I'm in Delingha tonight

Part [-]: The Golden World

"I don't care about humans tonight, I just want you."

——Haizi's "Diary"

"At the end of the grassland, my hands are empty, and I can't hold a single teardrop when I'm sad."

Chi Nian sat cross-legged on the hood of the car, switched cigarettes from his left hand to his right, and read the poem silently again in the gap between the desolate Gobi and the magnificent dusk.

His phone had 40 percent battery left, but no signal.

In the backpack next to him were all of Chi Nian's belongings: a thick jacket, a bottle and a half of mineral water, a third of a pack of compressed biscuits, an ID card, a broken compass, only 2 yuan in bank cards and a few hundred dollars. of cash.

Chi Nian didn't know how things would turn out to be like this.

But it seems that this is what he expected.

He appeared in this place originally to seek death.

One day ago in Golmud, Chi Nian went to a local car repair shop to buy this second-hand car that was about to be scrapped.The other party probably thought that he was either stupid or out of his mind, and he didn't take the opportunity to kill people.

He drove this car and followed several tourist minibuses along the highway. The scenery of the plateau was refreshing at first, but after a long time, it was full of gravel and dried hills. His heart and driving Movements gradually become numb.

Chi Nian forgot what he was thinking at that time, as if everything could no longer attract his attention.

At the beginning, the mobile phone still had a weak signal. After turning into the Gobi from the highway, the signal first flashed to the E network, and it didn't take long for it to display "no service" neatly.

Hard gravel and occasional piles of loose sand make driving a low-riding car particularly difficult.After persisting for about half an hour, the front tire of the worn-out second-hand car he bought made a "poof" sound and went on strike completely, simply and neatly announcing that his journey would end in an unknown land.

There were no tires or tools in the trunk, almost a signal of doom that kept him here.

Maybe there is another way, but Chi Nian doesn't want to go forward.

"That's it," he said to himself.

Without a jacket, the wind on the plateau was bitter and sharp, and when Chi Nian got off the car, he was filled with the hot sun.Holding the lighter and half a pack of cigarettes, he leaned against the front of the car. After thinking for a moment, he sat on the hood. After a "click", the blue flame flickered and then went out.

After smoking 1/3 of the first cigarette, Chi Nian thought: Fuck, I'll kill that grandson sooner or later.

After the second cigarette was finished, Chi Nian changed his mind, thinking that it was useless to worry about the situation.

He never thought that he would return to Beijing.

It is 6:37 in the afternoon.

At the end of July, the sky in Qinghai gets dark very late, and you may not be able to wait another hour for sunset.

But Chi Nian could already foresee his own ending.

The temperature on the plateau cools down quickly, and the Gobi Desert will become cold rapidly when the sun goes down.His jacket does nothing to keep out the cold wind, and it's useless in the car, and with the cold comes the lack of oxygen, and he'll be lethargic in that environment—there's no difference inside or outside the car—and then Frozen to death, or suffocated.

In no man's land, it's useless for Chi Nian to distinguish east, west, north, south, his car is broken down, and he can't walk very far.Maybe he will encounter wild wolves halfway, and it will be even worse, maybe there will be no bones left.

Chi Nian decided to sit and wait.

When he got on the flight to the northwest, he sent a message to his mother, to the effect that he would never go home again.When he landed after sending out, he pulled out the card, not knowing if his mother had released him from the blacklist.

Perhaps for them, "Chi Nian" has become a missing person since he stepped out of the house.

Chi Nian took a drag on his cigarette, hoping that his mother would not think of herself when she saw similar news on the TV news.

He has been envied by many classmates and friends in his life so far.

My father is a North drifter. He graduated from a junior college in the early 90s. He and his mother, whom he met and fell in love with when he was a student, started from scratch and worked hard to build several houses and cars.Now that my father is the boss of a listed company, Chi Nian has a Beijing household registration and many good resources since he was born.

Chi Nian was not very good at studying. He could only be a middle-level student since he was a child. He was so poor in math that he couldn't make up for it.Fortunately, he has a good artistic talent, and his parents also respect him. In high school, Chi Nian took the art test, and later entered the Academy of Fine Arts, and his grades were actually among the best in his major.

Harmonious home, bumpy and painful first love, excellent professional achievements.

This is his calm life in Chi Nian's world.

If nothing else happens, Chi Nian will graduate from university this year and will find a job in an art gallery or museum to stay in Beijing.Or the second possibility, risking the embarrassment of his parents and relatives, coming out to his family, and then opening an art gallery with his beloved boyfriend.

Perhaps because he has not experienced ups and downs, fate made a big joke when he graduated.

He chose the second way.

The sexual orientation came out tragically, and was kicked out of the house by conservative parents as expected.But only four days later, his boyfriend, who had been in love since high school, took away the savings he had planned to start a business together, and left him and a bunch of mess in the hotel silently.

...not even extended stay.

As soon as her boyfriend left, Chi Nian had no money, no home, and no one to love.

When he moved into a small hotel and was lying in a dusty room counting the balance of his bank card to spend, he suddenly remembered the fortune teller he met when he was 12 years old when he climbed Xiangshan Mountain.

The fortune teller, who seemed to be trying to cheat money, was naughty to give him advice. Chi Nian saw that his clothes were ragged and thin, and his heart softened, so he paid him to read his palm.The liar said that he "has a mountain in his life that he cannot pass", and told him to "be careful of the sun in the northwest".

