Аfter sevеrаl hеаvу snowfalls, Tibеt wаs blanketеd in silver, with the snоwlinе оn thе mоuntаins descеnding significantly. The glaсiеrs and thеir surrounding lаndsсарes rеасhеd thеir most bеautiful moment оf thе yеar, though the dаnger of аvalanсhеs dеtеrrеd sоmе tourists.
Sincе рarting wауs in Gоlmud, Bаyunуе hadn’t seеn Diаo Zhuо for three mоnths. In her line of wоrk, аnу relаtionship cоuld bе сonsidеrеd lоng-distаnсе. Loоking аt the оther drivеrs in the club, mоst werе еithеr oldеr аnd singlе оr divorced. Тhe two who hadn’t divorсed yet wеre said tо havе mаrriagеs hanging by a thread. Coincidentally, Diao Zhuo’s job also kept him away from home for months at a time, so the two of them barely managed to find a balance.
One night, she asked Diao Zhuo, “The girls in Xinjiang are so beautiful—why haven’t you tried to charm one?”
The question left Diao Zhuo speechless.
The next night, Bayunye received a video he sent, filmed at their work site. Forget beautiful Xinjiang girls—there weren’t even any beautiful rocks in sight. What filled the screen was a group of rugged men, their dark faces starkly contrasting with their bright work jackets, each wearing a yellow hard hat. From a distance, even their own mothers would struggle to pick out their sons.
Where was there any trace of a woman?
“Take a picture of yourself,” she said, unsure how long it had been since she’d seen him in person. She missed him terribly, truly.
A moment later, he sent a photo—perfect, exactly the kind of selfie you’d expect from a straight-as-an-arrow man. Taken with the notoriously unflattering front camera of an iPhone, with no regard for angles, lighting, or posing. He frowned to mask his discomfort facing the camera, his beard growing wildly, looking thoroughly displeased and as unattractive as possible.
Bayunye’s lips curled downward as she typed—“So ugly.”
“You asked for a photo, then complain it’s ugly.”
“It’s not you who’s ugly—it’s the photo you took.”
“Fine, let me see how beautiful you can be.” He openly demanded a photo of her.
Bayunye also switched to the front camera, tilted her chin up, and flared her nostrils wide—a sight that would likely make an ordinary person consider breaking up.
She looked at the photo, laughing uncontrollably, hesitating whether to send it to him.
“Hurry up, I can’t wait,” he urged.
“Please calm down,” she replied, then sent the selfie.
For a long while, he didn’t respond.
“Did you faint?” she teased.
“Just woke up.”
“Captain Diao has his day too.”
“Master Ba is mighty.”
Knowing he was heading out for fieldwork the next day, Bayunye ended the chat early and tidied up her contacts, blocking him from her promotional posts as he’d requested. Around midnight, assuming he was already asleep, she adjusted the lighting, pulled down one side of her collar, and took a seductive, alluring photo. She was already a beauty, and with such a provocative pose, she looked utterly enchanting.
Fieldwork meant days without contact. Hmph, Bayunye rolled her eyes. If she was tormented by longing, he shouldn’t have it too easy either.
“Goodnight,” she sent the photo.
Over 2,700 kilometers away, Diao Zhuo gripped his phone tightly, typing each word as if it were a struggle—“Goodnight my ass!”
Early the next morning, the three college students on Bayunye’s trip were still eating breakfast, chattering excitedly and full of curiosity. They were all from Yunnan and had flown directly to Lhasa at the start of their winter break, planning to take Bayunye’s car back to Yunnan via the reverse route of the Yunnan-Tibet Highway. With the Spring Festival approaching, after this trip, Bayunye would either stay in Yunnan or switch to other routes. Tourism in Tibet would see another small peak in March when the peach blossoms bloomed in Nyingchi.Bayunye and the sole remaining staff member of Deji Inn loaded their luggage into the trunk. Brother Long walked around to the back of the vehicle and asked in a low voice, "After observing for so long, what's the situation?"
"They're after me." She ran her fingers through her hair, casually combing it a few times before putting on her woolen hat. "They've switched cars and followed me back and forth multiple times, tailing me every trip. I asked a girl I met at the gas station, and she said some of them looked like they'd been involved in shady circles—one even had a faded tattoo on his hand. They're probably just a bunch of thugs... but it's unclear exactly why. They're not after money or looks."
"Since Hippo left with the coordinates of the three photo locations and Zhang Chenguang's thermos, his boss must think there's more to dig up from you." Brother Long tapped and stomped around, casually checking her vehicle's condition. "Be careful on the road."
"Brother Long, I can't take it anymore." Bayunye's expression turned stern, her gaze cold. "This time, I'm going to teach them a lesson."
"There are still passengers in the car..."
"Don't worry, I won't endanger the passengers' safety." Bayunye put on her gloves and waved the passengers over to get in the car. "Besides, having them constantly tailing us isn't exactly good for the passengers either."
"Does Diao Zhuo know about this?"
"Distant water can't quench a nearby fire." Bayunye waved her hand dismissively and got into the car with a carefree air.
Brother Long watched Bayunye's car drive off into the distance, then turned back and received a call from Ge Mingliang. The latter regretfully informed him that he still hadn't been able to help locate Hippo's whereabouts. It was worth noting that his comrade Ge Mingliang had joined the public security system after retiring from the military. As long as it didn't violate regulations, he tried his best to help Brother Long investigate whatever he could, sometimes even enlisting the help of a colleague surnamed Hou. Fortunately, Hou was also very helpful—last time, when investigating Zou Kaigui, it was all thanks to Comrade Hou.
