Lhasa had already entered winter. The peaks of the surrounding mountains were blanketed in thick white snow, tourists had gradually thinned out, and many out-of-town merchants had begun stocking up on Tibetan specialties, preparing to return home. Even so, the city’s mornings remained lively — some of the older Tibetans arrived at Jokhang Temple early, their knees bound with rope as they prostrated themselves in worship.

The previous night, Deji Guesthouse had taken in a group of young cyclists brimming with youthful energy. They set off again at the crack of dawn, their destination the foot of Mount Everest. After the commotion faded, the guesthouse returned to its usual tranquility. Sunlight streamed evenly down through the skylight, and several aloe vera plants growing in the courtyard displayed their vibrant vitality.

The sweet tea in the pot had already come to a boil, gurgling and billowing white steam. At the table, Long Ge sat with his eyes closed, looking as if he’d fallen asleep. The young service attendant, A’Lan, walked over to turn off the flame and deftly poured the sweet tea into a thermos. She glanced over and only then realized he wasn’t dozing — his lips were trembling faintly as he murmured a prayer.

“Long Ge, when are you heading back?” A’Lan was also from Sichuan, and had already bought her return flight ticket in advance.

Long Ge opened his eyes and replied amiably, “Oh, I’m going to Yunnan first — going to check on a few guesthouses.”

“What about Master Ba? Is she staying in Yunnan for the New Year too?”

Long Ge had long since heard from He Ma that Ba Yunye had finished her Western Sichuan journey and headed straight to Golmud without pause, intending to climb Yuzhu Peak with Diao Zhuo.

“Her plans this year — hard to say.” He patted his thigh and squinted up at the skylight.

Some time passed — it was hard to say how long — before the sound of an engine came from the doorway, followed by a figure who hadn’t even fully stepped inside before calling out eagerly: “Ha! Old squad leader!!”

Only then did Long Ge open his eyes. He smiled, his round face as kind as a Maitreya Buddha. “A’Teng! Welcome, welcome!”

The newcomer was lean and dark-skinned, a few years younger than Long Ge by the look of it, with a pair of large, exceptionally sharp and piercing eyes, and a prominent scar from a large knife slash at the tail of his brow — clearly a man with a story. He was Long Ge’s old comrade-in-arms, who now ran a freight company and frequently passed through Yunnan and Sichuan. They hadn’t seen each other in over ten years. This time, A’Teng happened to be driving a load to Lhasa and stumbled upon Long Ge holding court at Deji Guesthouse.

The two men had barely pulled each other into a tight embrace when A’Teng was bounced back by Long Ge’s belly, making for a rather awkward moment.

“Squad leader, you’ve gotten way too fat! If the girls from our old signals company saw you now, they’d be sighing again about how the years are a blade that slaughters pigs.” A’Teng shook his head and rambled on about old times for a good while, then reached out and clapped Long Ge on the shoulder. “That thing you asked me to look into — I couldn’t dig up a single answer for you. Tonight, drinks are on me. Consider it my apology.”

Long Ge froze. “What do you mean — you couldn’t find anything?”

“I tracked down twenty-odd travelers who went to Xinjiang with the Scorching Sun Convoy a few years back. Not one of them knew anyone called Ma He or He Ma — or rather, not one of them had ever ridden in a vehicle driven by Ma He. What baffles me is this: a few years ago, the Scorching Sun Convoy was just getting started, with only three to five drivers, and even now there are barely eleven or twelve. How is it possible that not a single passenger Ma He ever took could be found?” A’Teng said, looking deeply vexed. “Old squad leader, I failed to complete the mission you gave me!”

“No… that’s not it.” Long Ge murmured, the speed at which he worked his prayer beads quickening considerably. After a long pause, he clapped A’Teng on the back. “I should be the one buying you drinks!”

A’Teng was about to protest, but Long Ge said: “Ma He probably figured that if I was going to ask around, I’d only go to people within the Scorching Sun Convoy — so he’d made sure to brief all of them. It never occurred to him that I’d turn around and ask the passengers instead. Ma He — he was never part of the Scorching Sun Convoy at all. There was no falling-out, no dramatic departure, and he never took a single passenger on any Xinjiang tour!”

A’Teng was completely baffled, his face blank with confusion. “What on earth is going on with this Ma He? Did he cheat you out of money, squad leader?”

Long Ge burst out laughing. “My money is that easy to cheat out of?”

