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The next day.
Shen Yihuan was woken by the sunlight streaming through the window. The hotel curtains weren’t thick, and even when drawn, they couldn’t block much light.
She raised a hand to shield her eyes. When her consciousness first returned, she couldn’t immediately figure out where she was. Then she turned her head and saw Lu Zhou.
The man’s eyes were still closed, his brow furrowed because of the sun, but his hand was raised, blocking the light from Shen Yihuan’s eyes.
The light fell on the back of his hand.
Shen Yihuan turned over to face Lu Zhou and wrapped her arm around his waist.
After an unknown period of sleep, the man beside her woke up, gently removed her hand, and went into the bathroom.
Today’s schedule was still filming. Because of getting drunk last night, although she wasn’t completely blacked out and remembered Lu Zhou covering her eyes and asking “who do you like,” her head still hurt.
They were traveling on the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway.
Beyond the villages and towns in the Xinjiang section lay hundreds of miles of uninhabited areas.
To reach the next location, they had to cross a stretch of this uninhabited zone.
The Gobi Desert, with its black asphalt road, stretched straight ahead with white traffic lines, calmly and elegantly sketching the unparalleled beauty of this land, dividing it with the most straightforward lines.
Like a long whip, it had split the desert in two with a whoosh.
The sky was azure, tinged with gray, but the sun was bright. The wind kicked up fine sand, quickly dirtying the car.
Shen Yihuan didn’t remember when she fell asleep, only that when she woke up, it was still the exact same scenery.
She exhaled and stretched.
Lu Zhou asked, “Does your head still hurt?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
He held the steering wheel with one hand and picked up the cup from the cup holder with the other, handing it to her.
Shen Yihuan took a sip. The tea was very strong, and it did help with the hangover: “Where are we now?”
“First, we’ll make a quick stop at a border station. Wait for me a moment.”
Shen Yihuan naturally had no objections.
She had later learned about the work of the border defense forces. Border defense work was virtually everywhere—in remote, ice-bound snowfields, barren deserts, hot and humid tropical rainforests, and vast, stormy seas. All required border defense troops.
Lu Zhou guarded this land.
Working tirelessly, fearless of wind and snow.
At the border station, Shen Yihuan didn’t get out of the car. Lu Zhou went inside and quickly emerged, also filling up on gas along the way.
The sun had already set. This was a long journey, and it was Lu Zhou’s first time on this route. The timing was hard to estimate, and it would be unsafe to continue driving. Plus, it was time for dinner.
“Let’s stay here for the night.”
Shen Yihuan looked down at the navigation in her hand: “Can’t we make it?”
“We can,” Lu Zhou drove the car into a small town. There was a sign at the intersection with a large stone, and words written on it, “but the road ahead is on the edge of the desert, and there might be wolves. It’s not safe to go through at night.”
If he were alone, it would be fine, but with Shen Yihuan, he couldn’t take any risks.
Shen Yihuan was startled, her pupils contracting: “Wolves, too?”
“Mm,” Lu Zhou smiled, patting the back of her head, “Get out of the car.”
“Have you ever encountered them?” Shen Yihuan asked again after getting out.
“Yes, during patrols.”
“Were they big?”
“Quite thin.”
“Did they attack you?”
“Generally no, they only attack poultry. But that time it was late winter, and they were starving.”
Lu Zhou didn’t want Shen Yihuan to worry. When this young girl worried, she would overthink things, imagining the most bizarre scenarios. He changed the subject, asking, “We’ll eat here tonight. What do you want to eat?”
The small village hadn’t developed tourism, and there were hardly any decent restaurants.
Shen Yihuan pointed randomly to one: “That one.”
They bought two bowls of zhua fan (pilaf) with beef, and a bowl of clear soup.
The taste was naturally not as good as the restaurants Shen Yihuan had researched and eaten at before, but there was nothing to complain about.
“Where are we sleeping tonight?”
Lu Zhou said, “Let’s look for a place later. If there’s no hotel, we’ll figure something out.”
When Lu Zhou said that, Shen Yihuan felt completely at ease. Throughout this journey, she hardly had to worry or use her brain; Lu Zhou handled everything from driving to finding hotels and restaurants.
After eating, they walked around the town, but there were no hotels. Finally, they only found a simple guesthouse.
It wasn’t even clean, and the room was very small.
Lu Zhou frowned. Shen Yihuan said, “This one’s fine.”
