It was a strange painting.

At the end of 2010, after returning from Nepal, I entered Tibet and rested for a week at the foot of Mount Karjen. I didn’t immediately start looking for clues about the Ma family. After all, the journey had been exhausting, and on the advice of my companion, I decided to first deal with the various burdens I had accumulated during my trip to Nepal.

I brought back a large number of antique-style ornaments with characteristics of Tibetan Buddhism, intending to use them as display samples and to find the true origins of the jewelry in the Zhang family’s ancient building. In a place called Motuo, I organized all the ornaments into three large packages, which I mailed to three different addresses in Hangzhou to lighten my load for the journey ahead.

Motuo has two types of “post offices,” as it is quite a special place. It is closed off by mountains year-round, making access difficult. Initially, the formal post office here could only receive letters and could not send them out. It wasn’t until recent years that a small path allowing mail delivery was established, but the mail truck only runs once a week.

Therefore, there is also a local informal mail service, which essentially involves finding someone who is traveling that way to carry packages. Among the crowd entering and exiting Motuo, helping others carry mail packages is a common practice. Some people act as intermediaries to earn a little money. The so-called “post office” I found was set up by one of these individuals. While it may not be particularly safe, it at least ensures some timeliness. As long as someone is leaving Motuo, one can generally know when the packages will arrive at the outside post office, and then forwarding them becomes more reliable.

There are several ways to leave Motuo: by vehicle, by mule train, or by foot. The road for vehicles is not open year-round; I happened to arrive during a season when it was impassable, and mule trains were nearly extinct, so we sought out so-called trekkers or porters.

All the mail had to be carried out of the mountains bit by bit by the “postmen,” so the weight of the packages could not be too heavy. I spent nearly three hours averaging the weight of the three large packages.

It was during that time that I saw the painting. It was hanging on the wall behind the “post office counter”—which was actually just an office desk topped with tempered glass.

The wall was painted a light green, and several items were hung on it: a Chinese ink painting with the words “A Thousand Miles of Prosperity,” featuring an eagle and the four big characters; three bilingual banners with commendatory phrases like “Honesty in Finding Lost Items” and “Safety Insurance”; and, in addition, an oil painting.

The oil painting was not the kind that looked like it was created by a professional artist; it was quite ordinary, even somewhat clumsily executed. The painting depicted a profile of a person, and judging by the degree of paint peeling and the colors, it seemed to have been here for a long time.

The main subject of the painting was a taciturn figure. I do not understand Western painting, but the principles of painting are somewhat universal. Although it was a poorly executed painting, it possessed a unique vigor.

I couldn’t tell where this feeling came from. The person in the painting wore a lama’s robe on the upper body and a Tibetan cloak on the lower body, standing amidst the mountains, with the peaks of Mount Karjen visible in the background. Whether it was the setting sun or the glow of dawn, the overall tone of the oil painting shifted from white to gray-yellow.

This painting is poorly executed, but it uses color quite boldly, making it a wonderful example of directly conveying the artistic conception. Of course, even so, that does not mean this painting has considerable value. The reason I am surprised is that I recognize the person in the painting.

Yes, the features and expression of this person leave me with absolutely no doubt. It’s him. I am completely at a loss as to why he would appear here, as there is no reason for him to be in Metok, especially in a poorly done oil painting.

This is a portrait of a dull person. I first vehemently denied it, as this situation is too strange. The possibility of misidentification is very high, after all, it’s a painting, not a photograph. Many details in the painting are quite blurry, so it’s possible for such a resemblance to occur.

However, I found myself unable to look away. Every detail of the person in the painting is telling me that it is too similar. Especially the eyes; in my lifetime, I have never seen anyone with a gaze like his. The fat guy once said that it is a gaze that has no connection to anything. Few people in the world can live with no connection to the world.

Yet, the person in this painting has that kind of gaze. I stared at it for a long time and instinctively felt that the person in the painting is definitely him. Five years ago, he disappeared from our sight. Of course, I know the truth about his disappearance, and I could say a lot about him, but that is not the main point of this story. What he did before is not important here; my primary thought upon seeing this painting was: Is Metok a part of his investigation? Does his appearance here mean that what he was investigating at that time is connected to this place?

