Having read this, I can basically understand what happened to Dong Can in the valley. Regardless of what the so-called demon is, the reason Dong Can ultimately became disheartened must be because he fell in love with a woman. For the Zhang family, it seems difficult to comprehend the relationship with something like love. As for the younger brother, after spending such a long time with him, I’ve never seen him exhibit any desires that a person should have.

According to common sense, no matter how holy a person is, unless they have been drugged, they would not be so pure and devoid of desires. Even if someone enjoys gardening, the act of appreciating flowers itself is a form of desire. However, the younger brother’s favorite activity is to daydream, which means that if he has any desires, they would be to sit still.

At his apparent age, there seems to be no sign of interest in women. He doesn’t engage in any acts of self-pleasure, doesn’t seem particularly concerned about food, and shows no interest in any information. Of course, even if he had interest, he wouldn’t show it. I couldn’t help but think of a malicious idea: if there’s a chance to meet again, I must feed him a few Spanish flies to see if his body can also be immune.

Thus, I have always felt that the Zhang family seems particularly rigid and especially unable to express emotions. However, Dong Can broke this impression for me. I know that only the shattering of love could make a man, who has undergone such rigorous training, possesses a meticulous mind, and has extraordinary skills, feel disheartened about the outside world, and this woman’s fate must have been disappointing.

I couldn’t help but think of Fatty. Fatty is someone who can digest pain exceptionally well. Although for a person, happiness and unhappiness are just two emotions, and emotions themselves cannot be sold, even someone like Fatty has hurdles he can’t get over, not to mention the Zhang family, who tend to create troubles for themselves.

I believe the situation is that Dong Can fell in love with a local girl during his time in Kangba, but at some point, this girl either died or something else happened. Although Dong Can resolved the existing problems, he also lost the meaning of staying here.

The plots of third-rate adventure movies aired on the eight o’clock movie channel often occur easily in real life. The younger brother discovered that the gaps between the fixed stones in that room were filled with concrete.

This concrete resembles mud but is extremely hard, especially in such a cold place where it solidifies very quickly. However, one thing is that no matter how fast it solidifies, it cannot outpace the process of water turning into ice. Therefore, these stone walls must be kept warm before pouring.

In such a mountain village, how could they use concrete to pour the walls? The first judgment of the “Dumb Oil Bottle” was that there was something fishy about this place, but everything made him feel like there wasn’t anything suspicious. So, he directly asked the leader why there was concrete here.

The leader told him that they didn’t know what this stuff was called. They discovered it in the wreckage of an iron bird that fell from the sky. Later, they found that as long as this material was mixed with water in a warm place, it would turn into stone after a while, making it very good for securing stones.

The iron bird fell three years ago. They heard from people returning from outside that it was a large airplane. If the Muffled Oil Bottle wanted to see it, they could take him there. Muffled Oil Bottle shook his head and instead inquired about the girl, feeling that everything should be interconnected.

After asking several times, the leader finally told him that the girl was the woman Dong Can had fallen in love with. The reason Dong Can stayed behind was to save that girl, as she was to be offered as a sacrifice to the devil. If Dong Can didn’t show up soon, they would quickly send the girl away, as the ten-year deadline was approaching. The earlier actions were necessary rituals for the sacrifice here.

Muffled Oil Bottle felt something was off. Along with this seemingly perfect explanation, he discovered a bigger flaw. Mixing concrete requires very precise proportions, and he hadn’t heard of any planes falling in Tibet three years ago. Even for military aircraft, there weren’t that many flight routes here; there were only a few that crossed the Himalayas. A plane would only crash here if its purpose was to make a detour.

Muffled Oil Bottle asked the leader, after all the talk of devils, whether anyone had actually seen one. At this, all the Kham people fell silent, except for the leader who raised his hand. He said that although they had won the previous battle, most of the adults in the village had died, and while some had survived, they had gradually died off afterwards. There were fewer than seven people who had seen the devil and were still alive.

At this point, a question arose in my mind. Since these Kham people were aware of the outside world, why did they choose to stay in their village? They could connect with the outside world and had proven their ability to adapt to external life. So, as long as they explained the situation, they wouldn’t need these primitive weapons. They were so close to gold; they could just buy a Thompson submachine gun. Since they could deal with the previous devil using primitive weapons, having six or seven Thompson submachine guns would surely be enough. One Dong Can was definitely no match for a submachine gun. From twenty meters away, if I had a submachine gun, I would be confident I could take down Little Brother.

No matter how they did it, the situation kept becoming more unreasonable.

By the time I reached this part, I had been in the lama temple for seven days. After days of reading, analyzing, and categorizing, I was quite fatigued, and the Tibetan food was also quite unfamiliar to me. At this point, I felt I had reached my limit. The environment here was comfortable for me; although the cold in Motuo made it nearly impossible to go outside, the warmth created by the charcoal stove and wool felt made the indoors particularly cozy. I had also gotten used to the strange smell of the blankets here, and I slept especially well.

