In the early morning of Lhasa, quite a few elderly Tibetans had already made their way to the Jokhang Temple. Each held a prayer wheel of varying size in one hand and prayer beads in the other, shuffling forward — on the path of devotion, they never stopped.

The Deji Guesthouse had noticeably fewer guests now than in the summer. In another month or two, the guesthouse workers would all return to their hometowns, coming back again the following late spring. This was the rhythm of life for most outsiders doing business in Lhasa — half the year in Tibet, half the year at home. Part of the reason was the ebb and flow of tourism, and part was concern for one’s health: people not raised on the plateau couldn’t stay in Tibet for too long without it taking a toll on heart and lung function.

Ma He bounced out of bed first thing in the morning and eagerly crossed the street to buy breakfast. Out of habit, he went to the shop Ba Yunye always favored, and only when he’d already bought the porridge and steamed buns and was heading back did he remember she wasn’t around for the next few days.

Walking along, he thought: she was probably like a mouse fallen into a rice jar in Xi’an, perfectly content and not missing a thing. But in this line of work, time with family and loved ones was always cut short. All that business about “absence makes the heart grow fonder” — after repeated separations, the newlywed glow gave way to suspicion, loneliness, and emptiness. How many people, after a few years of this, ended up divorced? Or never married at all past a certain age? Long-lasting relationships were rare.

Thinking about this seemed to stir something in him. He was lost in thought and nearly tripped before snapping out of it.

From a distance, he spotted Long Ge standing before a map of China, lost in thought, so distracted that he hadn’t even noticed the water was boiling. Ma He’s brow furrowed slightly. He put down his plastic bag and crept forward on soft feet, leaning over the counter behind Long Ge, tilting his head to look.

He saw that Long Ge had placed circular magnets on three spots — northern Tibet, Golmud, and Alxa — and was tracing imaginary lines between the three locations, looking stumped.

Ma He was just about to leap up and give him a fright, when he saw Long Ge pull out his phone and photograph the map, apparently sending it to someone, then dial a call —

“Hey! Got it? Right, I don’t know what it means — take a look for me… Doesn’t matter whether she wants to know or not, I want to know… And that Song Fan character — I always thought he was no ordinary person, there’s no way he was just a tourist…”

Ma He covertly filmed a video on his phone, holding his breath, not daring to make a sound. Long Ge, unaware of anyone behind him, hung up the phone and turned around — Ma He quickly hid the phone. Long Ge startled, then reached out and smacked him on the head. “Were you a ghost in a past life? Standing behind someone without a sound!”

Ma He took the knock on his forehead and clutched his head: “I saw you making calls to help Master Ba look into things — I didn’t dare interrupt!”

Long Ge looked him up and down, then raised eyebrows so faint they were almost invisible. “Fair enough — but you gave me a hell of a fright.”

“Long Ge, you care about Master Ba’s affairs more than your own.”

“Don’t let the way she talks fool you. She’s had this weighing on her heart for many years. In the early years, certain people used to pay thugs and lowlifes to come stir up trouble at the orphanage she used to live in — if that were someone else, do you think they’d have been able to hold back from throwing fists? She couldn’t, because she had no moral high ground — she didn’t dare, you understand? Why do you think I didn’t let her come and drive with me straight after high school? Her temper was too hot back then — I was afraid she’d get into an accident behind the wheel, and I was afraid she’d get into a fight and come out the worse for it. I sent her to the military to grind that temper down.”

“But even these past few years it hasn’t exactly been peaceful — I remember right after I joined the club you had me and A-Dian go back to her hometown with her. I thought we were going to enjoy the scenery of colorful Yunnan, and we ended up getting paint poured all over us, brawling, and repainting walls for two days.”

“You don’t know the full story — that accident took so many lives. Some of the bereaved families couldn’t help harboring resentment, and they had nowhere to vent their anger.” Long Ge gave a hmph. “Thank goodness she spent those years in the military — otherwise, given what those people were like, I’d believe it if she ended up causing someone’s death.”

“You’re this good to Master Ba—” Ma He gave a thumbs up. “If I were her, I’d give myself to you body and soul!!”

Long Ge pressed his thumb down. “We’re all far from home trying to make a living — we look out for each other. Someday… if you, Ma He, ever run into trouble, come tell Long Ge. If Long Ge can help sort it out for you, you come to me first — don’t go doing things your own way and taking the wrong path, understood?”

As he spoke, he fixed Ma He with a deep, steady look, as though there were more words behind his eyes that wanted saying.

