The light snow fell without pause, gradually dyeing the surroundings a pure white. Orange and blue tents glowed with white lights, conspicuous beacons against the darkness of night.

“So cold…” Ye Xun muttered, shivering as he broke apart compressed biscuits. The water in the pot hadn’t fully boiled yet — and speaking of which, even when it did boil, it would only reach sixty or seventy degrees at best. He was growing increasingly aware of just how harsh and unforgiving the natural environment was.

After entering the uninhabited zone, their food supplies had dwindled in both quantity and variety. All that remained were compressed biscuits, instant noodles, pickled vegetables, and canned luncheon meat — simple provisions that could fit entirely in the back seat and trunk of a single car once those were emptied. The advantage of such food was that it kept well and required little cooking; just heat the water and everything would rehydrate. Of the mineral water they had brought, only one barrel remained. Going forward, they would need to start searching for clean ice and snow to melt for drinking water.

“Old Zou, where the hell did you die off to… God have mercy, please don’t let me go back empty-handed this time!” he muttered through gritted teeth, a desperate prayer on his lips.

The sound of an engine grew from distant to near. Ye Xun’s spirits were low, but he still steeled himself and rushed outside — and then he heard He Ma’s voice carrying from far away:

“We! Found! Him!”

Those words hit like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart, sending Ye Xun into a frenzy of excitement. Finding the body — do you know what that meant? Twenty million!

Everyone came rushing out of their tents. The four who climbed out of the vehicle were head-to-toe in filth, their faces smeared like patchwork — He Ma in particular looked absolutely ashen, his already compact features now drawn into a tight, urgent grimace. People scrambled around them: some passing hot water, others fetching clean clothes. Ye Xun, meanwhile, rubbed his hands together like a housefly and circled restlessly around the body in the truck bed, wrapped head-to-toe in a body bag, pressing everyone for confirmation again and again —

“Is it him? Are you sure it’s Old Zou?”

Ba Yunye jumped in, pointing at the body: “Why don’t you call out to him and see if he answers?”

Ye Xun refused to be satisfied and kept pressing Diao Zhuo for a response.

“You didn’t even think to ask what happened to us — look at the state we’re in?!” Ba Yunye was covered in mud from head to toe; all the times she had climbed out to push the vehicles and dig through the mire had left even her iron constitution aching.

Though Ye Xun kept a smile plastered on his face, anyone could see that the mask of goodwill had slipped. His purpose in coming had been fulfilled. His one and only priority was confirming whether the body was Zou Kaigui. Whatever hardships the others had endured in the search for it had absolutely nothing to do with whether he would collect his twenty million.

“Probable identification,” said Diao Zhuo, hedging — a marked contrast to his earlier certainty. “Confirming identity will require DNA testing.”

Ye Xun’s brow furrowed. “What if it turns out not to be him?”

Diao Zhuo shot back: “If it isn’t him, does that mean we shouldn’t bring the body back?”

Ye Xun fell silent.

At present, there were no fewer than three individuals who had gone missing attempting to cross Qiang Tang alone, each missing for a different number of days. But the routes taken by the other missing persons were entirely different from Zou Kaigui’s. Of all those who had gone missing attempting the full east-west crossing, Zou Kaigui was the only confirmed case nationwide.

Ye Xun kept his patience and put on a show of magnanimity: “Whoever it may be, any body that’s found should be properly brought back for burial.”

Everyone knew exactly what he was calculating in his head, and no one bothered to engage.

With the weight of that burden finally lifted from her shoulders, Ba Yunye clapped He Ma on the back and said, “Come on — cook up a big pot of noodles. Master Ba is going to eat properly tonight.”

He Ma said quietly, “Master Ba, you’re not the kind of person a few bowls of noodles can replenish. What would truly suit you is the practice of drawing yang energy to nourish yin.”

Ba Yunye couldn’t help but glance over at Diao Zhuo. He was covered in mud too, his face darkened and browned where she had smeared silt across it, yet none of that diminished the toughness and vitality radiating off him in the slightest. Given the limitations of their current circumstances, she could only tease him with words — but she had a feeling Diao Zhuo was quite a test of her resolve, and she suspected she was equally a test of his.

Ye Xun, picking up on Ba Yunye’s implication that she was ready to head back, and recalling Diao Zhuo’s razor-sharp eyes that could read a person’s fingerprints, felt a sudden clarity settle over his mind. He smiled — slipping back into the slightly ingratiating demeanor he’d worn before — and said, “Everyone’s exhausted. This time, let me handle cooking the noodles. You all rest.”

