Chapter 40 Part 2

Midway, she thought: with all this noise, would they scare away every last little bird? Would they alert passersby? Would someone notice them lying here? Then someone might come over, find them strange, ask who Ayang was, who they were, and lie down beside them, joining in this abstract, foolish act of shouting into the innocent snowfield.

But no—there was no third person.

In the end, it was just the two of them, and the other lives willingly lingering on this Northern Border land.

And amid those words blown by the wind, shaken by the snow beneath, steamed by her heavy breaths—who knew when—a very faint call emerged.

“Fu Tingli.”

The wind and her heartbeat seemed to pause for an instant.

Fu Tingli breathed lightly, straining to discern if someone had called her name. After a long interval, she thought that “Fu Tingli” was just her imagination.

But the next second—

An extremely clear yet extremely vague voice came right by her ear,

“Fu Tingli.”

She blinked in confusion, and the palm over her eyes slowly lifted away.

The first thing in her view was a blurry white expanse; she squeezed her eyes shut with effort, then uncomfortably pried her eyelids open.

The background was still the vast snowfield; before her eyes was an extremely blurry figure. As it slowly came into focus, a gust of wind swept over, tousling her hair.

It fell messily over her face, scattering in the wind. Then, like an extremely slow-motion close-up, a warm touch appeared by her ear.

It was her, gently tucking Fu Tingli’s wind-tousled hair behind her ear strand by strand, then using her knuckle to lightly brush the still-damp corner of her eye.

She said nothing, as if that “Fu Tingli” earlier hadn’t come from her.

Yet Fu Tingli couldn’t help but tilt her head with the motion, her vision slowly sharpening.

Landing on an extremely beautiful, carefree smile.

So she stared at that smile, parting her lips to call “Kong Liyuan.” But before she could make a sound, a blurry, distant shout came from afar,

“Little sister! Superstar!”

Followed by a chaotic rush of footsteps, shaking the ground with thuds.

Like some omen, striding boldly right up to them, delivering a message:

The third person had finally arrived.

The glee in Kong Liyuan’s smile paused for an instant.

Fu Tingli wasn’t sure if she’d seen it wrong. Hearing those messy footsteps, she’d already clumsily pushed herself up from the ground, snow crumbling off her as she stood.

Then she turned toward the direction of the shouts.

In the distant, open snowfield, not far off was a limping figure approaching, face flushed red, looking both excited and nervous.

Fu Tingli pursed her lips, turning to help Kong Liyuan up. She watched Kong Liyuan lower her lashes to brush off the snow, half her face buried in her hood.

When she turned back around, it was the guide’s ruddy face, and an especially excited shout,

“The road’s open! We can go!”

–

Sitting in the bumpy, excited off-road vehicle, Fu Tingli was still a bit dazed, as if she’d just woken from an especially long, especially real dream.

Leaving a profound withdrawal reaction for the barely sobered dreamer.

After the guide’s “road’s open” came droves of people shouldering luggage to leave, and cars already streaming in in a mighty torrent.

It was Rong Wu finally exhaling in relief, and Kong Liyuan’s manager, who—for some urgent reason—took Kong Liyuan away on the spot, without even grabbing any luggage.

Once her phone was charged and turned on in the car, Fu Tingli learned that somehow the news had leaked: Kong Liyuan was trapped in Hewatu Village, topping the hot searches all night. The company had waited overnight for the road to open, but on the way to pick her up, they’d already seen reporters’ cars coming to cover the story, and tourists rushing in from all around, crowding every corner of the village, hunting for traces of the superstar Kong Liyuan trapped here.

In Kong Liyuan’s current state, she wasn’t fit to be photographed, much less appear in the public eye.

So the whisked-away Kong Liyuan didn’t even return “home” once—these past few days, they’d been calling Saliha’s home their “home.”

Before boarding that brand-new, extra-spacious off-road vehicle with blacked-out windows, Kong Liyuan—under urging from Rong Wu and her manager—walked unhurriedly to Fu Tingli, head lowered, and asked her,

“Do you want to come with me in my car?”

Amid the jostling crowd, Fu Tingli accurately spotted the guide squatting on the ground smoking, his hair a mess, face blown red and rough.

So she smiled softly and said, “No need, Teacher Kong. I still have to pack my luggage.”

“I’ll go with Guide Big Brother. Those sculpture props and such still need someone to watch them.”

Going back with the guide meant no rush; Fu Tingli could fully pack up and properly say goodbye to those she needed to.

It was clearly just a room stayed in for two nights and three days, now brimming with the breath of those days’ life.

Fu Tingli folded their bedding neatly, stacked by the bed, and packed all the items into the luggage case—the case now missing an outfit of her old clothes, missing a neat stack of hand warmers, but with an added felt hat, added packs of herbal medicine, and an added outfit that Kong Liyuan had worn here.

Only the white model sculpture remained unchanged, unopened, unfinished.

About Kong Liyuan’s old clothes, she casually asked before Kong Liyuan got in the car how to handle them—but the manager answered first, politely smiling,

“No need, thanks for the reminder, Teacher Fu. Just toss them for us, please.”

