From the novel: I Promise You a River of Stars

“The wind was too loud — I genuinely didn’t hear you.” Xiao Zi explained.

Ye Xun looked her up and down with displeasure, his face a stony gray, and said impatiently: “I had you bring a camera to document the hardships we face searching for Zou Kaigui. Not to photograph these sentimental scenes.”

“Taking some for my little brother to see. He’ll never get a chance to come here.” She had asked Ba Yunye earlier whether she could photograph the Milky Way; Ba Yunye had said the Milky Way doesn’t rise until dawn in this month.

Ye Xun smiled. “That half-paralyzed child — who knows whether he’ll ever walk again.”

Xiao Zi’s expression fell, and she could only swallow it.

“Our chances of finding Zou Kaigui on this trip are pretty good.” Ye Xun said with confidence. “Even if we don’t find him, you need to capture the moment where the rescue team insists on going back while I plead with them to keep searching — only for my pleas to fall on deaf ears.”

“Understood.” Xiao Zi agreed mechanically.

“Zou Kaigui died as he should have. These past few years he’d been fabricating travel expenses and siphoning tens of thousands from me — I won’t hold that against him.” Ye Xun stood with hands in his pockets, gazing up at the stars. “This time, if we can smoothly find his body, after we get back you compile the charitable donations that other people made to his account, and in his name donate them to disadvantaged children’s charities or websites that help find missing kids. Say it was his final wish.”

“Understood.” Xiao Zi had figured out by now that Ye Xun was the type who hoarded the big fortunes while appearing generous with small ones. She asked one more question: “What about Zou Xiaowen? Are they giving up looking for her?”

Ye Xun raised an eyebrow with an air of knowing something nobody else knew; he repeated the name Zou Xiaowen, then gave a low, enigmatic laugh.

In that moment, Xiao Zi suspected there was no such person as Zou Xiaowen at all. Looking at Ye Xun again, beyond his ugliness she now saw the terror of a conspirator.

Ye Xun rubbed the tip of his nose. “Too cold. Let’s go back.”

“Just a little longer.”

Suddenly, from somewhere underfoot came a crisp snapping sound. Xiao Zi shone her light down — and the ice beneath Ye Xun’s feet had cracked open. She stepped back. Ye Xun shouted: “Don’t move!” She looked up at him, and then scooped up the tripod and camera and ran.

“Hey!” Ye Xun grabbed her. The ice under his feet had already broken, and the cracks were spreading outward with terrifying speed in all directions, with a series of snapping pops. Xiao Zi was his last point of balance — if she pulled him, he could use the leverage to step onto ice that hadn’t yet fully cracked.

Instead, Xiao Zi wrenched herself free and sprinted for shore.

With a rushing crash, Ye Xun plunged through into the icy water.

Ba Yunye was just about to tell River Horse to go fetch some hot water when she heard a shout from outside about someone falling in. She asked sharply: “What happened?” River Horse ran out to look, then came back: “Ye Xun’s fallen in the lake!”

“Where’s Xiao Zi!”

“No idea!”

“Damn it — forgot to spell out one more time not to walk on ice that’s not properly frozen!”

“Master Ba, now what—”

“Save him! Now!” Ba Yunye leaped up and ran outside.

The rescue team members had already shouldered their ropes and charged out ahead of her. Fortunately Ye Xun could swim; he thrashed and didn’t go under, and the moment the rope landed he clung to it with everything he had, and was dragged up onto the ice that was relatively solid. He was shaking violently with cold, but otherwise was unharmed.

Everyone worked together to carry him to shore. The hot water that had been boiled earlier would now likely all be used to warm him up. Ba Yunye efficiently mixed up a sachet of cold medicine and brought it over; passing by Diao Zhuo, he glanced at her leg, and gave a heavy, meaningful snort.

“Foot all better so quickly?”

It had never been hurt in the first place. Ba Yunye acted as though she hadn’t heard.