Chi Nian laughed it off at the time and didn't take it seriously.

At this moment, he was disheartened and believed in the arrangement of fate. He thought these two sentences over and over again. Chi Nian was playing with his mobile phone and bought a special ticket to Dunhuang before the battery ran out.

Northwest sun.

Then take a look?Anyway, it won't be worse than it is now.

Chi Nian didn't join the group, he went to a place to buy a ticket, and waited for the day when the money ran out.

Take the train to Golmud, and after going deep into the Qaidam Basin, you are within easy reach of the Hoh Xil No Man's Land.When Chi Nian bought that car, he thought: It's almost enough, it's boring.

Parents' incomprehension is meaningless, boyfriend's betrayal is meaningless, and money cheated is also meaningless.

The past tense is boring, and the future... is even more boring.

So it's better to stop here.

Do you have any regrets?

There are no regrets if there are regrets everywhere.

When Chi Nian had two cigarettes left, the sun was about to set.

On the Gobi Desert, the gravel was blown all over the ground, Chi Nian wiped his face, "pooh" out the sand that got into his mouth, and rubbed his eyes.He didn't need to look in the rearview mirror to know that he must be red-eyed, miserable and downcast at this moment.

There is not even a meadow in this area, only the devastated barrenness left. To the west, the sunset is brilliant, illuminating every jagged ridge.

Magnificent and vast scenery.

But why can't the world tolerate his loss?

To end here, Chi Nian suddenly became angry again.He stared at the lighter in his hand, before raising his eyelids for a long time, looking into the distance, the mountains rising on the horizon stared at him majestically.

There is a salty taste in the air, and the mountain and the sea are very close at this moment.

Chi Nian jumped off the tattered hood, holding a cigarette in one hand, and looked back at the backpack that had been messed up by himself.

There is no need to bring anything else, staying here and being submerged by the wind and sand is also something after he dies.Thinking so, he simply picked up the cigarette, threw his coat over his shoulder and walked forward.

The wind was getting stronger and soon smoothed his footprints.

After smoking too much, his throat was full of dryness, and Chi Nian had the illusion that he was about to burn from the inside out.He is like a spark, the faster he walks, the more heat will spread throughout his body until he engulfs himself.

Chi Nian stopped, threw the unsmoked cigarette on the ground, and stepped on it.

The ex-boyfriend's words sounded in my ears inappropriately: "You just did it, you want everything and you end up with nothing! You want me to accompany you, and you want me to have a career, but what about you? You have nothing without your parents!"

I must have been PUA, Chi Nian thought to himself mockingly, actually thought what he said was quite reasonable.

But anyway, parents don't want him anymore.

Dad told him to go, and Mom kept crying.The once harmonious and warm family became fragmented because of him. After being scolded by his parents and relatives on his mobile phone when he first left home, Chi Nian no longer dared to answer his parents' calls.

He insisted on going his own way, and now, thinking of his mother's tears, he began to regret it deep in his heart.

But what's the use of regretting?

Chi Nian's car was parked in a pile of yellow sand and gravel hundreds of meters away, unable to start.

He knelt down in frustration, rubbed his hair, tears rolled down without warning, and wet a small piece of ground.In the blurred field of vision, the color of the stones became darker, and the wet touch spread out circle after circle.

Chi Nian kept wiping away the water stains on his face, his ears started buzzing, and his eyes couldn't see clearly.

His back hurts from the sun.

The sound of the engine... starting to have illusions?

But the sound was getting closer and closer, as if it was right next to his ears.

Then he smelled gasoline.

"Hey," someone said, echoing empty, "what are you doing here?"

Putonghua has a bit of an accent that I don't know, and the accent is low but cheerful. It's not a very ear-catching voice when I hear it for the first time, but it's really not his hallucination.

Chi Nian covered his face in a daze, to prevent others from discovering his tears and gaffe.He opened his fingers, smeared a little dust on his face, and then saw a jeep painted in camouflage color suddenly appear in his field of vision.

"Are you okay?" A head poked out of the driver's window.

Chi Nian didn't answer.

The person wearing sunglasses and a mask to protect against the ultraviolet rays of the plateau was silent for a while, as if analyzing that he was a homeless man or had lost his mind.After a while, the man simply opened the car door and jumped out——

The legs were long and wrapped in black overalls.

The mid-top Martin boots he was wearing had thick soles, and when he walked towards Chi Nian, he stepped on a solid footprint.The wind was stronger than earlier, carrying the chill of the coming night, but his footprints did not disappear.

Chi Nian remained in a squatting position until the man walked up to him and pulled off the mask.

There is a warm smile on the corners of thin and sharp lips, and she is tall, with a few strands of slightly curly hair hanging from the corners of her eyebrows, and a pair of beautiful eyes with crescent moons are slightly revealed behind the sunglasses.

Is it here to look for him? It seems like I should say hello?

A kind of joy of being saved rose in Chi Nian's heart. His tears rushed out of the white marks and hung on his cheeks in disorder. Just as he was about to get up, he suddenly couldn't move.

……Hold.

My legs are numb from squatting for too long.

Chi Nian raised his head, guessing that his expression must be ugly at this moment.

But the man stretched out his hand to him without any surprise: "Is your leg numb? Come, let me give you a hand."