Ge Mingliang hinted to him that while the police's investigative methods could accurately locate a person, using such means to track down an ordinary citizen without a criminal record for no reason would violate regulations. Despite this, he also told Brother Long that Hippo seemed to have counter-surveillance awareness, knowing exactly what the police could use to track him, so he had abandoned all such methods.
Hearing this, Brother Long knew he couldn't push his old comrade any further and had to let it go.
Diao Zhuo and several colleagues from the project team were conducting field surveys, performing cross-sectional measurements of the geology near the mining area to prepare for the next phase of documentation. On the small blackboard in front of the project team's base camp was a poem written by the project's chief engineer long ago:
*In May, the Tianshan Mountains are covered in snow,
No flowers bloom, only cold remains.
I wish to draw the sword at my waist,
To cut down the Loulan with all my might.*
A colleague joked that without family, entertainment, or social life here, if they didn't read some inspiring poetry, they might often feel like giving up.
"The estimated grade is between 30% and 35%... deposited in the form of oxides and hydroxides in an oxidizing environment." Several colleagues were still discussing the results of the survey and the collected samples. Diao Zhuo sent a message to Bayunye, saying, "I'm back, I'll call you later."
"Diao Zhuo! Leave the samples for the interns to organize. Come over here."
A colleague told him that during their days in the field, his girlfriend had come to "check on him." Unable to reach him by phone, she had temporarily gone to Kashgar and asked him to meet her at the hotel once he returned. With that, the colleague handed him a hotel business card and a room number.Diao Zhuo recalled the provocative selfie Bayunye had sent him a few days ago.
His colleague, who was on the field survey with him, asked excitedly, "What does she look like? Is she pretty?"
"Quite pretty, tall, big eyes, long hair... down to here." The colleague gestured toward his shoulders.
"She came alone."
"She even told you the room number. Hurry up."
Pretty, tall, big eyes, shoulder-length hair—each characteristic matched Bayunye. But wasn’t she leading the Yunnan-Tibet route? In just a few days, she probably hadn’t even entered Yunnan yet, so how could she be in Kashgar? Puzzled, Diao Zhuo called Bayunye, but the number was out of service.
Compared to his colleague’s feverish excitement, Diao Zhuo remained much calmer. "What’s her surname?"
"How many girlfriends do you have? And they have different surnames?!" the colleague asked in surprise.
Diao Zhuo felt embarrassed.
"The machinery outside was loud, so I didn’t catch it clearly. It’s a three-character name." The colleague patted his shoulder. "She came all the way here to find you, and you’re still hesitating."
Diao Zhuo was still skeptical. "Did she leave a phone number?"
The colleague shook his head. "You don’t have your own girlfriend’s number? Hurry up, she’s been waiting for you there for days."
Another older colleague said earnestly, "In our line of work, finding a wife isn’t easy, and keeping one is even harder. Since someone is so devoted to you, coming all the way here to find you and wait for you, you should seize the opportunity."
Diao Zhuo glanced at them helplessly.
"Why aren’t you leaving yet?" The colleagues were more anxious than he was.
"I need to shave." With that, he turned and left, followed by a chorus of teasing.
Half an hour later, her phone was still unreachable. Diao Zhuo drove to Kashgar according to the address, clean-shaven, with only faint stubble marks left.
Given her personality, a surprise visit wasn’t impossible. At this moment, reason and logic were useless. His mind was filled with Bayunye’s photo, the way she teased him, the things she said. The emotions he had suppressed for so long surged like the raging Yellow River, roaring and rushing.
From the moment he met Bayunye, he had lost the rationality he once prided himself on.
As the car entered the hotel parking lot, Diao Zhuo dialed Bayunye’s number one last time—still out of service.
"I’m here, open the door."
The message went unanswered for a long time. Sitting in the car, hands on the steering wheel, Diao Zhuo tried to regain a shred of rationality and casually scrolled through their chat history. When the seductive photo she had sent a few days ago reappeared on the screen, he decisively got out of the car, locked it, and headed straight upstairs to the hotel.
"Ding dong."
There seemed to be hurried footsteps inside, and the door was about to open. Diao Zhuo’s heart inexplicably leaped, as if he had suddenly been pushed onto a stage, his heart rate quickening. The door opened, and Diao Zhuo restrained himself, glancing eagerly—a woman.
But it wasn’t Bayunye.
"Sorry, wrong room," he apologized politely and turned to leave, only to hear a soft, gentle voice calling from behind—
"Diao Zhuo..."
Earnest and emotional.
Diao Zhuo froze, turning back to ask, "...Who are you?"
"I’m—Meng Xiao Ai! Do you... remember me?"Diao Zhuo arrived in Kashgar after freshening up, his short hair neat and his face exuding a rugged masculine handsomeness. A black overcoat hung over his arm, while a sweater hugged his strong upper body, the subtle contours of his muscles faintly visible, radiating an aura of security and strength. In Meng Xiaoai’s eyes, he was even more captivating, especially since he had been the first glimmer of hope she saw in her Near-Death State.
After more than half a year of recovery, Meng Xiaoai had regained her former radiant beauty, a far cry from the state she was in when rescued from the desert.
Diao Zhuo felt a sudden sense of relief, but at the same time, the fiery passion stirred by Bayunye within him cooled completely.
“What do you need?” he asked seriously, his lost composure from earlier instantly restored. He was stern, formal, and all business. “Do you need me to sign some kind of certificate for your school or another organization?”
Meng Xiaoai felt that his demeanor now was somewhat different from when she first saw him at the door. “Um… no, actually…”
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