“You filthy——!” Ye Xun’s lips had already turned blue, but he suddenly erupted like a corpse lurching back to life and lunged through the group at Xiao Zi, both hands clasping around her throat, as though doing his absolute best to strangle her to death on the spot.

Diao Zhuo stepped forward, one hand steadying Xiao Zi, the other pushing Ye Xun back five meters.

“She shoved me!! She’s a murderer!!” Ye Xun shrieked.

“You’re the murderer!” Xiao Zi cried out in desperation.

“I’ll kill you right now!”

“Come on then! I’m not afraid of you!”

“What did you just say?! You—!!”

“Everyone shut up!” Diao Zhuo roared, his authority overwhelming. “Get him inside and get him changed!”

Tan Lin, Da Qin and a few others steered Ye Xun inside. Xiao Zi crumpled to the ground and broke down sobbing. Ba Yunye stood with her cold medicine — holding it like a cup of coffee — and watched the drama with River Horse, one tall, one short, standing side by side. Every trip along every route brought different clients and different situations; every journey was sometimes full of pleasant surprises, sometimes full of alarming ones. But all of the sudden moments had long fuses behind them, and Ba Yunye had long since stopped being surprised by any of it.

After more than an hour of chaos, Ye Xun had fully recovered, wrapped in a military-style padded overcoat; he was delivering a torrent of insults with Xiao Zi’s name in full, one derogatory word after another. High-altitude nights, and cursing burns more air than dancing — within ten minutes he’d gone from an inflated puffer fish to a flat, dried-up salted fish, collapsed on the bed wheezing, lips still blue, crying out that his head was splitting — which was presumably genuine this time.

Da Qin, Tan Lin, and the others who stayed with him only gradually, belatedly pieced together that there might be a romantic relationship between him and Xiao Zi. A little while later, Qi Zi stayed behind to “look after” Ye Xun, and the others moved to another room to warm up by the fire — and to hear Xiao Zi’s “explanation” of her side of things.

The dried dung patties in the corner finally found their purpose; the fire burned softly, warming the surroundings to a gentle heat. A few potatoes were buried in the gray embers of the dung fire — the gift of the land, as a documentary might put it.

Xiao Zi’s eyes were red-rimmed; her cheeks showed chapped red patches, and skin that had taken a beating from strong ultraviolet rays and dry, fierce winds could barely withstand the sting of salty tears.

Xiao Zi spoke in a halting murmur, picking at the hem of her clothes: “What charity? Is there such a thing as a free lunch?… Take a few of his cotton-padded jackets and you owe him ten ghost-written puff pieces for his official website. Take two thousand yuan from him and you work a month at the charity canteen his company runs. And then there are people like me — I received what he called some ‘motivational scholarship’, then entered the company as a reserve cadre. What does ‘reserve cadre’ mean? An unpaid intern. I worked three months as an unpaid intern before entering a probationary period. The others who didn’t make it to the probationary period worked three months for nothing.”

Everyone remembered that Ye Xun had claimed Xiao Zi slept with him voluntarily in order to keep her job. What Xiao Zi was thinking about right now was how Ye Xun had used coercion and inducement to make her half-willingly, half-helplessly submit.

That day, Ba Yunye’s one remark had been a wake-up call. Why be afraid of that smiling tiger? At worst, she’d be disgraced here and have to start over somewhere new. Was she really going to spend her life as his personal outlet?

“Zou Kaigui was in the same boat as us — he took Ye Xun’s ‘help,’ and it came with strings attached. His personal accident insurance… the payout would be at least twenty million. The beneficiary is Ye Xun in full. …Otherwise, why would Ye Xun sponsor him? He’s a businessman — everything he does is a transaction. He can’t afford to come out the loser.” Xiao Zi imitated Ye Xun’s tone of voice: “‘You want sponsorship? Fine. First sign the insurance. I’ll cover the travel expenses, I’ll even pay for the insurance, but the beneficiary on your policy has to be me’ — he can’t wait for Zou Kaigui to die!”