Fu Tingli thought, yeah, for someone like Kong Liyuan whose belongings could be traded for anything, she probably wouldn’t care about this outfit anymore.

But after those words, she saw Kong Liyuan turn back to look at her, in the increasingly biting wind, asking,

“Do your eyes still hurt?”

She didn’t speak. Kong Liyuan smiled again, then said, “If they do, take the leftover herbal packs in the room, soak a towel, and apply it.”

Under the manager’s urging, she said softly, “It was last night. I got it from Apa.”

Fu Tingli was stunned for a few seconds before nodding woodenly and saying, “Okay.” She watched as Kong Liyuan nodded and finally got into the car.

In the end, these few packages of herbs from the grasslands were left behind, along with Kong Liyuan’s old clothes. Fu Tingli thought that her suitcase had so much space—surely she could squeeze in a bit more. Keeping them for Kong Liyuan wasn’t a bad idea at all.

Once everything was packed, she picked up her phone, which had charged to over half full. The wheels of her suitcase scraped and rumbled across the floor.

She stood in the doorway and glanced around one last time. As she stepped out of the room, she snapped one more photo of the now-empty space on her phone.

Then she went to say goodbye to Saliha. The Guide didn’t rush her but quietly wheeled her suitcase out.

Fu Tingli hugged Saliha tightly, breathing in the steady, campfire-like scent on her, before mumbling, “Goodbye.”

Saliha stroked her head and gave her a particularly heartfelt “Bata”—a blessing that she would never be watched by eyes full of malice, that she would stay far from every unfortunate disaster and pain, that she would always be happy and healthy. At last, Saliha said to her, “Koz Timesen.”

Fu Tingli lingered in Saliha’s embrace, rubbing against her affectionately. She remembered that Kong Liyuan had left without even saying goodbye to Saliha.

So she explained, “The friend who came with me—she has a special job. If she came to say goodbye to you and someone from the village spotted her, you might end up getting bothered by a lot of people afterward.”

She said earnestly, “I’m apologizing and thanking you on her behalf.”

“It’s fine.” Saliha waved it off and spoke to her in Chinese. “I’ve seen Liyuan. She’s not the type who’s used to goodbyes anyway. She seems like she’d struggle with that sort of thing.”

Saliha’s Chinese was a bit halting.

Fu Tingli wasn’t entirely sure if she’d said “used to” or “liked.” But after thinking it over, she figured either word amounted to much the same thing.

Kong Liyuan was the sort of person who carried a profound loneliness in her life, one that couldn’t bear the weight of goodbyes or blessings.

Fu Tingli couldn’t even imagine what might have become of them both if, back in California that year, they’d shared a goodbye as warm and clear as this one.

In the end, Fu Tingli just smiled. “Thank you for the herb pouches. I’ll come visit you again sometime.”

Saliha shook her head. “A few pouches of herbs are nothing.”

Then she asked with concern, “Do your eyes still hurt?”

Fu Tingli obediently blinked a few times. No trace of that sour ache lingered in her eye sockets. She smiled and said, “They’re not hurting anymore. Thank you, Apa.”

Saliha nodded, relieved. Then she remembered something else.

“You kept saying last night how much your eyes hurt, so badly. Liyuan got up to boil water and steep the herbs. She stayed up all night putting compresses on them for you. I don’t even know if she got any sleep herself.”

She sighed. “This morning she got up early to make you milk tea for you, and just now she went out. Now she’s off to work right away. Such a hardworking girl.”

Those scraps of words finally helped Fu Tingli piece together hazy fragments of last night’s memories.

But they were still incomplete—just flickering flashes. Gloomy light and shadow filled her vision, along with the grayish-yellow walls of the room. A hazy silhouette staggered toward her. Long hair brushed against her cheek, tickling her. She reached up to brush it away and grimaced in discomfort, only to hear a very soft laugh.

Then the silhouette covered her eyes with something warm and steaming.

Her vision dimmed into a heavy haze, the figure vanishing. But the stinging pain around her eye sockets eased a little. When the compress cooled, though, the discomfort returned, and she wanted to rub her eyes. She barely lifted her hand before someone pinned it down.

Scorching heat wrapped around her wrist, fingers tracing the scar on her knuckle.

In the brief gap as the towel shifted, she made out that the silhouette was a person—but still so blurry she couldn’t see the face.

She only knew that this person sat by the bed the whole time after that, soaking towel after towel in hot water and pressing them gently over her eyes.

Beyond that, sometimes the figure gazed out through the foggy, battered glass window. Other times she simply lowered her head to watch Fu Tingli, doing nothing else. Patiently, tirelessly, without a hint of boredom. When Fu Tingli finally mumbled that it felt “a bit better.”

The person let out another faint sigh, her voice weary and languid. “You shouldn’t drink anymore, Fu Tingli. You’re never well-behaved after even one.”

Fu Tingli hadn’t mustered the strength to reply; no sound would come out. But she could clearly feel the person lightly stroking her hair afterward.

After some unknowable stretch of time, she soaked a fresh towel. Amid the warm pressure, the figure gave a faint, blurry smile and murmured in self-contradiction, her voice feather-light.

“Never mind. If you want to drink, then drink.”