A’Teng slapped the table. “Fair point! Getting money out of your pocket has always been like pulling teeth. You used to say you’d treat everyone to a farewell dinner — that was how many years ago? The group disbanded alright, but where was the dinner?”

“Damn it, come drink with me right now!” Long Ge hauled him up and headed for the door.

His fellow comrade Ge Mingliang had once asked him why he would suspect He Ma without cause. In truth, Long Ge was not a suspicious man by nature. Ever since Ba Yunye had brought out those few photographs from her late elder sister’s belongings to show him and He Ma, he had sent the photos to several trusted old comrades, asking them to quietly help identify the locations depicted. However, because one of the photographs was clearly marked as having been taken at Yuzhu Peak, he had kept that particular photo out of the loop — his comrades knew nothing of its existence. And yet, after that, Zhang Chenguang had begun appearing frequently at Yuzhu Peak, and Song Fan had started venturing into various deserts, ultimately dying by accident in the Badain Jaran Desert. This meant that He Ma had leaked at least two of the photographs.

Leaking the photos was one thing. What mattered was: how could it be such a coincidence that they ended up in the hands of the two witnesses to that car accident from years ago? And just as Ba Yunye was on the verge of catching up with Zhang Chenguang, he vanished without explanation — did that have anything to do with He Ma? Furthermore, at Qiang Tang, the Badain Jaran Desert, and Yuzhu Peak, He Ma had accompanied Ba Yunye every step of the way, learning the locations in those photographs almost as soon as she did.

Why exactly was He Ma lurking at their side? What was the true nature of his relationship with Zhang Chenguang and Song Fan? Could it be that even after the geological survey team was wiped out entirely, there were still things they needed to conceal — or to find?

That night, Long Ge drank himself into a stupor for the first time in his life — vomited a complete mess — and was driven back to Deji Guesthouse along with A’Teng by the restaurant owner. When A’Lan helped him back to his room, he grabbed hold of her hand and broke down weeping in a way entirely unlike himself, his voice hoarse as he cried out: “Why did you have to come and find me! Why couldn’t you just go home in peace!” — frightening A’Lan quite badly.

The next morning, the weather was rather overcast. A vast white mist draped itself over the peaks surrounding Yuzhu, while the flat grassland below stretched all the way to the rocky debris field at the edge of the camp. Prayer flags danced in the wind, and in the distance, a few Tibetan wild donkeys could be seen grazing with their heads bowed.

Everyone followed the mountain guide on foot up to the glacier for ice-climbing training. Equipment that had gone unused during the West Datan exercises — high-altitude boots, ice axes, crampons — could all be put to use today, and most of the group were visibly eager and excited to try. As the saying goes, a mountain that seems close enough to reach will run you to death — the glacier, which appeared low and near, was actually several kilometers from the camp. The terrain rose and fell in wave after wave of rocky debris, and after walking for what felt like forever, they finally reached the edge of the glacier.

The glacier presented itself in layers, much like sedimentary rock — tier upon tier, each stratum threaded with dark brownish soil and grit, giving the whole thing a grayish-black appearance, like a mud wall that hadn’t been cleaned in years. The grayish-brown ice was as hard as a weathered stone, its surface resembling layer upon layer of compressed icy granules, with a thin, fine depression running down the middle — the channel through which meltwater flowed.

Hu Zi did not climb the glacier and was now strolling about contentedly, occasionally glancing back to check on his owner. Ba Yunye and Diao Zhuo, who had arrived first, let Hu Zi sniff a cup of hot chocolate, then took a glove — its surface deliberately dabbed with a small amount of hot chocolate — buried it in the snow, and covered it with rubble, letting Hu Zi go and find it.

Hu Zi, true to his reputation as a rigorously trained retired military dog, circled twice, pawed at the snow, confirmed his find once more, and then let out a bark demanding his reward. Lu Jianyi gave him a dog biscuit while Ba Yunye dug the glove out of the snow and couldn’t help giving him a thumbs-up.

“Don’t celebrate too soon — freshly spilled liquid and liquid that’s been there for six months are very different things,” Diao Zhuo reminded her sensibly.

Ba Yunye was unconcerned. “We’ll take the gamble. After all, neither of us is a dog — we can’t really know whether it seems different to him or not.”

“What if it does seem different to him?”

Ba Yunye clapped her hands together. “Then congratulations — you and he are kindred spirits, two souls indistinguishable from each other!”

This logic… was, damn it, utterly airtight.