“Twenty million — wow.” Ba Yunye’s eyes went wide. “If I got my hands on that much money, I’d stop doing these runs, go to Dali and take over a guesthouse and run it as the proprietress, hire someone to handle the accounts, and I’d go off and…”

Diao Zhuo cleared his throat loudly. River Horse stamped on her foot, and she finally came back from her daydream of sudden riches.

“If Zou Kaigui has only gone missing, the insurance payout won’t come through that quickly. Under the standard terms, you might have to wait two or three years. Finding the body is what formally confirms the death.” Xiao Zi said. “He doesn’t care whether Zou Kaigui was crossing a no-man’s land or a war zone. To him, living or dying is simply a question of whether he gets twenty-something million or not…”

“You’ve got a hell of a nerve——” Ye Xun kicked the door open and strode in, pointing at Xiao Zi with a murderous glare. Qi Zi rushed in behind him, making a helpless “I couldn’t hold him back” face. Diao Zhuo stood up, raised a hand, and positioned his body sideways to block Ye Xun.

“Zou Kaigui the gambling addict! You have no idea how much money I’ve paid off for him over the years — I have every cent recorded! When he wasn’t out cycling, he was at the gambling table!” Ye Xun knew he was no match for Diao Zhuo, and so spoke loudly from behind Diao Zhuo’s raised arm: “The insurance I took out for him — should the beneficiary be him? He’s got no one!”

And there it was — the two carefully maintained images, the philanthropic entrepreneur and the devoted father searching for his daughter, were both torn open in this back-and-forth, and left in tatters.

Ba Yunye and River Horse exchanged a glance. She said under her breath: “Let them rip. Keep ripping. Rip until they’re both ruined completely — just in time to witness the truth of that old saying: gold is not pure, people are not perfect.”

Xiao Zi saw the murderous look on Ye Xun’s face and clenched her jaw, keeping her eyes down.

“Mr. Ye, calm down — have something to eat and warm up.” Ba Yunye took the wooden stick and raked through the dung fire ash a few times, then used tongs to fish out two small potatoes, puffed out her cheeks and blew on them, and tossed them to Ye Xun.

Ye Xun had no choice but to catch them; they were scalding hot and left him grimacing, momentarily forgetting to continue cursing at Xiao Zi. Xiang’an was set off again, caught Ba Yunye’s eye, and quietly gave her a thumbs-up.

Once the potatoes had cooled a little, his temper flared back up; he pointed at Xiao Zi again. “Old Zou agreed to it himself — I didn’t force him. And you—” he pointed at Xiao Zi, “I didn’t force you either. You came to Tibet with me, went into the no-man’s land to search for someone — don’t you have your own conditions? Fifty thousand yuan, and you — why don’t you mention that?”

“Did I use it for myself?! It’s all for my little brother!” Xiao Zi’s tears broke open again.

“I don’t give a damn who it’s for. You ask me for money, and I just have to give it, no questions asked, no benefit to me?” Ye Xun’s face was ugly with rage.

“You’re so rich, and a philanthropist on top of it — shouldn’t it come naturally?” Xiao Zi said, her face blazing with indignation.

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch!”

The two of them were getting louder by the moment. Ba Yunye couldn’t stop herself from laughing, and when she was done, she just kept shaking her head. Then she interrupted playfully: “Mr. Ye, I’m pretty broke myself — how about sponsoring me a little?”

Ye Xun, in the heat of his anger, turned to snap at her — but the moment he laid eyes on her face, exotic and beautiful, even more captivating in the soft firelight, all the foul words he’d intended to hurl got swallowed back down. He pressed his lips together, drew a deep breath, and with an implied barb aimed covertly at Xiao Zi, said: “Master Ba, don’t joke around. If you were really willing to come to me — one hundred thousand a month.”

