37°52'40.8"N 98°31'33.5"E– Gale’Ao, Tianjun County

  24.05.2024 – 12.00 UTC +08.00

  Sweat dripped from my forehead and fell onto the rocky ground in front of me. I stopped walking and just stared at it.

  “Gài!” I shouted. “Gàierzǐ! Come back!”

  Little Guy had run ahead. He was as used to the altitude as I was, but he had no thoughts to weigh him down. As far as he was concerned, this was a very long and fun walk.

  “Gàaaaaai!”

  We had to take a break. We could afford it. In less than three days, we would be in Xīnyuán. And we had a few more days until they reached us.

  Did we?

  I did not let myself ponder that. Instead, I dropped my backpack next to a big rock.

  “Gài! Over here!” I shouted again, but he was probably too far ahead. He would figure out he lost me and come back soon, for sure. The herding paths in Gale’Ao were not the most travelled, but you could not get lost. There was only the trip from the North-West to the South-East.

  And Little Guy would never get lost in the mountains. I would have to worry about him when we reached the town, maybe, but for now, he was in his element.

  I lay with my back against the backpack. It was the right moment to take in the view, before it would all be gone.

  “Like home,” I muttered to myself.

  The valley sprawled hundreds of meters beneath our mountain path. We had to cross it the previous day and night, and I remembered thinking, sick to myself with walking, that this was the most boring part of those mountains.

  From up here, that feeling was gone. The mountains surrounded the small valley, hugging it like holy protectors. It was a pocket of quiet. No human in sight. No Curses.

  I knew that further to the north lay the even more impressive valley of the Hala Lake, and past that…

  I heard rocks trickling as heavy steps approached, running.

  “Finally, Gài! Come here, boy!”

  With a friendly bark, a large dog appeared from the rocky path ahead. As he came near, I noticed even he had started looking thinner. He ran to me, and I aggressively petted his muzzle.

  “Gàierzǐ, we need to take a quick break. And some treats?”

  Little Guy was more than half a meter tall and probably weighed more than I did. He was a Tibetan dog; built by nature to be impressive, loyal, and fierce.

  I gave him the last of the beef treats that I had kept in my backpack. He gobbled it down in an instant and kept licking my fingers.

  “You will be patient now. I don’t have more. But maybe in Lóngmén, they have something for you.”

  The dog, as if understanding my words, whimpered and then sat on my lap.

  “Ah shit you are not a baby anymore,” I complained, but I did not push him away. “Just for a moment, then.”

  “You have to promise me, when Túshā comes, you won’t look back. You don’t want to remember this, Jiang. You just need to run away.”

  “And where should I go?”

  “If it comes from the north, Xīnyuán or Delingha. If it comes from the south, Jiāyùguān. It does not matter. You go the opposite way.”

  “And what do I tell the people there? Nobody will believe me.”

  “It does not matter, Jiang. You do not waste time. You just keep going.”

  I opened my eyes, my father’s voice still echoing.

  “I go the opposite way.”

  Guy’s fur and weight had acted as a blanket. I had taken a lovely nap as a result, but the guilt of resting was terrible.

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  “Come on, sleepy boy. Let’s get to it.”

  He barked softly but stood up.

  “I know. Once we get to Xīnyuán we can rest a bit more there.”

  Maybe I was lying, I did not know. It did not matter anyway; we had to keep walking.

  The slight cold of the mountains was not enough to stop sweating under the fur, but at least I had some strength back.

  And quite soon, the temperature dropped below a comfortable five degrees Celsius. I could feel it on my skin, and my compass indicated we were getting higher – it was wrong. It was just getting colder.

  “I think we can be there before sundown. We don’t need to sleep on rocks tonight.”

  Little Guy barked softly.

  The route proved trickier than I had hoped. As the mountain path got steeper, we had to slow our pace. Well, I had. Little Guy kept running ahead and then waiting for me. Looking back almost startled that I could not run like him.

  I had made up half my mind to set up another messy tent for tonight, on the slope of Lǒng. But as the sun started to set, Little Guy warned me with a booming bark on the path ahead.

