From the novel: I Promise You a River of Stars

The convoy bounced along and arrived at the checkpoint, where armed border police officer Zhang Shun examined their search-and-rescue authorization letter, then led them along the edge of the lake to the Changre Protection Station on the other side. The station had white-painted walls and black window frames, conspicuous against the expanse of yellowish-brown grassland — that was the typical color scheme for buildings in Tibetan areas. The person in charge here was a Tibetan man in a long robe with a dark, weathered complexion named Ci Dan; his two assistants, Ni Ma and Suo Lang, were both exceptionally warm and welcoming.

This was the third time Zhang Shun had taken out the notebook bearing Zou Kaigui’s registered name to show a rescue team entering Qiang Tang to search for him. He was unaware that the two previous teams had both failed to find Zou Kaigui.

Zhang Shun spoke: “He (Zou Kaigui) had brought a camp stove, a handheld GPS, and batteries. The previous team mentioned that finding the handheld GPS would mean they were halfway to success.”

Diao Zhuo asked: “Did he mention any difficulties he’d encountered, or complain about any physical discomfort?”

Ci Dan thought for a moment, then spoke at length in Tibetan. Ba Yunye translated smoothly for the group: “They say Zou Kaigui reached the protection station on the fifth day after entering Qiang Tang. After the armed police gave him a strong warning, he promised he would return to Rutog County by the same route he came in on. They kindly helped him check his bicycle and found the welded joint on the cargo rack had completely split open, and the wheel was also wobbling. He said he’d taken a hard spill going downhill, so they could only bind it up with straps and wire, and added a bit of oil. They feel that with Zou Kaigui having been missing for nearly 80 days, the likelihood of survival is zero.”

Diao Zhuo said: “Ask them — what was Zou Kaigui’s condition when he arrived at the protection station?”

After Ci Dan responded, she translated again: “They say when he arrived at the protection station he ate ferociously — the amount of food he consumed was equal to the three of them combined. When he left, he said the water in his water bags was nearly gone; he refilled three bags at the protection station before setting out.”

“Did he say anything about his daughter?” Diao Zhuo tilted his chin toward Ci Dan.

After hearing Ba Yunye’s translation, Ci Dan looked completely blank — seemingly unaware of any connection between the missing middle-aged man and a daughter.

Ba Yunye found this astounding. “They don’t know about Zou Kaigui’s story of searching for his daughter. He never told them.”

This piece of information left everyone involved in the rescue at a loss.

“Maybe he felt the people at the protection station couldn’t have seen his daughter, and there was no point in telling them.” Ye Xun offered a vague explanation that had a slightly evasive quality to it.

In reality, staying quiet at a moment like this would have attracted less suspicion.

Ba Yunye crossed her arms, her tone neutral — though deliberately testing Diao Zhuo’s capabilities: “Captain Diao, what’s the plan from here?”

“The principle of searching off his original planned route remains unchanged. However, I believe he wouldn’t have strayed too far — three bags of water aren’t enough to sustain him over a long detour, so he would have come back to a route with wheel tracks, and especially one with relatively clean water sources. We split into three teams and expand the search in the northeast and southeast directions.”

Ba Yunye pressed: “Zou Kaigui is an experienced cyclist. To avoid checkpoints, he wouldn’t have gone wandering at random. Captain Diao needs to give a more specific principle.”

“Follow the tributary river channels of the freshwater lakes.”

“Why?”

“When he arrived at the protection station and ate voraciously, it showed that in the preceding days his physical energy had been in an extraordinarily depleted state — but he had kept his appetite in check and eaten little. This tells us that throughout his crossing he was focused on making his supplies last. Traveling along routes that can provide a water source at any moment is more efficient than detouring to find water — even if melting ice takes time. Besides, the terrain near river channels tends to be flat, which avoids burning more energy. Of course, river channels with wide flow areas can be ruled out — if the ice has thawed too much, his snow vehicle can’t ford them, and it would soak his shoes and trousers.” Diao Zhuo raised an eyebrow. “And getting wet out here isn’t a pleasant experience.”

Ba Yunye deliberately looked him up and down with an indecorous smile. “Personally, I find ‘getting wet’ quite enjoyable.”

Outright flirting!

Diao Zhuo acted as though he hadn’t heard.

Xiang’an asked: “Do you have a lead yet?”

“I know which direction to go. Tomorrow, just follow my vehicle.” She smiled confidently.

“Master Ba is brilliant!” Ye Xun said happily.