If it were in the past, at this point in time, I would definitely find a way to go down the mountain and eat something different. Eating ghee tsampa every day is truly not something my stomach can handle. However, I have experienced too much before, which makes me absolutely unwilling to leave what I am doing. I know that even leaving for just a minute could lead to countless unexpected events, and some of those events can be completely controlled by me as long as I stay here.

In this world, if there are some secrets that cannot be known to others, then even if those things are on your table, you must believe that there are countless eyes around waiting for you to leave that table, even if it’s just for a second.

So, I had my companion find a way to go down the mountain to buy some vegetables and flour, and then find a Han Chinese chef to bring a pot to the lama temple. Because the food situation made a significant difference, I initially had this chef help me cook some bean rice, and then secretly asked him to add some salted meat to the bean rice.

During this period, I didn’t look at that information again. A few times I thought about picking it up to read, but an overwhelming sense of fatigue would wash over me immediately, because the previous readings had been so intense that I felt a bit out of breath.

Chen Xuehan became a good friend of mine during this time. He was very interested in the things I was looking into, and we often discussed some details. At that time, the big lamas from various lama temples had not yet fully gathered, and he often had to help the temple receive guests.

Since I had been staying indoors, I didn’t recognize some of the arriving guests, so he was responsible for the introductions. The dining hall of the lama temple was the most crowded place. I saw scattered strangers, many of whom I hadn’t seen before, and not all of them were from Miaoli. I brought my meal to the dining hall, intending to eat while chatting with people, but I soon realized something was off.

Many strange people had come to the temple, looking like they were from Hong Kong or Guangdong, with distinct Cantonese characteristics. They seemed to be part of a trekking group, all eating in the dining hall. Chen Xuehan told us that this trekking group arrived on the third day after I checked in, which was exactly when I was at my most obsessed and had been eating in my room, so I had no idea about their arrival. This trekking group was from Hong Kong, called “Green Home,” organized by a trekking website from Hong Kong.

The webmaster of this trekking website had a good relationship with the big lama of this temple, and it seemed they had known each other for a long time. They would stay here until next month because they were planning to go deeper into the mountains to take pictures of the snow scenery, and the best time had not yet arrived; they needed to rest here. This group returns every year, and Chen Xuehan had served as their guide several times.

I didn’t pay much attention to these people; I just greeted them. Although there were some non-lamas here, my life could be a bit more interesting, but I didn’t want to cause too many complications midway. The arrival of these people made the dining hall too crowded, causing many lamas to move to another temporary room to eat.

I thought for a moment and felt that the discussions of those lamas regarding the information I had gathered might be more meaningful, so I went to that room to eat. Upon arriving, I was even more surprised to find that there were no lamas there; instead, it was occupied by a group of foreign tourists.

Of course, there were not as many foreigners as there were people from Hong Kong, but there were still six or seven of them. Perhaps to avoid any suspicion, not a single lama was present in the room. After all, the high lamas are very wise and have attained a high level of practice; they spend much of their time in meditation and cannot always be found in noisy environments.

I went to ask Chen Xuehan what was going on, how this remote lama temple had turned into a motel, and why so many people had come after I arrived. Chen Xuehan said he didn’t know either. Although this lama temple is not completely isolated from the world, very few people, apart from a few fixed groups, would actually come here in such large numbers.

It might be that I am quite fortunate, and my presence has changed the feng shui here, making it more vibrant. I also have no idea where the high lamas might be; under such circumstances, they might have retreated to the upper levels of the temple, which is an area we are not allowed to enter. I asked a young lama to convey my message to the high lamas, as I wanted to participate in their discussions since I had compiled the information. However, the young lama told me that he would inform me of the time and place for the discussions, and I could not just enter at any time.

Out of boredom, I wandered around the various courtyards, trying to avoid crowded places. As I walked, I ended up in a particularly distant courtyard. This lama temple has countless courtyards; saying “countless” might be an exaggeration, but there are indeed many, and they are all quite small—some are so tiny that they are almost like wells. Before reaching this courtyard, I had already passed through three or four courtyards where I could hardly hear any voices, meaning I had come to a relatively desolate area of the temple.

On the walls of this courtyard, there were some faded Buddhist murals. Being outdoor wall paintings, they had peeled away to the point where only patches of color remained, making it impossible to discern any patterns. I saw a silhouette, and I was certain that this person was simply staring into space; they were not truly looking at anything.

But I hesitated to approach because I was too familiar with that silhouette—so familiar that, in that moment, I doubted whether I was hallucinating or had entered another time and space. It was the silhouette of my brother. He was dressed in a black snow jacket, quietly sitting on a stone in the courtyard, surrounded by snow. He seemed completely unfazed by the cold, as if he had fully immersed himself in his own world.