Chapter 39: “A Secluded Nest” Part 2

Fu Tingli still remembered that right before she fully passed out, woozy from the alcohol, a smile clung stubbornly to her lips.

Kong Liyuan laughed by her ear.

Then, in the hazy, swaying light and shadow, she looked at Fu Tingli with that same distant, affectionate gaze from their time in California. Gently, so very gently, she brushed Fu Tingli’s hair.

Finally, in the softest whisper, she said, “Your hair’s a mess.”

Right after those words, Fu Tingli felt the woman’s touch—so light, so careful.

Deep in her heart, she made the strongest wish of her life:

She hoped this woman would live every day from then on just like this night—so free, so alive.

No more isolation or helplessness. A lifetime free of pain and illness, whole and unbroken.

But later, that greedy wish of hers would be dismissed as naive ignorance, shattered in the cruelest, most merciless way.

~~~

When Fu Tingli woke again, her head throbbed like it might split open.

Bright daylight poured in through the window, spilling across her heavy eyelids. For a moment, she thought she wasn’t in the Northern Border or Shanghai anymore, but back home in California.

Back beneath that huge, open window, with warm sunlight flooding her entire back.

But when she opened her eyes, it was still snow outside. The sun was so bright that the snow almost stung to look at.

She reached over to the bedding beside her and found it cool now, only a faint trace of the woman’s scent lingering.

Had Kong Liyuan gotten up this early again? This woman seemed like she never needed sleep.

Fu Tingli washed up in a daze, got dressed, and set out to find Kong Liyuan. That’s when she ran into Apa from the house.

Apa beamed at her, bringing steaming-hot milk tea and baked naan. She asked how Fu Tingli had slept and whether she liked the milk tea.

Fu Tingli smiled with crinkled eyes, just like yesterday. She said she’d slept well—better than yesterday. The milk tea was delicious—even better than yesterday’s.

Apa laughed heartily and said Fu Tingli’s friend had gotten up early that morning to make it. She’d come over specially to learn how.

Seeing the girl’s shocked expression, Saliha narrowed her eyes, recalling the morning scene. Compared to this lively, cheerful Kazakh daughter in front of her, the one named Yuan seemed to have a quieter presence.

But she was still someone who stood out. The man who’d come to rent the room had said she was a famous superstar.

Saliha didn’t follow that sort of thing. She only watched TV now and then and didn’t recognize many movie stars. She had no idea what kind of temperament this superstar had and assumed she might be hard to deal with.

But she turned out to be nothing like Saliha imagined. No pickiness, no complaints. She accepted whatever was offered and always smiled—smiling at Saliha.

Mostly, though, she smiled at the girl who’d come with her.

When Yuan was alone, however, she didn’t smile like that in front of them. Either she leaned against the outer wall with her head slightly bowed, smoking, or she stared blankly at the snow here, expressionless.

The young woman always seemed so lonely.

Saliha hadn’t interacted with her much. Any needs over these past few days had been handled through the girl named Pear.

Until this morning, when the sky wasn’t fully light yet and it was still dark outside.

Yuan had come to her, earnest and polite, asking to learn how to make milk tea.

Saliha wouldn’t refuse a request like that. Though surprised, she grabbed some fresh milk and cheerfully led Yuan through the process, starting with simmering it in the enamel basin.

Saliha only knew a little Mandarin, so talking with Yuan wasn’t smooth. But Yuan was serious about learning, meticulously noting every step. She even asked if Talmī and brick tea were available outside.

Saliha liked young people who treated food with such reverence. Smiling, she asked if Yuan planned to make it back home for the girl named Pear.

Pear loved the milk tea here. She’d blow on the steam, gulp it down, then scrunch up her face like a little girl and say how sad it would be not to have it once she left.

At the question, Yuan just smiled at her without much reply—maybe she hadn’t understood. A little later, she asked something else.

Saliha only caught a few words, but piecing them together, she figured the question meant:

Apa, have you ever left the Northern Border?

Saliha shook her head, of course. As a young woman, she’d roamed with her family, herding nomadically in tents without a fixed home. Only in her later years, as the Northern Border developed, had she settled into a brick house.

Yuan nodded, then gazed at the steaming milk tea and smiled slowly.

“The Northern Border is a good place,” she said leisurely. “It’s nurtured so many good people, full of love. Not one bad one among them.”

Saliha barely followed, unsure if Yuan meant “love” or “people who know how to love.” Either way, it amounted to the same thing.

Saliha laughed and clapped her hands.

“You outsiders are all like this,” she said. “You come for a visit and only see the good parts—the pretty snow, the carefree life that seems worry-free forever. All fun and games.

“But that’s because you didn’t grow up here. If you had, you wouldn’t be a superstar, and Pear wouldn’t be following you around on work trips.”

She assumed Pear was this superstar Yuan’s assistant, since the man had said she was from Yuan’s crew.

Saliha thought: If Yuan and Pear were just herding daughters, their faces sunburned red and wind-chapped year-round, chasing sheep and horses across the pastures season after season, never seeing the outside world or leaving it…

