Chapter 103: Chapter 101: A Call to Zhou Lili
September 30, morning.
Cangling Town.
In the distance, the green mountains blurred into layers. Nearby were golden wheat fields, and ahead, a cluster of houses appeared with white walls and blue tiles. It was unclear whether it was morning mist or cooking smoke lingering over the town, making the scene picturesque.
The two should have hurried on, but they couldn’t help slowing down.
Brother Nan looked back at Zhou Li, her face completely covered by the magic headscarf and goggles.
Yet Zhou Li understood her intention.
He also stretched his neck to look around.
The place was indeed breathtaking.
Suddenly, Brother Nan pointed ahead. Zhou Li followed her gaze to see a group of cyclists coming toward them, covered in dust from their journey.
The two parties gradually neared each other.
The other group straightened up to size them up, slowed down, and greeted them in the customary way of cyclists. Brother Nan responded in kind.
After realizing Brother Nan was a woman, some even shouted words of encouragement before all eyes turned to Zhou Li. They whispered among themselves, thinking the wind was too loud for Zhou Li to hear:
"This guy’s interesting, letting a girl carry the gear!"
"She’s really something!"
"Got some nerve..."
But suddenly, the headwind shifted, becoming a frighteningly strong crosswind. Zhou Li just heard a series of "DAMN IT! DAMN IT!"s, and the three who had been talking were immediately blown off the road and into the dirt.
The wind stopped as abruptly as it had started.
Zhou Li turned his head to see a woman standing on a tree by the roadside, looking almost exactly like a female hero from a video game.
You...
he thought, feeling a deep sense of helplessness.Ahead, Brother Nan, not understanding what had happened, gripped her brakes and stopped. She looked back at Zhou Li, then towards the other group. Dismounting, she walked over, pulling down her face shield to check on the three men.
"Is something wrong?"
"No big deal..." The three men climbed up from the dirt with the help of their companions, dusting off their clothes. "Just a few scrapes!"
"I think I sprained my wrist!"
"That freak gust of wind just now was so bizarre..."
Brother Nan looked back at Zhou Li again, glanced around, then said to the three men, "This town seems to be on a hilltop. Places like this can sometimes get winds like that."
She said it so convincingly that, anyway, the three young men believed her.
Brother Nan then removed her goggles and hung them backward on her helmet, chatting for a bit with the few young men who were still dumbstruck.
"Where are you guys from?"
"Lha... Lhasa..."
"Oh, biking the reverse Yunnan-Tibet route. That’s impressive."
"Right, right! And you?"
"We came from Chunming, heading to Dali."
Brother Nan inquired about the road conditions ahead. When the group learned that she and Zhou Li had covered the distance from Lufeng County to this point in just over two hours, and that their destination for the day was Xiangyun County, they found it somewhat unbelievable.
Soon after, the other group prepared to leave.
A few of the young men looked at Brother Nan, then at Zhou Li, gritted their teeth, and abandoned the idea of asking for her contact information, departing resentfully.
Brother Nan wasn’t in a hurry to leave. She found a rock by the roadside to sit on and signaled Zhou Li to sit beside her. "If we’d known, we would have biked an extra sixty kilometers to stay here last night," she said. "The scenery here is really beautiful."
"True."
"But the other place wasn’t bad either; the food was good." Brother Nan was still reminiscing about the taste of the chicken soup rice noodles from that morning.
"Let’s sit for a bit longer now," Zhou Li suggested.
"That’s exactly what I was thinking!"
Brother Nan drew up her long legs, clasped her knees, and sometimes gazed into the distance, other times looked up at the wind blowing the clouds across the sky. After a good while, she finally put her magic headscarf and goggles back on and they set off once more.
Because today’s journey was quite long, Brother Nan took it very seriously, maintaining a consistent pedaling cadence for the previous two hours.
The sixty-kilometer mountain road, with its ups and downs, twists and turns, was much more challenging than cycling around Dian Lake. They had managed it in just over two hours, averaging a speed of twenty-seven or twenty-eight kilometers per hour.
There were still over a hundred kilometers to go, including crossing one major mountain, with an uphill stretch of over ten kilometers.
Luckily, both of them possessed exceptional stamina.
They traveled, stopping now and then to take photos or sit and chat in the breeze. They even encountered a few more groups of cyclists, though most of the time Zhou Li and Brother Nan just passed by others quickly.
「By five in the afternoon, Xiangyun County was nearing.」
The sun had turned golden. Though they had previously traversed mountain ranges, they were now on a golden plain. Vast cultivated fields stretched out, with many machines puffing black smoke, their rumbling sounds carried from afar.
A grid of white concrete paths crisscrossed the fields.
It was the harvest season.
Brother Nan stopped to take a photo, then shouted, "Let’s go in and play!" and veered onto one of the concrete paths, pedaling fast.
There was still plenty of time, so she slowly whiled it away—
Encountering a stray local dog, she had to playfully engage with it for a while.
Meeting an old farmer harvesting wheat, she had to stop and chat for a bit.
Coming across a tractor, she had to stop and take a look.
She continued her playful meandering like this until dusk, when the entire world was bathed in a golden-red light. Perhaps a little tired, she left her bike by the roadside, took off her shoes to carry them in her hand, and strolled slowly along a small irrigation ditch. The water mirrored the splendid clouds, creating a scene of breathtaking and tranquil beauty.
Zhou Li followed behind her, his gaze fixed on her tall silhouette.
Classmate Li Nan then simply sat down, rolled up her pant legs, and leisurely dangled her feet in the water.
The sun was no longer scorching; it had become gentle.
Time itself seemed to slow down.
The scene had been quiet for only a short while when Brother Nan turned her head to ask Zhou Li, "Where have we ended up?"
"I was following you."
"I was following my intuition."
"..."
The concrete paths branched in all directions. Brother Nan, in her carefree wandering, had no idea how many turns she had made, and Zhou Li didn’t know where they were either. "Check the GPS on your phone for the direction," Zhou Li said. "Let’s follow it to get out of here."
"Give me your phone. Mine’s off."
"Okay."
Brother Nan took Zhou Li’s phone and started using it. She was surprised to find that such a small path was even navigable, although the GPS showed another unfamiliar path that was twenty-two kilometers long.
Before she had turned off the national highway, they had still been over ten kilometers from their destination.
"We’re getting farther and farther away, huh!" she exclaimed.
"It’s okay."
"It’s actually quite good. Being out and about should have some uncertainty; that’s what makes it memorable." Brother Nan turned off the phone screen and kicked her feet, sending splashes into the air.
"Makes sense."
Zhou Li sat down beside her.
Neither of them was flustered. They sat side by side, waiting for the sun to set.
「When they arrived in Xiangyun, it was indeed dark.」
Brother Nan stopped to look up the route to their hotel again. Fortunately, she had been prepared; before her phone was about to die, she had taken a screenshot of the hotel information and sent it to Zhou Li.
He opened QQ... Huh? Why isn’t Brother Nan in my contacts?
This...
Brother Nan mechanically turned her head and stared straight at Zhou Li.
Zhou Li instinctively took a step back.
"What’s wrong?"
"This contact name you set for me??"
"..."
"Speak."
"I’m sorry, Brother Nan."
"...Zhou Lili."
Zhou Li paused, taken aback. "I’ll change it back right now."
"Zhou Lili."
Zhou Li faltered, utterly bewildered, then lowered his head in sincere apology. "Brother Nan, I was wrong."
"Zhou Lili."
"..."
Brother Nan, expressionless, mounted her bike and rode off.
That evening, she also changed Zhou Li’s contact name.