River Horse swelled with pride on her behalf. “Our Master Ba is a living map.”

Considering everyone’s physical and psychological adjustment to entering Qiang Tang for the first time, Ba Yunye suggested staying one day at the protection station before heading out the next morning. Because beyond this point, there was no guarantee of encountering any more humans.

In the afternoon, apart from the wind, the weather didn’t change much; it seemed unlikely to be as cold as the previous night. Xiao Zi was fiddling with her camera and asked whether she could photograph the starry sky that evening. Ba Yunye readily agreed, saying that with a lake and mountains outside, the star-filled sky would come out especially beautiful — provided she could endure the fierce wind and the low temperatures. She also warned that if the temperature dropped too low, the camera could be damaged.

Ni Ma and Suo Lang cooked a dinner with both meat and vegetables: four heaping basins, plus two large pots of barley noodles topped with minced meat and green onions, all steaming hot and set out before a round table. The conditions at the protection station were modest; Ni Ma and Suo Lang had frozen the minced meat in advance, and when the noodles were cooked they ladled in several spoonfuls — the noodles were thus declared ready. The noodles made from barley are darker in color than wheat noodles and lack their chewiness; the broth is light, and the texture is soft and yielding, without any elaborate toppings — their virtue was the pure, clean flavor of the Tibetan pigs’ meat.

The men filled large bowls and bent their heads to eat. The old-fashioned radio played a Tibetan folk song, upbeat and lively, the driving rhythm of the drums invigorating the spirit. Everyone, not having eaten a proper meal for two days, suddenly found themselves understanding how Zou Kaigui must have felt when he ate his way through three people’s worth of food.

Tibetan hospitality fully showed itself at the dinner table. Ci Dan began to dance along with the folk song; Ba Yunye set down her chopsticks and joined him, singing as she moved with graceful ease. The members of the rescue team, who had come to regard her as one of the guys, were all struck with a flash of startled admiration. In the end, it evolved into almost everyone circling the table in dance — nobody cared whether they had the steps right or not; whoever was in front did something, whoever was behind copied it. Everyone was singing and dancing, all of them panting like cattle.

Diao Zhuo sat still without moving, his gaze drifting without realizing it to follow Ba Yunye through the crowd. A woman of striking looks draws a man’s eye even when she’s simply standing still in a crowd — all the more so when she’s moving like a dancing spirit. He watched as she came spinning past in his direction, the scarf in her hand offered up as a ceremonial greeting cloth and draped around Diao Zhuo’s neck. She was bright and breathless as a sparrow weaving through clouds. “Come on, Captain Diao!”

With that, she took hold of his hand and pulled him directly into the dancing crowd.

“Gone mad, all of them!” Ye Xun, swept along by the crowd, found himself dancing and waving his arms whether he liked it or not; he couldn’t resist the infectious energy of the moment, and without inhibition grabbed Xiao Zi’s hand and spun around the room with her. Xiao Zi had been quite happy until he grabbed her, at which point her expression darkened; she shook her hand several times without freeing herself, dropped her gaze, and swayed along listlessly.

“Ho—!” Some of the team members, not satisfied with the current level of excitement, celebrated like athletes who’d just won a championship, leaping onto a companion’s back and waving their scarf or hat through the air.

Diao Zhuo, who had evidently sensed this coming, was proven right when Ba Yunye sprinted up and landed on his back with the nimble agility of a monkey, hollering “Giddy up!”

He did not reach back to support her legs. He turned his head and asked: “Think I can’t throw you off?”

“Give it a try.” She locked her legs around his waist, and both arms went straight around his throat from behind in the classic rear naked choke hold.

Diao Zhuo had trained in kickboxing and knew exactly how lethal that technique was. Right now she was just playing around, so she wasn’t using any real force — and so he didn’t resist. In a real fight, if someone locked that hold on you, all you had to do was strain your neck slightly, and snapping it would be a matter of one good squeeze. Her capacity for violence — he had now come to appreciate it. This woman was absolutely someone you could treat as a comrade.

“Clunk” — the whole room went dark. Only the solar-powered streetlights outside were still on.

Ci Dan said: “It’s fine, probably the diesel generator malfunctioned. Let me go take a look.”

All the dancing people in the room fell quiet; the sound of panting filled the air, one after another. Singing and dancing at 5,000 meters altitude was not something just anyone could endure. Still, everyone felt quite happy — as the saying goes, meeting is fate.