“Yes, sir!” Ma He smiled, stood to attention, and gave a salute. “Come eat your steamed buns — since Master Ba’s not here, I bought too many…”

Long Ge nodded, grabbed a few buns, and walked away. Back in his room, he opened his laptop, pulled up the courtyard security camera footage, and saw the scene of Ma He filming him from behind on his phone. His eyes went cold. He took out his phone, downloaded the short-video app Ma He often used — “Chicken-Flavored Crisps… what a ridiculous name, I nearly misread it…”

He navigated to Ma He’s profile and browsed through what he’d posted over the past two years — all landscape-themed short clips, with very low view counts because they had no visual appeal whatsoever. He flipped through a few pages, and then his sharp eyes caught something in a handful of videos Ma He had posted the previous autumn about a northern Xinjiang small loop. He searched out several more videos from that northern Xinjiang loop series, and the doubt in his eyes deepened.

He retrieved the guest rosters from those trips and called each person one by one — and the answer he got was: they had never passed through Ke Tuomo Grand Canyon.

Ke Tuomo Grand Canyon was an undeveloped scenic spot — rough roads, no admission fee, not widely known, but an obligatory stop for off-road enthusiasts. Ba Yunye didn’t often run the Xinjiang loop, so her not knowing about this spot was understandable — but Ma He had been with the Rieri Off-Road Team, which primarily ran Xinjiang routes and loved posting on short-video platforms. And yet not once had he taken clients to see the free and spectacular Ke Tuomo Grand Canyon. As far as Long Ge knew, the Rieri Team’s route did include this spot.

A question rose in Long Ge’s mind: since Ma He had joined the Eagle Wing Club, was it that he was simply uninvested in leading tours? Or that he didn’t feel it was his place to take charge in front of Ba Yunye? Or — that he was genuinely unfamiliar with the Xinjiang routes at all?

Ge Mingliang had once had someone look into it and confirmed that Ma He had indeed been a partner in the Rieri Team — that was beyond question. Long Ge knew he shouldn’t doubt Ge Mingliang’s sources, but still, he decided to be careful and look into things from another angle.

“A-Teng… you’ve been driving routes for years, you have plenty of channels — could you help me look into a small matter?… Good, I’ll thank you in advance. I’d like you to track down former clients who rode with the Rieri Team back in the early days… Yes, clients, not the drivers. Ask them whether they remember a driver by the name Ma He, or nicknamed Horse…”

For people from Xi’an, pepper stew and thick flatbread were as natural and habitual as a bowl of small noodles or dumplings is to someone from Chongqing — the most ordinary of morning meals. Ba Yunye couldn’t stomach the pepper stew, and sat there idly pinching apart her flatbread, watching him eat. She liked the way his throat moved when he swallowed, the bob of his Adam’s apple. When they lay together, she liked to hold his neck and press her face into the curve between his neck and shoulder — one stretch of the hand and she could feel that small, firm ridge, and the pulse of the vein beating alongside it.

So sometimes, under her wandering touch, his throat would tighten and his scalp would prickle; he’d close his eyes and ask her in a hoarse voice — are you trying to flirt with me, or are you trying to kill me?

At the next table, a group of young women looked to be on a dedicated trip to Xi’an, and were busy planning to climb Mount Hua while the weather held. Ba Yunye cocked an ear and listened to their animated chatter, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips.

The girls finished and left. Diao Zhuo asked her, “Do you want to go?”

“I climbed Mount Hua a few years ago. The elevation at the summit is lower than any random street in Lhasa.”

Was there even a comparison? The peculiar logic left Diao Zhuo speechless. “Do you watch a sunrise in Lhasa by climbing mountain paths from two in the morning?”

Ba Yunye dragged a chair over beside him and leaned against him. “Today, I want to just wander around.”

Diao Zhuo tilted his head to look at her — she would be leaving for Chengdu the next afternoon, and after that they’d be apart for the better part of a month. This was the normal rhythm of life for the two of them — each chasing their work, ideals, and livelihoods in different corners of the country.

“What do you want to buy?”

“Do women go shopping to buy things?” Ba Yunye delivered a question that strikes at the soul of every straightforward man.

“Why else do you go shopping?” the iron-boned straightforward man shot back.

Ba Yunye spread her hands and replied with complete sincerity: “Shopping is one of the world’s most universally recognized forms of safe hiking. There are no wild animals or extreme weather conditions, you have access to food and water at any moment, and if your body gives out there’s always a place to rest and shelter — and if things get really bad, you can get medical attention on the spot. Even someone with no hiking experience and poor stamina can manage it with ease. I once had a fellow recruit who couldn’t run a thousand meters to save her life when she first enlisted, yet she managed to keep walking the streets for eight hours straight without buying a single thing.”

This argument was airtight. Diao Zhuo had nothing to say.

