That large box of heating patches, offered a bit awkwardly, was warmly welcomed by the hostess with her enthusiastic smile.
Just as they—currently in a tight spot with no cash on hand—were treated to a steaming feast of hand-grasped mutton made from a freshly slaughtered sheep by the hosts.
Wearing a face mask while visiting someone’s home for dinner was terribly rude.
Once it was clear that the evening’s guests were only locals and the two tourists staying with the hosts…
Kong Liyuan took off her mask, boldly baring her face with a bright smile playing on her lips.
The host’s Apa’s eyes lit up as she grasped Kong Liyuan’s hand. Under the patient, word-by-word guidance of their own Apa, Saliha, she haltingly pronounced a single, extremely awkward Chinese word:
“Pretty.”
The two visiting tourists, sharper than the local Kazakhs, recognized Kong Liyuan at once and let out a startled gasp.
They quickly clapped hands over their mouths, their faces alight with excitement as they fumbled for their phones—only to find them dead.
With great reluctance, they set them down again.
Moments later, their eyes met a pair of softly curved ones, friendly and gentle.
Those eyes watched them steadily amid the flickering yellow candlelight. Her T-zone bones were full and well-defined, her slightly brownish irises calm and composed in the dancing flames.
They held a hint of the wild beauty native to local Kazakh women.
Yet her somewhat pale, cool-toned skin and the ever-gentle smile at her lips lent her an air of obscure yet resilient vitality.
She held her own even sitting beside Kong Liyuan.
—— Two tourists exchanged a glance, knowing they shared the same thought.
When they looked back…
The owner of those eyes had already slipped over to their side with quick grace, offering them a soft smile. She raised an index finger to her lips in a “shh” gesture and said,
“Teacher Kong’s trip isn’t public this time. Please, please, big sisters—keep it quiet, okay?”
They had expected such a person to have a clear, soft voice.
But surprisingly, the owner of those eyes seemed to be ill; her voice was huskier and more subdued than imagined, yet comforting all the same.
Like a little bird, battered and tormented, slowly mending its broken life.
—— One of the tourists couldn’t help thinking this upon noticing the bird embroidered on the woman’s vest. She was a writer, here in the Northern Border to gather material, and she took particular interest in the unique people she encountered in life.
“Good, good, good.” Her traveling companion, already dazed by the “big sisters,” grinned and agreed. “We won’t say a word. Our little secret.”
Those eyes turned their smile on the tourists next.
Unable to resist, the tourists found themselves nodding along on impulse.
Only then did the owner of those eyes relax with a breath, murmuring “Thank you” before returning to Saliha’s side. She chatted brightly with the others in her halting Kazakh, her words stumbling but lively.
She laughed especially hard at some point, her eyes crinkling into slits.
Was she really Kazakh?
The tourist settled on that conclusion in her mind. But the next instant, a voice shattered it.
“She’s not Kazakh.”
The tourist snapped out of her daze, realizing she’d been staring at the young woman for far too long without noticing. Glancing aside, she found Kong Liyuan right beside her.
~~~ Nearly sharing the same vantage point, Kong Liyuan sat in the candlelight’s unlit shadows, bathed in the faintest glow as she watched the young woman chatting animatedly between the two Apas.
Perhaps out of some consideration, Kong Liyuan—who was always the undisputed center of attention in any crowd—had willingly retreated to the corner for this banquet. She dimmed her own powerful, magnetic presence, a faint relief settling over her.
The tourist hadn’t quite processed it.
Then she saw Kong Liyuan smile in the dim yellow light and murmur softly,
“Those are a pair of eyes you won’t easily forget, aren’t they?”
It wasn’t clear if she was asking the tourist—or if it even needed an answer.
“I think so,” the tourist replied, her instincts telling her it was the latter.
Kong Liyuan smiled again after she spoke, her thick, dark lashes lowering as she added tonelessly,
“I think you’d be better off forgetting them.”
“Huh? What?” The tourist blinked in confusion.
But a second later, she wondered if Kong Liyuan meant not to spill the beans about their visit here—same as with the young woman.
Yet somehow, it didn’t feel right; Kong Liyuan’s words carried a subtle exclusion, or perhaps it was just her imagination.
Puzzled, the tourist asked, “Is she your assistant?”
“No.”
When she looked up again, Kong Liyuan’s eyes were serene. She offered a light, faint smile and drawled lazily, as before,
“Of course we’re friends.”
~~~
Fu Tingli felt they had fully immersed themselves in the banquet.
At least for this night, it was as if they were nestled in a warm, exclusive haven.
A paradise apart from the world, a decadent refuge unlit by glaring lights.
They were outsiders, yet welcomed with the hosts’ fiery hospitality.
The thick, savory aroma of mutton filled the air as they mimicked the locals’ way of eating hand-grasped rice, sitting cross-legged without a care—Fu Tingli and Kong Liyuan utterly shed their identities from beyond the Northern Border.
They became nameless travelers, stripped of status, past, or future—existing only in this moment, fellow wanderers.
Dinner ended, and the hostess served each guest a bowl of freshly brewed milk tea. Everyone sat cross-legged on felt rugs, sipping and chatting around a cluster of fiery embers burning hot in an iron bucket at the room’s center.
The guide, after downing who-knew-how-many cups of fermented mare’s milk with the male host, sported a flushed, drunken face as he pulled out a borrowed horsehead fiddle and began to play.