With that, he eagerly picked up the last remaining barrel of water and trudged, grunting with effort, back into the tent to take over kitchen duties. The rescue team, seeing how enthusiastic he was being, let him get on with it without comment. With twenty million almost in hand, who could complain?

Those whose clothes had gotten dirty slipped into their respective tents to find replacements. Ba Yunye looked through the photos she’d just taken of Mount Jia Ma, lost in thought. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed before Ye Xun called out loudly that dinner was ready, and she finally headed out.

She ducked into Ye Xun’s tent and looked up to find Diao Zhuo had already changed back into their rescue team uniform. He sat with a headlamp on, writing up his rescue notes. The lines of his profile were sharp and defined; his brow furrowed ever so slightly in concentration — utterly focused. The veins on the back of his hand rose and fell with the motion of his writing, flickering in and out of shadow.

She crept over, hunching low, and peered at the page. He wrote beautifully — connected strokes, full of force, the sweeping hooks and pulls vigorous and strong, even an ordinary horizontal stroke given clean, angular form. By comparison, her own handwriting looked like a dog had scrambled across the page. Her old Chinese teacher ought to be grateful she couldn’t remember their full name.

“You got dressed so fast — I’m not even properly put together yet,” she said. The moment the words left her mouth, Diao Zhuo’s pen nib stuttered to a halt.

He looked up at her. This woman had a remarkable and terrible gift for making anything innocuous sound completely indecent.

He lowered his eyes again — and as if playing along with her teasing, yet meaning something else entirely, he said: “Whether you’re properly put together or not — would you like me to help you sort that out again?”

Ba Yunye settled onto a folding stool. Zou Kaigui’s small diary was tucked in the inner pocket of her jacket, pressing uncomfortably into her chest. “Had I known you were so eager to lend a hand, I wouldn’t have been in such a fluster earlier.”

“It seems you missed your chance to receive my assistance.” Diao Zhuo dipped his head in acknowledgment, signaling that he’d caught her meaning.

Ye Xun busied himself ladling out noodles for everyone, chatting away: “There’s nothing much to top it with out here, but once we’re back, I’m treating everyone to an absolutely incredible meal… honestly, just saying it out loud is making me drool…”

Scarcity and hardship have a way of stirring the most primal hunger — which is precisely why so many people attempting to cross uninhabited zones lose control of how much they eat and drink halfway through, running out of food long before they’ve made it out the other side.

“We’ll be counting on that feast,” Ba Yunye said without a hint of modesty. “I know exactly where the most expensive restaurant in Lhasa is.”

“Absolutely, absolutely!” Ye Xun held out a lunchbox of plain boiled noodles and dropped a generous spoonful of spicy Lao Gan Ma chili sauce in on top. “Master Ba deserves the most credit out of anyone. From now on, if any of my friends or family ever want to visit Tibet, I’ll lay it out for them flat — if you’re not riding in her vehicle, I’ll cut you off!”

“Well, in that case, since they’d be friends of Mr. Ye’s…” Ba Yunye paused, then broke into a wide grin. “I won’t give them a single discount.”

“Fair enough — do with me as you will.” Ye Xun seemed to be in genuinely good spirits, with an air of easy acceptance.

The body had been found and the rescue team had, in a manner of speaking, completed their mission. There was no longer any need to detour in search of anyone — they could head straight east all the way to Nagqu County, and bid farewell to Qiang Tang. With that tension released, the group relaxed. One pot of noodles wasn’t enough, so they broke open several more packs of compressed biscuits, softened them in hot water, added some pickled vegetables and Lao Gan Ma, and found — somehow, impossibly — that it tasted absolutely delicious.

“You’ve all worked hard — eat up.” Ye Xun poured tea and passed water around, without a trace of the boss about him.

“Why aren’t you eating?” Ba Yunye pointed at his lunchbox. “Mr. Ye, you’re being so gracious it’s making me uncomfortable. Let me get you some more noodles!”

“No, no — please, you first! After you!” Ye Xun cradled his lunchbox and ate with the enthusiastic, gurgling sounds of a satisfied pig.

Ba Yunye was exhausted that day. After filling her stomach, she returned to her own tent and, before crawling into her sleeping bag, deliberately pulled the diary out and tucked it deeper inside her innermost layer of clothing. She curled up, intending to replay in her mind the day’s hardships and the pleasure of teasing Diao Zhuo — but she was asleep within moments.

Not a single dream all night. Profoundly, sweetly sound — she had not slept this deeply since entering the uninhabited zone.

“Master Ba! Master Ba!!”

“Wake up!! Hey! Wake up!! Something’s wrong!!”