How would that be any better than what they had now?

Yuan seemed not to understand her words, just smiling and nodding without adding more.

“She got up early this morning to learn how to make milk tea from you?” Fu Tingli asked Saliha, genuinely surprised.

The milk tea in her hands was still steaming, the soul of milk and tea blending perfectly.

Saliha nodded and gave a thumbs-up. “Yuan picked it up quick. Really well.”

Fu Tingli nodded too, taking a bite of the baked naan and washing it down with the steaming milk tea. The lingering alcohol was driven out, and she even broke a light sweat.

With food finally in her stomach, she ate comfortably that morning, even going back for several more bowls of the milk tea Kong Liyuan had made.

After politely washing the dishes clean, Fu Tingli asked Saliha if she knew where Kong Liyuan had gone. She hadn’t glimpsed any sign of Kong Liyuan on the road outside.

Saliha thought for a moment, shook her head, and said she had no idea. She only knew that the other woman had gone out after finishing brewing the milk tea.

Gone out? Why would Kong Liyuan head out so early in the morning? And in a place where they’d only been staying for two or three days, with not a penny to her name.

Fu Tingli pondered this worriedly. Then she wrapped her coat tighter around herself and prepared to step outside. At that moment, Saliha grabbed her arm and asked with a grin if she still wanted to ride the cable car.

“What cable car?” Fu Tingli looked puzzled.

Saliha wore an expression of perfect understanding. She let out a sigh and said,

“You were making such a fuss about it last night. You wanted to ride the cable car and watch the sunrise and sunset.”

“Me?” Fu Tingli had no memory of it at all.

She assumed Saliha had gotten it wrong, but Saliha nodded with absolute certainty and said,

“You kept insisting on going. It seemed like Liyuan said… she’d take you there today.”

With Saliha’s firm confirmation, Fu Tingli decided to head toward the cable car station in search of Kong Liyuan.

It had been two days and two nights since the snow finally stopped. Outside, sunlight poured down in a thick, golden glow, and the roads were filling up with people again.

Many of the tourists who’d been stranded earlier had recovered over the past couple of days. Now they were out and about, gathering in rowdy clusters.

It was nothing like the day before, when the wide-open road had held only them and the howling snowstorms of the Northern Border.

Whenever Fu Tingli drank, her eyes would ache the next day, leaving her vision blurry as she looked at people and things.

Straining her eyes open, she made her way toward the cable car while peering at the shadowy figures crowding the road. At last, near the cable car station, she spotted a figure that looked like Kong Liyuan.

It was bitterly cold, and with the power outage, there was no way the cable car was running. The spot was remote too, with scarcely any buildings around. A few people wandered by at a leisurely pace, but none glanced their way.

The snow blanket remained pristine and immense, but Kong Liyuan wasn’t standing in it. She lay sprawled in the vast, empty expanse.

Utterly still, like a boat adrift without a soul aboard.

Once Fu Tingli’s blurry vision resolved enough to make her out clearly, her heart clenched in terror. She bolted into a run.

Bundled up thickly and starting from so far away, she arrived at Kong Liyuan’s side gasping for breath, slick with embarrassed sweat.

Kong Liyuan was still lying there in the snow, her hair tousled wildly by the wind. Her eyelids were simply shut, as if she were lost in thought.

From a distance, Fu Tingli had panicked, convinced Kong Liyuan had fainted. Up close, though her skin was pallid, her complexion looked normal—no signs of her having frozen into unconsciousness.

Fu Tingli let out a relieved breath.

Her gaze drifted to Kong Liyuan’s eyelashes, quivering faintly in the sunlight, then to the enormous snowfields piling up around them.

She thought she ought to ask what Kong Liyuan was thinking, how long she’d been lying there, why she’d come all the way out to the cable car station, and why on earth she’d decided to lie down in the snow.

She should haul Kong Liyuan to her feet and demand if she’d lost her mind. Lying out here in the freezing cold like this—it would freak anyone out and look downright strange.

But Fu Tingli hadn’t quite caught her breath yet. She could only pant for a few moments, until the whole world shrank to the sound of the wind and her own ragged breaths whipped into chaos by it.

Kong Liyuan seemed to have sensed her presence long before. Still lying on the ground, she broke into a lazy smile.

She didn’t open her eyes, but the smile was so relaxed and carefree that even the wind lost some of its bite in that instant.

Well, of course—with all the racket Fu Tingli had made, it would have been odd if Kong Liyuan hadn’t noticed someone approaching.

But why was she so certain it was Fu Tingli?

Staring at the strikingly clear smile curving Kong Liyuan’s lips, Fu Tingli suddenly stopped thinking altogether. No questions came to mind.

She exhaled a plume of white breath.

Adjusting the felt hat on her head, she bent down and plopped onto her backside. Then she stretched out her arms.

Sunlight beamed straight down onto the snow, their bodies sinking side by side into the earth. She lay down right beside Kong Liyuan, asking nothing at all.

As though it were the most natural thing in the world. As though there were no turning back.