One of the visiting tourists grabbed her hand drum, chuckling merrily as she tapped along to the fiddle’s languid rhythm now and then.
The male host started with some freeform, clumsy dance steps on the floor, then beckoned his wife to join him. Soon after, amid the bonfire’s searing warmth, he earnestly invited everyone else to dance too.
No one could refuse the hosts who had slaughtered an entire sheep in their honor, not in this atmosphere.
The two Apas hummed along to the wandering melody, dancing before pulling the young women present—Kazakh or Han alike—into the center for lively, vigorous steps.
Fu Tingli, of course, couldn’t escape.
But she never shied from such scenes, letting them pull her along with bold cheer.
Lost in the raucous, exuberant crowd, she belted out tunes in her unpolished accent and stomped through dance moves she barely knew.
The hanging felt rugs glowed red in the fervent candlelight, burning even brighter. The flames played across every merry face, smoothing every wrinkle on Apa’s skin, igniting every smile into an eternal blaze.
The haven was sealed tight, roving crimson light dancing within, rendering every face youthful, flushed, radiant, and alive.
One face stood out most of all—Fu Tingli thought hazily in the oxygen-starved heat.
Even if Kong Liyuan wasn’t as thrilled as her, content to sit half-hidden in shadow beyond the swaying candlelight…
Fu Tingli still caught that faint, affectionate smile on her lips with every glance.
It was a blacked-out night, the dim, flickering candles offering scant illumination—yet Kong Liyuan appeared clearer than in any bright light.
She was watching her.
Fu Tingli’s excitement had peaked; unable to refuse, she’d sipped a bit of fermented mare’s milk.
Now her cheeks burned hot amid song after joyful song, the whole scene ablaze with an unquenchable fire.
Her very being brimmed with the scent of food and the fiddle’s drifting strains.
Dizzy and swaying, she made her way toward Kong Liyuan, her steps unsteady enough that she nearly face-planted into her chest upon sitting.
But before she could…
Kong Liyuan had already steadied her firmly, guiding her lolling head to rest on her warm shoulder.
That faint osmanthus scent again, now warmed to a softer fuzz by the fire, enveloped Fu Tingli’s nose completely.
Dazed, she slumped against Kong Liyuan’s shoulder, gazing at the boisterous group still reveling at the center with unrestrained joy, and laughed freely, relaxed.
“What are you laughing at?” Kong Liyuan asked with a smile.
“Aren’t you laughing too?” she shot back. “So what are you laughing at?”
“You’re right,” Kong Liyuan replied in the thick, smoky firelight, her voice a lazy drawl. “I might not even know what I’m laughing at.”
“Yeah, I just feel so happy,” Fu Tingli said, her words coming slow as the aroma of fermented mare’s milk lingered in her mouth.
“You’re drunk,” Kong Liyuan laughed softly in her ear.
“Maybe. I can’t handle much alcohol. This is probably my limit already. If I drink any more, my eyes will start to hurt.”
“Your eyes hurt? I thought people said alcohol improves your memory afterward?”
This woman seemed to remember every single word she’d ever said, Fu Tingli thought to herself quietly.
“That’s what I thought when I told you. But later I realized I was wrong. Alcohol doesn’t help with memory at all.”
Fu Tingli said it with a smile, so Kong Liyuan laughed right by her ear again.
Once the laughter faded, Fu Tingli narrowed her eyes slightly and added, “I just remembered two people.”
“Zhu Muzi and Zhu Manda?”
Kong Liyuan remembered them too, clearly thinking the same thing at the exact same moment. She even used Zhu Manda for Amanda.
“Yeah. I wonder how their world tour is going. Have they made it to half the countries yet?”
Fu Tingli still remembered it clearly.
Back then, Zhu Muzi had stood on top of the car and shouted so boldly, “Zhu Manda, Zhu Muzi loves you too!”
With that thought, she glanced over and saw the male host and female host tangled up together, dancing in a wild, haphazard rhythm. The female host stepped on the male host’s foot.
Then they suddenly pulled each other close and burst into laughter.
Fu Tingli’s eyes curved in a smile as she laughed along. “They must be doing pretty well.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Gut feeling.”
Fu Tingli struggled to recall those two faces, only to find she couldn’t picture them at all—except for that one line.
So she drawled on slowly,
“After all, lovers will always end up together. I hope they’re happy. I hope they never have to part.”
She really was getting fuzzy now, her words fragmenting more and more. After that, she felt a wave of dizziness and let her eyelids droop for a moment.
The whole world plunged into darkness, save for the faint flicker of firelight dancing dimly in the shadows. She figured she must be drunk.
The idea that alcohol helped memory was pure nonsense, after all.
Why else couldn’t she summon Zhu Manda and Zhu Muzi’s faces no matter how hard she tried?
Even later, when she would wrap herself in a blanket and reminisce about this night in the Northern Border, her memories would only vaguely include this: for a stretch afterward, she and Kong Liyuan simply sat there in the warm glow, heads leaning against each other.
Maybe they chatted about nothing in particular. Maybe they said nothing at all.
They just watched the guide’s flushed red face as he played the horsehead fiddle, watched the tiny flames leap in the fire, watched the rowdy crowd dancing right in front of them.
Even tucked away in the corner, they felt none of the stiffness they’d brought from outside the Northern Border. They had blended in completely.
It was as if the sky here would never lighten.