Half an hour later, the rest of the group arrived one by one, each panting like a winded ox. Some had developed symptoms of low blood sugar — they dropped straight to the ground, lips drained of color, complaining that their vision was swimming. Ba Yunye happened to have a large supply of cocoa powder in her bag. She tore open pack after pack, distributed a cup to each person, and — mimicking Han Dasheng’s manner — announced that it both combated altitude sickness and replenished energy.

Fu Yingtao sat on a large rock catching his breath, waving off the hot cocoa Jiang Ao’hang had brought over. His gesture was rather wide, and some of the drink splashed out and landed on his hand. He let out a yelp, and Fu Xingyue quickly pulled out tissues to wipe it clean. Jiang Ao’hang awkwardly poured the cocoa out for Fu Xingyue instead and brought Fu Yingtao plain hot water. Fu Yingtao didn’t take it. “Let me catch my breath first. You drink it. When you’re done, help me put on my crampons.”

“Sure thing.” Jiang Ao’hang drank it down in a few gulps and busied himself strapping on the crampons. Noticing that Fu Yingtao kept his hand cupped protectively, he asked, “Dad, sorry about that — did it burn you?”

“It’s fine.” Fu Yingtao replied mildly, which was rare for him.

Diao Zhuo looked up at the glacier — over twenty meters high, nearly perpendicular to the ground — and murmured to Ba Yunye: “The danger level of climbing that is no joke.”

Ba Yunye glanced over at Jiang Ao’hang and Fu Yingtao. “Falling off isn’t something to take lightly either,” she agreed.

That said, climbing the glacier wasn’t a matter of everyone charging up at once. They had to follow the route planned by the mountain guide, ascending in turn along the fixed ropes, each person’s harness clipped to the line — a safeguard against an accidental fall. Even so, they couldn’t afford to let their guard down where Jiang Ao’hang was concerned.

Diao Zhuo exchanged a meaningful look with his companions, and the group tacitly arranged their queue so that Fu Yingtao and Jiang Ao’hang were separated by at least five people. Behind Fu Xingyue came Ba Yunye, followed by the Tang Shan sisters and Pu Lan.

Walking on flat ground in crampons was like tottering around on stilts — unsteady and wobbly. On the glacier face, however, it was a different matter entirely: the crampon spikes bit into the ice and locked in firmly, giving you the leverage to push yourself upward. Most of them were climbing a glacier for the first time, and a sense of novelty mixed with timidity slowed their progress considerably. With the thin air at high altitude, just a few steps upward left them breathless and gasping.

The weather shifted back and forth between clear and overcast. Pu Lan said it was a good omen for clear skies tomorrow. The unsettled conditions and gusts of fierce wind that came and went, however, kept everyone’s hearts quietly on edge as they climbed.

The first few people had already completed the ice-climbing exercise successfully. Ba Yunye, seeing that both Fu Yingtao and Jiang Ao’hang had descended safely, felt a measure of relief. She gripped the rope and carefully sidled across the final anchor point — her movements cleaner and more sure-footed than the others. Once she reached the gentler slope of ice below, she picked up speed considerably and was practically jogging. As she neared the bottom, Diao Zhuo reached out to steady her. She stopped and grinned at him. “I feel like a cockroach clinging to a wall.”

“Since you’re a cockroach, I won’t hold back.” Diao Zhuo raised his foot as if to kick her.

A fierce gust of wind swept in, nearly sending Ba Yunye tumbling. She looked up and saw that the clouds above were moving very fast, most of them dark and brooding — tinged, even, with an inky blackness. Diao Zhuo stopped joking. He took hold of her arm and helped her down, saying, “It might snow again…”

Ba Yunye brushed at her jacket and trousers and took off her hat to wipe the thin sheen of sweat from her forehead. Diao Zhuo looked at her, his brow furrowing suddenly as his expression turned grave.

“What?”

He pressed down on the top of her head, then let go and looked at his hand, muttering a low curse: “Not good.”

He Ma let out a laugh. “Ba Yunye, your hair is standing straight up — you look like a cockroach’s antennae!”

Everyone who heard this looked over at her at once. Sure enough, the finer strands at the top of her head were standing up, every single one of them pointed skyward, like a cartoon lion with its fur shocked on end — comical, yet carrying just a faint trace of the uncanny. She ran her hand through her hair in a frantic attempt to smooth it down. Not only did it refuse to lie flat — even more strands sprang upright.

“Not good!” Ba Yunye cried out in alarm. The group erupted into commotion, and Diao Zhuo spun around and bellowed: “Drop your ice axes!! Remove everything on you that can conduct electricity and throw it as far as you can!!”