For all that Ba Yunye roamed from one end of the country to the other, she was actually quite a homebody in her private life — during her time off, she wasn’t fond of wandering around. She’d either tinker with modifications to her car, go to the gym or a kickboxing club to spar with someone, or when utterly bored, hole up inside watching series online. She didn’t follow celebrities, but she was happy to be a bystander watching the drama unfold. Leisurely strolls like this didn’t come often.

Diao Zhuo, that iron-boned man, was the same way — he had a few brands he found comfortable to wear, and at the change of seasons he’d walk straight in, buy what he needed, and leave.

Accompanying Ba Yunye on her “hike” — Diao Zhuo was entirely willing.

When she did buy something, she was as decisive as he was — one look to know if something suited her, go in, pick her size, and done.

After that, they were purely window-shopping — neither of them set foot in another store.

But then it was Diao Zhuo who stopped in front of a shop window, standing for a long time, looking at a dress on the mannequin. He jerked his chin at it. “Try it on?”

He never used to do this.

“That dress?” Ba Yunye’s mouth gave a slight twitch — it was a V-neck, fitted waist wrap dress in a pale lotus pink.

Diao Zhuo said yes, and led her inside.

Ba Yunye tugged at his arm. “How am I supposed to wear that dress when I’m driving? That short — climbing in and out of the car all day, how many times would I flash someone?”

“There’ll be times you’re not driving.”

“But…”

“I’ve never seen you in a dress.” Diao Zhuo put his arm around her waist. “Come on.”

“A straightforward man’s taste really is something else…” Ba Yunye sighed, but followed him in anyway. She got straight to the point with the approaching shop assistant: “Looking at me — what size do you think I’d be?”

The smiling shop assistant was wonderfully attentive — she brought not only the dress, but also an inner knit top and nude-toned heels to go with it, all handed to Ba Yunye together.

Ba Yunye glanced at the heels — at least 7 centimeters — and whispered to Diao Zhuo: “With these on I’ll be over 180 centimeters.”

The shop assistant kept smiling warmly: “A dress like this looks best on a tall, slender beauty like yourself. And your boyfriend is so tall — even 10-centimeter heels would be perfectly fine on you.”

Diao Zhuo casually picked up a magazine, pointed toward the fitting room, and sat down on the sofa to wait while she changed.

Inside the fitting room, Ba Yunye held up the dress and gave a quiet laugh. Even though she spent several months of the year in Lijiang — the city of romantic encounters — she hadn’t worn anything like this in a long time.

She changed briskly, pulled out her hair tie, let her hair fall naturally over her shoulders, and turned in front of the mirror a few times. The dress was very flattering to her figure, and the heels made her already-long legs even more alluring. It wasn’t her preferred style, but she had to admit that Diao Zhuo had a decent eye — it was quite lovely.

She pushed open the curtain and walked out, and immediately found Diao Zhuo standing right there in her path.

“Why are you…”

Diao Zhuo looked her up and down, and a faint smile crept into his eyes.

“Does it look good?” She turned a full circle.

— It looked stunning.

He shook his head.

“You’re right — it doesn’t really suit me. A girl with fairer skin would look better in this.” Without getting an affirmative response, Ba Yunye wasn’t bothered. She gave a candid nod, and turned to go back in and change.

“The dress is too long.”

“Too — long?!” Ba Yunye was incredulous. “If I bend over even slightly, my backside will be showing!”

Diao Zhuo was perfectly firm about it: “A little shorter would be even better.”

You utterly shameless straightforward man! Ba Yunye shot him a withering look and moved to retreat into the fitting room — Diao Zhuo caught her wrist. “Don’t rush. Wear it a little longer.”

Ba Yunye turned back. “You just wanted a good look, didn’t you? — So is it actually nice or not?”

Diao Zhuo leaned close to her ear. “Definitely worth the look.”

She curled up the corner of her mouth in a smile that was equal parts roguish and bright.

She went in to change. Diao Zhuo got a call from his friends who were planning a self-drive trip to Qinghai in a few days — hearing he was back in Xi’an, they invited him out for drinks that evening and to discuss the self-drive arrangements.

Ba Yunye came out in her original clothes. Diao Zhuo took the items she’d changed out of and handed them to the shop assistant: “Wrap them up.”

The shop assistant loved customers this decisive — she turned and efficiently had everything packaged up.

“I’ll introduce you to some clients — want to come?” Diao Zhuo asked.

“Thank you first.” Ba Yunye pressed her fists together in a grateful salute, then agreed. “I’ll wear the new one tonight.”

Diao Zhuo said, “The dress is too short.”

Ba Yunye stared at him in shock. “Just now you said it was too long.”

“Did I?”

Ba Yunye blinked, and deliberately went against him: “Either way, I’m wearing it.”