Xiao Zi’s expression darkened. She gave a heavy snort. Ba Yunye, hearing this, let the corner of her mouth curl upward. Diao Zhuo glanced at her — seeing that teasing look on her face, he knew she was warming up to swap some verbal jabs. At which point, everyone heard her sigh and say: “I don’t have anything that goes for a hundred thousand in services. But I do have something worth a hundred thousand.”

Everyone was curious; they looked over her accessories — watch? None. Jewelry? Also none. They all asked what on earth it was.

She took out her phone and showed them several photographs of star trails and the Milky Way. “A client of mine took these in the no-man’s land with a camera worth over three hundred thousand. Would you say they’re worth a hundred thousand?”

“Worth it! Absolutely worth it!” Everyone laughed, and she laughed along with them. Diao Zhuo knew she’d deliberately changed the subject to spare Xiao Zi further embarrassment, and cooperated fully with a faint smile. Looking at her, the firelight reflected in his eyes seemed as brilliant as the starscape in the photographs.

Ye Xun was perhaps still seething inside and refused to let it go. He said: “In that case, Master Ba’s personal value would be two hundred thousand?”

Ba Yunye, hearing this, realized the matter wasn’t quite settled, and so followed up: “Mr. Ye really is a businessman — puts a price tag on everything. First time I’ve learned I was worth so much.”

Everyone read the deep sarcasm in her words, exchanged glances, and changed the subject again.

After finishing the two potatoes, Ye Xun was informed by River Horse that the items burning in the stove, one block after another, were not firewood or charcoal — but dried dung patties. He immediately felt nauseated. Ba Yunye said: “Only dung from cattle that eat nothing but grass can be used as fuel — it’s not exactly something you can get everywhere.” Ye Xun still couldn’t accept it, retreated to a corner and retched at length, causing another extended commotion.

Everyone drifted back to their own rooms. Xiao Zi burrowed into her sleeping bag, as though she still had something to say. Ba Yunye felt that Xiao Zi, like Ye Xun, was not really her kind of person, so she pretended to be already asleep. Xiao Zi had no choice but to let it go.

Deep night, the temperature kept dropping; fierce wind mixed with light snow dusted the world in another layer of silver-white. The next morning the sky was still overcast — without the contrast of blue sky, the vast wilderness showed a parched yellow and stark lifelessness in every direction. By midday, the sky had cleared; patches of blue broke through the gray cloud bit by bit, and the mountains in the distance and the surrounding land suddenly took on a much warmer quality.

Ba Yunye led the rescue team southeast for a stretch and finally found Pu’er Lake. “Zou Kaigui veered off route — there’s a strong chance he came this way. The water here is quite clean; melt it and you can drink it. When he was crossing Qiang Tang the lake was still frozen, and chipping off ice at the shore wouldn’t have been too difficult. Further down there’s a basin — it’s all downhill, which conserves a lot of energy. The lake route ahead is broad enough to rule out — if too much ice had thawed, his snow bike wouldn’t be able to ford it, and it would leave his shoes and trousers soaked.”

Everyone drove along the shoreline. Great white clouds and the icy surface in the distance seemed to merge, white in all directions — you couldn’t tell where sky ended and lake began. Ahead, a freshly dead animal carcass lay in the path; Ba Yunye had initially thought it was a wild donkey, but up close she found it was a Tibetan brown bear — the Tibetan subspecies of the brown bear. The skeleton was scattered, the fur matted with dried dark bloodstains, as though it had been through a violent struggle. She picked up the bear’s skull and examined it — several puncture holes in the bone, and fragments of broken bone nearby. Clearly, this bear, like the cub from before, had died at the hands of poachers’ greed and mercilessness; and after death, had been gnawed clean by wolves or other carnivores.

Everyone couldn’t help thinking about it — and had been thinking about it all along — about what Zou Kaigui might encounter in Qiang Tang. A massive, agitated wild yak? A cunning, savage wolf pack? Or an unforeseen blizzard and sandstorm? Ye Xun no longer bothered to perform his philanthropic generosity; he didn’t care to know the circumstances behind Zou Kaigui’s disappearance. He only wanted to see the body.