One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

At 4:30 a.m. the next day, it was still dark, and the transport plane's engines roared on the runway. Outside the porthole, the lights of Beijing were receding inch by inch, until the entire city shrank into a thin carpet of golden threads spread across the ground, obscured by the clouds. During the three-hour flight, Zhang Chulan leaned back in his seat, catching up on sleep, his head tilted against the arc of the porthole, swaying with the turbulence. Lu Linglong, using the morning light streaming through the window, mentally reviewed the first three moves of the *Holy Spirit Sword Technique*, her fingers silently tracing the movements of the famous sword techniques on her knees. Xiao Yun, held in Chen Duo's arms and covered with a thin blanket, slept soundly, occasionally turning over and burying her face in Chen Duo's clothes, murmuring incoherently.

The transport plane landed at Golmud Airport at 8:30 a.m. The moment the gangway was lowered, a dry, cold wind rushed in, carrying the astringent smell of sand and withered grass roots. At the end of the airport runway was the gray-yellow Gobi Desert, and further into the distance, a line of dark blue mountain silhouettes floated on the horizon, their outlines sharp as if cut by a knife, with unmelted snow-capped peaks still clinging to their edges—those were the branches of the Kunlun Mountains.

The two SUVs for the transfer were parked on the gravel ground outside the terminal. Their paint was a muddy gray, and spare fuel cans and oxygen cylinders were strapped to their roof racks. After everyone loaded their luggage, Nie Lingfeng got into the driver's seat of the first car, Zhang Chulan sat in the passenger seat, and Wang Ye, Lu Linglong, and Chen Duo sat in the back holding Xiao Yun. In the second car, Zhang Lingyu drove, with Feng Baobao sitting next to him. Two empty seats in the back were piled high with supply boxes.

The convoy traveled south along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway. The road was flat and straight, and the landscape outside the car windows constantly changed color and texture as the altitude increased. At first, sparse alpine meadows could be seen, with dark green grass dotted with scattered low shrubs and wildflowers. Occasionally, one or two Tibetan gazelles would glance up at them before lowering their heads to continue grazing. As the altitude climbed above 3,500 meters, the meadows thinned out, and bare soil and gravel gradually took over. The villages along the roadside became increasingly distant, and occasionally a few black yak tents with prayer flags would appear, the wind snapping the colorful strips of cloth.

As the altitude increased, the sky became increasingly transparent, a blue that couldn't be mixed on a canvas—deep enough to almost have a purplish tinge, yet dazzlingly bright. The clouds pressed down on the distant mountain ridges, thick and bulging, white and shiny, like someone had casually tossed a large handful of cotton wool onto the mountaintop.

Lu Linglong pressed her face against the car window, watching intently, her breath almost touching the glass, creating a small puff of white mist. After wiping away the mist, she leaned in again, and after a long pause, finally said, "Beijing has never had such a blue sky."

"The blue in Beijing is a blue filtered through smog." Zhang Chulan leaned back in the passenger seat, shielding his forehead from the scorching sun. "The blue here is real. But try being in the sun for half a day, and you'll get a peeling layer of skin."

"Your face is naturally red, it has nothing to do with whether you've been in the sun or not," Lu Linglong retorted bluntly from the back row.

"I call this 'plateau red'! When in Rome, do as the Romans do!"

"You have internal heat."

"You're the one who's getting angry, your whole family—"

"That's enough, that's enough." Wang Ye sat between them, patting each of them on the shoulder with just the right amount of force. "Save your energy for climbing the mountain. Later, when the altitude gets higher, you'll be struggling to breathe, and you'll still be arguing."

Zhang Chulan pursed his lips, straightened the seat back a bit, and stopped talking.

Nie Lingfeng remained silent. His gaze was fixed on the increasingly close mountain range ahead, his fingers occasionally adjusting their grip on the steering wheel. His profile was quiet, with almost no extra movement except for the occasional blink, but Wang Ye glanced at him in the rearview mirror and saw that his jawline was slightly taut—an expression he rarely showed, somewhat like he was identifying something, or perhaps catching some distant sound that only he could hear.