They put their belongings in the room. There was a strong camphor smell inside. Shen Yihuan sprayed some perfume, then closed the door and went out with Lu Zhou again.
The street was filled with sounds that brought peace to the heart: the chatter and laughter of pedestrians, the ringing of bicycle bells, and the sounds of card games and mahjong from small shops.
Shen Yihuan and Lu Zhou walked on the street.
“Let’s buy you some clothes,” Lu Zhou suddenly said.
“Hmm?”
Shen Yihuan followed his gaze to a clothing store by the roadside.
Lu Zhou said, “But they’re not very good-looking.”
The jacket Shen Yihuan had been wearing these past few days was Lu Zhou’s padded jacket. She glanced at the clothes in the shop: “They’re fine; they’ll look good on me.”
Pushing the door open, the shop owner was a minority woman, heavily pregnant, sitting in a chair watching TV, with fruits and nuts laid out beside her.
“What do you want to buy?” she asked.
Shen Yihuan: “We’ll just look ourselves.”
The owner smiled and sat back down.
“Which one do you think looks good?” Shen Yihuan tilted her head and asked Lu Zhou.
Lu Zhou said, “Any of them.”
Shen Yihuan walked around and picked out a sapphire blue padded jacket. The style was clean, with no extraneous, messy patterns, and the color made her skin look exceptionally fair.
Shen Yihuan took off her jacket and handed it to Lu Zhou, then put on the new one.
The owner smiled and said, “You look really good in that.”
Shen Yihuan smiled, looked in the mirror, and then asked Lu Zhou, “How is it?”
“Beautiful.”
No suspense.
Lu Zhou would never say it wasn’t beautiful.
The owner asked, “You’re not from around here, are you? Your skin is too fair.”
“No,” Shen Yihuan said, “We’re from Beijing.”
“Oh, the capital,” the owner was quite surprised. This wasn’t a tourist area, so they rarely saw tourists. “Are you here for tourism or business?”
Shen Yihuan raised the camera around her neck: “Work.”
“A photographer?”
“Mm.”
The owner was quite taken aback. This was the first time she had met a true photographer.
As for Lu Zhou’s profession, he didn’t mention it, nor did Shen Yihuan, so the owner naturally assumed he was in the same line of work as Shen Yihuan.
Shen Yihuan looked around again, didn’t pick out any other clothes she wanted to buy, pointed to the one she was wearing, and asked the owner for the price.
It wasn’t expensive; compared to the prices in large shopping malls in Beijing, it was a world of difference.
She didn’t take it off again. She had Lu Zhou cut the tag, paid, put her wallet in her pocket, and watched the owner, who was rubbing her pregnant belly, count the money, her eyes curved in a smile.
She suddenly said, “Let me take a photo of you.”
The owner was startled, then self-consciously tucked her hair behind her ear: “I’m not pretty, so the photo won’t look good. It’ll be embarrassing.”
“It’s fine. I’ll take it for you, and if you don’t like it, just throw it away.”
Shen Yihuan took another camera from Lu Zhou’s backpack—an instant camera.
This type of camera didn’t have as many features as a regular camera, and the lighting was difficult to adjust, so the photos came out a bit rough. However, the photo paper was quite unique, and some people enjoyed collecting them.
She bent down slightly and took a photo of the owner.
The click of the shutter was quite loud, and soon the photo paper emerged, entirely white at first, with no image visible. Shen Yihuan waited a moment, and then the image appeared.
The owner looked at it with novelty.
In the photo, the woman sat in a sunken chair, her hair naturally curly, clutching a few wrinkled banknotes in her hand, the other hand on her belly. In the quiet, soft light, the curve of her lips held a subtle tenderness.
Shen Yihuan handed the photo over.
The woman smiled, holding the photo, expressing her thanks repeatedly, extremely pleased.
Lu Zhou stood by, holding the jacket Shen Yihuan had just taken off. He didn’t chime in, just smiled idly.
Shen Yihuan bid farewell to the owner and went to Lu Zhou’s side, looking at him with a strange expression: “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Lu Zhou straightened up and pushed open the clothing store door for Shen Yihuan.
Shen Yihuan walked out, smiling, tilting her head to look at him: “Do you think I’m different from before?”
She used to be quite ‘bad,’ indifferent to many things. In her school reports, common phrases like “helpful” and “friendly to classmates” were often found in other students’ evaluations, but not in Shen Yihuan’s.
She was self-centered and willful. At that time, she and Lu Zhou were completely different people.
