37°45'51.5"N 98°45'07.4"E– Tianjun County

  25.05.2024 – 11.00 UTC +08.00

  “How can the sun be so hot when it is so cold?” Ming asked.

  I looked at him, walking a little bit imbalanced, his head exposed to the sun’s rays. I had learned since very young in the Plateau, the sun’s rays could hurt, even if the air hovered barely above water freezing point. The teen’s clothes looked like a traveler’s standard set-up, but not for long trips like this one. I was sure he was not comfortable.

  “Are you feeling okay?” I asked. “A bit tired, but it is okay. Will we arrive soon?”

  “I think so,” I lied. We were going at almost half of my usual pace. Fang had said the next town following the highway was a six-hour walk, but I doubted he had his twelve-year-old grandson in mind. The more we walked, the more I avoided thinking about the possibility that we would sleep outside in the freezing wilderness tonight. There was nothing we could do but keep walking.

  At least the walk was comfortably slightly downhill, compared to my trip climbing Longmo'Er.

  “But where are we going?”

  “Yangkang Town. The next one down the highway. Maybe we can find someone to drive us for the rest there,” I said.

  “I see. And then?”

  “I have to go to the County. That’s where I am trying to go, to the Tianjun county seat.”

  “And what do I do there?”

  “I don’t know, kid,” I said.

  “I see.”

  It was sad to hear the desperation in a teen’s voice like that, but walking the mountains with me was a better fate than whatever his grandad had prepared for his village.

  “Is grandpa okay?”

  “Maybe not,” I said. For hours, he had asked nothing, walking slowly at arm’s distance, only petting Little Guy sometimes. Suddenly, he could not stop asking questions.

  “And grandma?”

  I looked at the boy. He was too old to really not understand what he had seen – or maybe he was not? Then I turned to our east and west, trying to find an answer to Xiulan’s fate by looking at the cliffs around us.

  “I don’t think they are alive anymore. I am sorry.” He was maybe not old enough to understand the reasons for the bloodshed, but I could not lie to him.

  The boy kicked a rock. He did not look angry or mad, just confused.

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  Little Guy barked. I looked in his direction, and past the slow turn of the road, a gas station reached our line of sight. Or at least, it looked like a gas station. It had a parking lot and three ground-level buildings next to it.

  “That’s creepy,” Ming said.

  “Creepy or not, we might be able to find food there,” I said, “or a landline to communicate.”

  For the past hour, I had been thinking: this was a highway, and we had not seen a single car pass by. Had people already learned what was going on in the north?

  “Let’s go,” I added, and picked up the pace.

  ? ? ?

  The canyon took a deep turn when we reached the gas station, the highway continuing side by side with one of the many rivers of the area, which you could see running muddy just across the highway. Next to the highway, a big sign was written in Uchen at the front of a building that looked like a shop:

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  “Chu gzhung ngal gso sa. Creek Rest Stop,” read Ming. I had never bothered to learn to read Uchen, even if I understood when people spoke in Tibetan.

  “Looks like a pitstop for truck drivers,” I said, “but nobody’s here.”

  All the buildings’ windows had their shutters shut. The doors were locked, and no car waited in the driveway.

  “You think they have food in there?” Ming asked.

  “Yes.” While one building looked like a typical gas station, the second one with the sign was large enough to be a diner. I ran closer to peek through the shutters. “Yes, it looks like a restaurant. But nobody’s here.”

  I weighed the options as the sun lingered higher in the sky. This could be a place for a secure rest for a few hours, but was it worth the waste of time?

  Ming ran by me and then rushed to the door. He leaned forward and, pulling a small tool from his satchel, he started picking the lock of the door.

  “I am not sure that’s a good idea,” I said.

  “I am hungry, and nobody is around. We eat, and we leave.”

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  I wanted to protest, but only because this kid had more resolve than I had. By the time I tried to weigh my options, he had already picked the lock.

  The door creaked, indicating rust, followed by a tiny chiming sound, a visitor’s doorbell. Ming’s resolve faded as he saw the empty restaurant and turned to me.

  “You first.”

  I scoffed. First he broke, and then he coerced me to enter.

  “Fine. It is just a restaurant,” I said and walked inside. Wooden tables were arranged to the side, with chairs lifted and placed upside down on them. There was an open kitchen, and a bar to separate the dining area from it.

  “They took their time to pack up and leave,” I said, as I let a finger pass through one of the tables. Minimal dust. They had abandoned this place a few days ago already, but not in a hurry.

  The bell chimed once more as the door closed, and then Ming opened it to get behind me. He rushed by my side, almost hiding behind me.

  “Relax, this place is empty,” I said, but I kept my voice low. Who knew? “Let’s go to the kitchen and try to find something that is still edible.”

  “Do you think they have shānzhā piàn? Haw flakes?” Ming asked, his voice faltering a bit. This kid had a sweet tooth, even after everything he had seen; he had devoured all Xiulan’s cookies from my bag, and he was now begging for more.

  “I don’t know.”

  I walked past the bar, Ming on my tail. The bell chimed once more, as Little Guy decided to push the door with his snout and get in as well. He ran by the tables and started sniffing around them.