At that time, I asked a postal worker at the post office. I remember he was an old man with a typical face of a Tibetan. I asked him who painted this painting. The old man pointed across the street to the “post office” and told me in broken Chinese that the painter’s name is Chen Xuehan.

I turned my gaze over and saw a middle-aged man getting hot water from a boiler room by the roadside. He should be the caretaker of the boiler room, which provides hot water for nearby residents, charging three mao for a pot. Compared to the heavy snow outside, the boiler room was warm enough to make one sweat, so many people were gathered around it to keep warm. They were all dressed similarly, making the group look quite alike.

The Tibetan elder was very enthusiastic. Seeing that I was having trouble distinguishing, he shouted towards the boiler room, “Chen Xuehan!”

His voice was so loud that it seemed to shake the snow off the roof of the post office. The person called Chen Xuehan heard the shout from the Tibetan elder and looked up at us with some confusion.

I immediately walked over. The man had a particularly dark face with rough skin, and surprisingly, he looked a bit younger up close.

I said in Chinese, “Hello, may I ask if you are the one who painted the oil painting in the post office?”

Chen Xuehan glanced at me and then nodded. I noticed that his eyes lacked any sparkle; it was the kind of gaze unique to someone living a particularly peaceful life. With so much tranquility, he didn’t need to think about many issues often, and he had entered a particularly routine state of being.

I handed him a cigarette and asked him about the details of the oil painting. Chen Xuehan seemed a bit surprised, looked me over, closed the valve of the hot water boiler, and asked, “Why are you asking about this? Do you know him?” His voice was particularly hoarse, but his enunciation was very clear. I briefly explained the situation, mentioning the person’s background and my relationship with him. Chen Xuehan showed a hint of surprise, took off the white towel gloves he was wearing, and stepped out of the boiler room. “You must have mistaken him for someone else; this oil painting was done twenty years ago. How old were you back then?”

I was somewhat taken aback; I hadn’t expected the painting to be that old, although it did look somewhat worn. In response to his question, I didn’t know how to answer, as it wasn’t something that could be explained in just a few sentences. Fortunately, he didn’t seem too interested in knowing more and continued, “This person has nothing to do with me.”

He pointed in a direction outside the door, where a vast expanse of white was visible—distant snow-capped mountains. “I saw that painting there. If you want to know more, you can ask the lama there.”

Following his指向, I looked in that direction and saw a building faintly visible amidst the heavy snow, hidden in silver-white.

“What place is that?” I asked.

“That’s the lama temple,” Chen Xuehan said. “I copied that painting in that lama temple.”

“Were there any strange occurrences at that time? Or is there something special about that lama temple?” I inquired, as unusual phenomena often seemed to accompany his presence. Or perhaps that lama temple itself was inherently extraordinary.

Chen Xuehan shook his head and, after thinking for a moment, replied, “Nothing strange happened. The only odd thing was that the lama insisted I copy that painting.”

“Why?”

“The lama can see karma. He asked me to paint, so I did—there’s no reason. He could see everything that would happen after this painting, while I couldn’t.”

Chen Xuehan told me that the figure in the painting, a dark oil bottle, should be a distinguished guest of the lama temple. The original version of the oil painting was created by the great lama three days before leaving Motuo, and his version was a later copy. That winter, he stayed in the temple for a long time and happened to see the oil painting in the great lama’s room, who insisted he paint it, so he attempted to copy it.

Only then did I understand why the colors in the painting were so bold and vivid, yet the technique appeared somewhat clumsy.

Many lamas in Tibet have high aesthetic standards and professional knowledge; many great lamas hold multiple degrees from prestigious universities abroad. I attributed this to the focus that comes from a life of simplicity and asceticism.

As I contemplated this, I found myself lost in thought about what might have happened to him on that snow-covered mountain.

“Are you going? Three hundred yuan, and I’ll take you there,” he said. “That lama temple is not open to outsiders; you can’t get in.”

Perhaps the karma the great lama saw was just that three hundred yuan.