  “Gàierzǐ!” I scolded. I knew he was used to barking loudly at night, but I wondered if his intention to ward off predators lured them to our location as well.

  He kept on barking, so I decided to pick up the pace and reach him on his plateau.

  “Gài, let’s set up the tent, we are not reaching civilization today either.”

  Little Guy jumped a bit and barked again. He turned forward and then back to me. He was trying to show me something. I reached him and patted him on the back.

  “What?” I asked. I crouched slightly to reach his height. And there it was: at the end of the slope, there were houses with light. “Good job, Gài! I was ready to give up!”

  The dog jumped up and down. With renewed enthusiasm, we both picked up the pace. We had the twilight of the mountains to light up the path, but we were not far.

  Little Guy ran the last few hundred meters down the path, and I followed suit. It was exciting to finally reach a place where warmth was not from a dirty dog’s fur.

  “As much as I love you, Gài, you stink,” I said with relief once I reached him, right in front of the basin of the mountain, and at the edge of the village. Little Guy looked at me, and then at the village ahead: five, maybe eight long houses with dark red roofs. An empty highway climbed the mountains near the village. This was the road I would take the next day to head south.

  “Come on,” I said. He was hesitating. “Come on, just for a while. Let me find a place, and you can stay outside.”

  I did not honestly believe he understood me. But I knew he hated people and the indoors, and he had to hear me reassure him.

  He tilted his furry head as if he pondered my suggestion and then followed along.

  “That dog is the devil,” I said, before snapping my fingers to get his attention.

  As we approached the village with the last light of the Tibetan twilight, I spotted an old hand-drawn wooden sign

  龙门乡

  Township of Lóngmén

  It was fixed on the walls of the first house. Its lights were out, but there were other houses in the village with lights on.

  “What do you think we should do? This does not look like a village for tourists.”

  Little Guy growled.

  “Oh, grow up.”

  I headed to one of the houses and stood right outside of it. These places were certainly not used to meet strangers. Maybe it would be simpler if I set up a tent near the village square and then met the villagers during the day. As seconds passed, the twilight diminished, and the cold under-zero wind reminded me of the terrible sleep I had had the nights before.

  If there were a chance I would sleep on the floor with a fire nearby, I would take it.

  I approached the fence of the house. There were no dogs around it, but I would not risk crossing it.

  “Hello! Greetings!” I shouted.

  I stood awkwardly as Little Guy whimpered. He quickly stepped far from the fence and then looked back at me.

  “It’s okay, Gài. You can stay outside.”

  “Hello? Who is there?”

  I turned back to the house’s entrance. A Chinese man, a bit older than me, but not too old, stood at the entrance of the house.

  I took my hoodie down and slightly bowed.

  “I am Jiang. I apologize for disturbing you. I am a traveler.”

  The man was dressed in his indoor clothes, unprepared for guests. He exclaimed and told me to wait, as he wore shoes to exit his house.

  “Come through, come through,” he said, going down the stairs of the house, carrying an electric lantern.

  Little Guy growled, and I waved him to go away. I only needed to sleep for the night, and then I would call for him. I opened the fence door and stepped into the small courtyard of the house.

  “I am Fang, greetings,” the man said. As he approached with the lantern, a forty-year-old woman appeared at the door behind him. She looked concerned.

  “You do not need to worry. I am just passing by, going to Xīnyuán. I can pay for lodging,” I said, trying to reassure them both that I was not a threat.

  The man smiled.

  “We will not make a traveler pay,” he responded, slightly bowing. “We were also just making dinner, right, dear?”

  The woman said something between “of course” and a sigh.

  “Thank you, really! I can help with the cooking too. And then clean up too.”

  Fang laughed.

  “Don’t worry. You can entertain us with your stories. We have not seen a car on the Tianmu highway in weeks. It is always important for us to learn what happens in the county.”

  “Of course. Plenty of stories,” I answered, following Fang into his house. I hadn’t decided if I would be honest about what I was running from. As my late father had said, it did not matter.

  Túshā comes. We are all going to die.