  I looked through cupboards and two mini fridges in the bar; everything was emptied, besides a couple of berries that had gone bad. I searched through all the drawers: nothing. Except for the last one, with a phone inside. I picked it up, and I heard the familiar tone of a connection.

  “Thank God,” I said. My finger hovered over the number pad, and I realized I had no one to call. Nobody was alive back in Sulixiang, there was no question. And the only numbers I knew by heart were those of family from there. I could also call the police.

  I gazed around the abandoned restaurant.

  What was I going to tell them? We had broken into a restaurant and were calling to be arrested? Perhaps it was not a bad idea, though – that would oblige them to bring us into custody. But nobody could guarantee that it would be in Tianjun. What if Túshā arrived wherever they brought us, and the kid and I were trapped in a jail cell?

  “Hey, Duìzhǎng, Captain” Ming said, giddying up a smile. I found it hilarious that he would call me like that; perhaps Jiāng sounded similar to that to him.

  “I am not your Duìzhǎng, kid.” I turned around, and I saw him trying to hold six colorful plastic packs of instant, dried noodles. “Oh wow! Mission accomplished!”

  I hang up the phone. It was time to recharge and eat.

  “Let’s find a pot and make a mean meal, Ming!”

  Little Guy ruffed. Maybe this pitstop was what we needed to turn our luck around.

  ? ? ?

  “If this clock is right, it is now four,” I said, looking at a clock hung on the wall.

  “Should we go?” Ming asked, and subsequently burped. He had consumed three bowls of hot noodles – I had consumed five.

  “No,” I said, “I checked a map in their drawers. At this pace, we need six to seven hours of walking to get to Yangkang Town, and I doubt we can do that.”

  “I can.”

  “Sure kid. Look, if you get tired in the middle of the canyon, we have nowhere to rest or run to. Tomorrow morning, we can pack up at six and be there by noon. If you have energy,” I said, and I assumed a conspiratory expression, “we can scavenge around this and the floor above – see who finds the best treasures to carry?”

  Ming’s eyes glinted with excitement. It made sense: for a kid, this was all a once-in-a-lifetime game. Going into empty buildings, ransacking. Eating noodles. All I could think of was that we were broke, and we needed money to hitch a ride from our next stop.

  “Alright! I start!” Ming said and started running.

  “Tsk, tsk,” I clicked my tongue between my teeth, looking at Little Guy. The hound ruffed and followed Ming up the stairs on the side of the kitchen. “Stay close to the two of you, okay?”

  “Okay!” Ming shouted and then started laughing.

  I stood up and went behind the bar of the restaurant again, and spent a good minute staring at the phone. I grabbed my backpack, crouched, and started digging through things.

  “Here you are,” I said, but it took a moment to pull and juggle the small notebook out of the bag. I also pulled a small mobile phone, which I had managed to charge briefly in Lóngmén, but at no point did it find a reliable signal for a call.

  I first had a look through the mobile phone and my contacts there. Among my favorites was my father, my aunt, Sulixiang’s doctor, a pest control company… It did not matter. They were all from the north – where Túshā came from – or from towns I had long passed through in my travels. I knew nobody in Tianjun County, and there was no cell reception to find a number from the internet.

  Then I searched through my notebook. Important dates, doodles, and notes from my life days ago, before everything. In there, a phone number: the state-run food distribution company stationed in Tianjun, bringing food to Sulixiang every month.

  A few months ago, my father fell ill. He was supposed to get better after a few months of rest and a careful diet. I got in touch with the authorities to communicate all necessary supplies. He was getting better, but we did not know we were working under a deadline. The illness kept him in bed long enough to be too weak to escape the carnage when it landed.

  I stared at the phone number for a while. I picked up the phone and pressed the numbers one after the other. It was worth a shot.

  “Hello. You have reached Qinghai Provincial Grain & Food Co.”

  “Hello I-”

  “Unfortunately, we are not reachable on the weekend. Please call us again from Monday to Wednesday from seven…”

  I hang up. Automatic voicemail. It was Saturday – it did not even cross my mind.

  My hand started shaking. I must have walked more than two hundred kilometers in the past week, fifteen of them just today. My father’s voice echoed again in my head:

  “You go the opposite way. You do not waste time. You just keep going.”

  Somehow, I had hoped that a simple phone call would bring something here. Cars, helicopters, I did not care. Something that would stop the constant running. And what if the next town I met was even more mad than the last one? Or what if everyone had already run away, and I had to carry Ming for another two hundred kilometers?

  Ming came down the stairs running, carrying a plastic bag, and from the sound of it, he had gone through anything remotely interesting and collected it. He dumped the bag by the kitchen bar.

  “There is more!” He said, and he ran upstairs again.

  “Great,” I said. I lowered the phone to reset the call. I had the number memorized, so I immediately typed it.

  “Hello! You have called,” I heard my father’s voice, and then mine, “the Mǎ House! We are probably not around.”

  I sounded so happy in that record. My father continued:

  “But we always welcome any message – after the tone.”

  The tone hit my ears.

  “I am not sure I can run anymore. I know that disappoints you dad. I am sorry,” I said, and hung up the phone.