Ba Yunye floated in a fog, clearly not having slept nearly enough. She didn’t know who was calling her. Assuming it was still a dream, she rolled over and went back to sleep.

“Pour water on her.” A low, deep male voice. “Now.”

Then came an icy splash — “whoosh” — right across her face, and she jolted fully awake, and then into a towering rage, letting out a thunderous “You absolute—”

The last few words died in her throat. He Ma, Diao Zhuo, Da Qin, and the others were all crammed into her tent. Outside, the sky was clearly already bright. She had no idea why, but each of their expressions was deadly serious — He Ma in particular looked visibly furious, his already compact features now locked into a state of emergency.

“What happened?” Ba Yunye sat up. Whether from being woken so abruptly or some other reason, she couldn’t, for a moment, remember where she was or what had happened the day before.

“That son of a bitch! Ye Xun ran! He’s gone!!” He Ma roared.

“Huh?” Ba Yunye still looked completely blank, not yet grasping what “gone” meant, or why on earth Ye Xun would run.

Da Qin waved a hand in front of her face and said to Diao Zhuo, “Master Ba’s out of it too. Whatever Ye Xun put in that drug was absolutely vile!”

“What drug…” Still not fully understanding what had happened, Ba Yunye instinctively pressed a hand to her chest. Mercifully, the diary was still there.

“Ye Xun drugged us.” Diao Zhuo shifted to one side; a sharp gust of cold outside air immediately flooded into the tent, clearing Ba Yunye’s head somewhat. He explained patiently: “While everyone was knocked out cold, he slipped away on his own. He took the pickup carrying Zou Kaigui’s body, and took all the remaining food with him. On top of that, he crept into the other tents and made off with the Beidou navigation device and the GPS units.”

“He stole the satellite phone too,” He Ma added.

Ba Yunye took a long moment to process all of this after hearing it, and only then did her memory begin to piece together — finding Zou Kaigui’s body yesterday. After that, everything grew hazy: what she had eaten, what she had drunk, how she had fallen into such a dead sleep — all of it was a complete blank.

She had read a popular science article once, in some public account, about how certain people with malicious intent ran specialized chat groups devoted to dealing in all manner of substances capable of rendering a person unconscious. Some men used such drugs to prey on young women, then walked away clean the next morning — the victims without any memory at all, unaware that they had even been violated.

She wiped her face. A fury began to rise, blazing hot, scorching her mind into full wakefulness. “Damn him — he brought that kind of drug into the uninhabited zone! He had no good intentions from the very start!”

Diao Zhuo, too, was visibly irritated. He pulled out a cigarette and held it between his fingers, but didn’t light it. He tilted his chin toward Ba Yunye’s sleeping bag. “How are you — are you all right?”

As far as Ba Yunye was concerned, nothing mattered more than being alive. She climbed out of the sleeping bag — her clothes were more or less in order — and tugged on her outer jacket while unleashing a torrent of curses: “If he dared crawl into my sleeping bag, so help me, I will hunt him down and chop off his hands!”

Stepping outside, she saw that every vehicle looked as though Ye Xun had ransacked it through the night. Whatever food had remained across all the vehicles had been stripped away — a brazen, contemptible approach identical to that of wildlife poachers, pushing all eight of them straight to the edge of crisis.

There were actually people this despicable, this two-faced, in the world.

Xiang’an handed her a cup of hot water. Ba Yunye took it, raised her arm as though to hurl it into the ground in frustration — then, through gritted teeth, held herself back.

Without food, water was more precious than ever.

“What an absolute scoundrel!” she said through clenched teeth, her knuckles white around the cup.

From here to Nagqu County was, at the very best estimate, still two days away. As long as they hadn’t completely exhausted all options, wildlife could not be harmed — which meant that for the next forty-eight hours, they would have nothing but water to sustain them. And if anything else went wrong causing further delays, there would be real hunger ahead.

Ba Yunye stood in the cold wind, her mind still dulled and sluggish, as though someone had struck her hard from behind with a club. Her stomach growled and gurgled, as if it already knew the next few days would be spent living on nothing but thin air.

Diao Zhuo lit his cigarette and stood to one side, quietly smoking it halfway down, then seemed to grow calm. “One man, one vehicle…” He tossed away the cigarette butt, and suddenly a look of cold contempt crossed his face, his eyes narrowing.

Ba Yunye turned just in time to catch that expression. She was momentarily struck by how striking he looked. Her spirits lifted unexpectedly. Well — so what? A few days without food was nothing. If she got hungry enough, she’d just eat Diao Zhuo — ha!