Some things, she only began to understand after experiencing them later, and other things, she only learned after stepping onto this land and witnessing life here.
Lu Zhou took her hand and put it into his pocket.
“No,” he said, “You were always good.”
“...” Shen Yihuan paused, “I’ve realized your ‘fan filter’ for me is really thick.”
Lu Zhou didn’t use the internet much, so he naturally didn’t understand terms like “fan filter,” but after thinking for a while, he could probably guess its meaning.
Lu Zhou said, “I later saw your award-winning photography.”
“Which one?”
“The earliest one.”
The first time Shen Yihuan won a photography award was when she was abroad, but when she submitted her entry, she was still in her third year of college, before she dropped out.
The theme of that competition was “Warmth,” and contestants needed to submit a series of photographs.
It was winter then, and Shen Yihuan’s camera captured images of people working in the icy, snowy landscape, as well as winter street scenes, stray cats, and dogs.
It was fairly simple, ordinary material, and there were many similar works at the time. Shen Yihuan entered with a playful attitude, not expecting to do well, but her ranking turned out to be quite good.
However, at the time of the awards ceremony, she and Lu Zhou had already broken up.
“How did you know I won an award?”
“I know all the awards you’ve won.”
That’s right, Lu Zhou also knew where she lived when she was abroad, and even sent her money. She had thought at the time that her grandmother had arranged for someone to send it before she died, and it had indeed helped her a lot during that period.
Lu Zhou had initially investigated Shen Yihuan’s information to bring her back.
But when he found that set of photos, he suddenly felt that the young girl was living quite actively and diligently after he was gone.
“If I hadn’t come back, would you have looked for me?” Shen Yihuan asked.
“Not necessarily.”
Shen Yihuan raised an eyebrow: “How ‘not necessarily’?”
“It depends on whether I could resist,” Lu Zhou said.
Shen Yihuan smiled: “And if you couldn’t resist?”
“Then I’d go find you.”
“And if you could resist, you wouldn’t look for me?”
Lu Zhou smiled: “How could I resist?”
________________________________________
For the next half month, Shen Yihuan traveled with Lu Zhou, constantly on the road each day, finally speeding up and completing all the necessary filming content.
Lu Zhou still had work to do afterward, and Shen Yihuan also needed to process the photos and submit them to her studio’s editorial department.
Lu Zhou sent her to the airport.
She didn’t have much luggage; more than half of it was camera equipment, which was heavy. Lu Zhou escorted her to the security checkpoint.
“Call me when you arrive,” Lu Zhou said.
“Mm,” Shen Yihuan nodded, stood on tiptoes, and kissed Lu Zhou, “Don’t miss me too much.”
Lu Zhou smiled.
Shen Yihuan then pushed her luggage cart and went inside, walking away quite freely.
Lu Zhou stood outside until her figure was no longer visible, and he didn’t move. After standing for a while longer, his phone rang; it was He Min.
“Hello.”
“Captain Lu, we have a lead.”
Lu Zhou turned to walk out, his steps quick: “Tell me.”
“During our patrol, we found one of Li Wu’s men in an abandoned factory. He was shot in the head and died in the factory.”
“Has the time of death been determined?”
“Around 20 days ago. The body is already decomposed.”
“Are there any other clues to identify the killer?”
“We’re currently searching for fingerprints and shoe print information, but so far there’s no useful information. Also, we’ve extracted the bullet from the deceased’s brain. It’s not a Chinese military bullet; it’s also smuggled ordnance.”
Lu Zhou got into the car and closed the door: “Secure the scene. I’m on my way back.”
“Where are you now, Captain Lu?”
“The airport.”
He Min paused: “Did Photographer Shen go back to Beijing?”
“Mm.”
“Oh, right, I forgot to tell you something. When Photographer Shen left the military camp, she secretly gave me a bottle of medicinal wine for neck pain, and she bought several packs of cigarettes for the team, and some tea leaves and such. Should we accept these?”
Lu Zhou tightened his grip on the steering wheel and said, “Keep them. She’s different.”
He Min sighed: “That young lady is really good. On the surface, she doesn’t seem warm, but behind the scenes, she quietly does kind-hearted things. You see, so many people from the TV station came, and in the end, let alone gifts, only Director Qin personally came to say goodbye.”
Lu Zhou chuckled softly, raised his brow bone, and said lazily, “Who are you calling ‘young lady’?”
He Min: “...”
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