In the darkness, Diao Zhuo felt the arms that had just been locked around his neck go slack, as though she were about to get down, so he waited in silence — but then, unbelievably, she blew a soft puff of air directly into his right ear.

Diao Zhuo’s fists clenched; something caught in his throat. To say his mind remained unmoved would be a lie.

She acted like a man in every other way — and yet when it came to this kind of provocation, she knew exactly what she was doing.

The soft, warm tip of her tongue then grazed across his earlobe.

Diao Zhuo went rigid all over. A rush of heat surged upward from somewhere below, flooding into his brain; every cell screamed at him — keep this up and you’re done for. He reached back and grabbed her waist, pulling her bodily off him.

She gave a small “ah” as she landed. He turned around; she punched him — her fist bounced off his solid body; she swore under her breath, then said quietly: “I twisted my ankle…”

Good. Serves you right. Maybe now you’ll stop stirring up trouble.

The lights came back on as abruptly as they’d cut out, and Ci Dan called breathlessly from outside: “Done! All good!”

Ba Yunye limped over to the other side of the crowd, deliberately putting distance between herself and Diao Zhuo — as though afraid he might actually strike her.

Diao Zhuo made a point of checking her leg… well deserved.

Even so, he parted the crowd and walked over to her. She really was utterly without standards — just sitting on the floor, shoes off, massaging her own foot. Diao Zhuo pointed at her foot with a provocative air: “Lucky it’s the left ankle — you can still drive.”

“Can’t drive at all — someone’s going to have to carry me the whole way.” She pushed her luck shamelessly.

“Really?” With that, he actually lifted his foot as if to bring it down on hers.

Even seated on the floor, Ba Yunye raised her face and looked up at him sideways, with the expression of someone who feared neither heaven nor earth.

This woman! Diao Zhuo wasn’t actually going to stamp on her, but he went through the motion anyway.

She reacted with lightning speed — both hands seized the leg he’d raised and twisted it to the side; simultaneously she freed one hand and drove it at his flank. Had the sequence played out fully, the moment her opponent’s body tilted off-balance, he’d have been flipped and pinned face-down on the floor in the next second.

Diao Zhuo had already steadied himself with a hand on her shoulder, his tone firming: “Really necessary?”

The hand that had been aimed at his flank went slack. It gave his hip the lightest of taps. “Just kidding.”

Having been cheekily taken advantage of — again — a vein pulsed in Diao Zhuo’s forehead. He suppressed the impulse to flip her over his shoulder, and instead reached down and pulled her to her feet. River Horse had been quietly enjoying the show for some time; when Diao Zhuo turned back his way, he promptly offered a cigarette with a grin: “Captain Diao — Master Ba’s a handful, isn’t she.”

Diao Zhuo lit the cigarette and didn’t reply right away, though privately he thought: a handful doesn’t begin to cover it — she’s got the combat skills to overpower any man.

Xiang’an came over looking a little worried. “How about you ride in my passenger seat tomorrow, and let Da Qin drive your car.”

Ba Yunye looked at him and gave a slight shake of her head.

Xiang’an blinked, then suddenly understood, and burst out laughing. He reached out a hand: “Need help up?”

Ba Yunye took his hand without any fuss; with one good pull she was on her feet, and she dropped down into a chair, scooping up a few more noodles and slurping them down — she hadn’t quite finished eating.

Xiao Zi put on her hat and headed outside to photograph the stars. Ye Xun picked up the tripod and followed to watch. Several other team members went to help Ci Dan and the others boil hot water.

That girl’s actually going out… Ba Yunye shook her head, expecting she wouldn’t last long before the wind beat her back inside dizzy. She’d been driving all day and was beginning to nod off; she figured she’d get a basin of hot water, give herself a rough wipe-down, and roll off to sleep.

It was cold tonight too, but not as bone-chilling as the night before. The thermometer read -10°C. There were no clouds, and the moon looked bigger than usual. The countless stars in the clean air were completely visible from horizon to horizon. The wind was still fierce, whipping the plastic tarps that covered the dried dung patties with a loud snapping sound; even the stones weighting the edges weren’t enough to keep them down.

Xiao Zi had no intention of waiting for Ye Xun. She walked out onto the frozen lake surface at a brisk pace, not responding when he called after her several times. Ye Xun slipped, went down hard — face-planted like an old woman diving under a quilt — and scrambled up, then lunged forward and seized her shoulder with one hand, yanking hard: “Are you deaf?!” Xiao Zi met his eyes with a cold stare and felt more and more that he was repulsive.