Five hours after departing from Golmud, the convoy stopped beside a rusty iron sign that read "Naqitai." The town was so small that one might doubt it even qualify as a town—there was only one main street, lined with two rows of low adobe and brick houses, from which wisps of bluish-gray smoke rose slowly from a few tin chimneys. The street was nearly deserted; a few elderly people in dark Tibetan robes leaned against the walls, basking in the sun, their prayer wheels turning slowly in circles, their copper bells tinkling softly. A supply and marketing cooperative stood by the roadside, its door missing a piece, revealing crates piled high to the ceiling. The only thing that caught the eye was a three-story hotel on the corner—painted a pale yellow exterior, the red lettering on its sign faded but clean, and a potted plastic flower on the windowsill.

Nie Lingfeng parked the car in front of the hotel. As everyone got out, the air at an altitude of 3,800 meters felt like knives piercing their lungs, sending shivers down their spines. Zhang Chulan, carrying his backpack, took a deep breath of the cold air, coughed twice, patted his chest, and said, "Wow, this air's really strong," before following the others into the hotel.

A middle-aged woman in a maroon sweater sat at the front desk, her head down, writing something in a yellowed notebook with a pencil. She glanced up at the group, her gaze lingering on each face, then asked in heavily accented Mandarin, "How many people? How many rooms?"

"Seven people." Nie Lingfeng took out his ID and showed it. "Five rooms, one night."

The woman glanced at the stamp and photo on the ID, her expression unchanged. She then looked down and flipped through a book, drawing a line along the edge of a certain line with a pencil. Next, she pulled out a brass key with a red string attached, took several more from a tin box under the counter, counted them with a clinking sound, and pushed them onto the counter: "Second floor, left-hand side. Hot water from 8 PM to 10 PM, is it past that time?"

"Thank you." Nie Lingfeng took the keys and distributed them to everyone. "Everyone, put your luggage away and rest for a bit. I'm going out for a walk."

He took Xiaoyun from Chen Duo's arms and held her for a while. The little girl had slept the whole way in the car and was now full of energy, poking Nie Lingfeng's chin with her finger. Nie Lingfeng lowered his head and let her poke him a couple of times, then handed her back to Chen Duo and turned to leave the hotel.

The town streets were quieter than he had imagined. The afternoon sun cast a dry, warm glow on the mud-brick walls, and the air was filled with the warm, comforting aroma of tsampa and butter tea. He walked about two hundred steps along the main street and found a butter tea stall under a crooked willow tree—a low table, three thermos flasks, and several enamel bowls. The stall owner was a gray-haired Tibetan man whose face, weathered by the high-altitude sun and wind, had a dark brown, leathery complexion. When he smiled, the lines around his eyes deepened, revealing two rows of neat, white teeth.

Nie Lingfeng ordered a cup of butter tea. When the uncle bent down to pour a bowl from the thermos and handed it to him, a thin layer of oil glistened on the rim, and the steam rising from it emitted a rich, slightly salty aroma. Nie Lingfeng picked it up and took a sip; the scalding liquid slid down his esophagus, warming his stomach. He put down the bowl and casually asked, "Uncle, have any unusual people come to town lately?"

The middle-aged man, who had been turning the prayer wheel in his hand, slowed his movements slightly upon hearing this. He tilted his head, thought for a moment, and then nodded: "Yes. About two weeks ago, a group of people dressed in black came. They drove several vehicles, all large SUVs. The woman leading them was very... how should I put it, beautiful, but fierce. Her eyes were very hard; she didn't seem like a tourist."

"The one in black, the woman in the lead," Nie Lingfeng said, warming the bowl in his hands. He then asked, "How many of them are there?"

"A dozen or so, I guess." The man raised his right hand to indicate a rough number. "They stayed in town for two days, bought some dry food and gasoline, and then went into the mountains. I haven't seen them come back since."

Which direction?

The uncle raised his hand and pointed southwest towards the main peak of the snow-capped mountain. That direction had the steepest terrain, with the rock walls below the snow line almost vertical, outlining a dark ridge in the afternoon backlight. The year-round snow above the mountainside gleamed dazzlingly silvery-white in the sunlight, and the terminus of the glacier jutted out from the pass between two peaks like the tongue of a petrified giant python, dangling down to an altitude of 4,500 meters.

"Is there anything else unusual?" Nie Lingfeng finished the last sip of butter tea and put the empty bowl back on the table.

The middle-aged man paused for a moment, then lowered his voice and slowed his speech: "...Recently, it's been making a lot of noise in the mountains. It's especially clear at night. I've lived here for decades, and I've never heard that sound before. It's a buzzing, muffled sound, like...like someone beating a big drum underground." He gestured, "Sometimes it sounds like some living thing calling out, the sound is drawn out, and it sends chills down your spine."