “No, it wasn’t Qi Ge. Qi Ge is a good person. He really is.”

In the center of the floor was a squat table whose original color was impossible to determine, set on a rug that was similarly beyond identification. The children worked together to shift both out of the way, exposing the wooden planks beneath. Wen Xia saw a small hole in the floor, about the size of a matchbox.

The braided girl said the same words again: “Please save Qi Ge. We’re begging you.”

The ground floor was the livestock pen. Through the matchbox-sized gap in the planks, Wen Xia could see Song Qiyuan — his hands bound behind him, suspended from a roof beam, his toes barely able to brush the ground. He was clearly being punished.

The punishment looked simple, but was in reality deeply brutal. At the lighter end, it caused severe muscle strain; at the worst, it could dislocate joints and leave permanent disability.

Less than a step away from Song Qiyuan stood a wooden chair, and on it sat a stocky, heavyset man with a long scar across his forehead. “Scarface” had his head drooping and hadn’t moved in a long while — he appeared to have fallen asleep.