It wasn't until the third day of the trip that Shang Zhitao finally shook off the sense of unreality and truly felt that they were traveling.
Luan Nian was a perfect example of what a road trip should be. His way of traveling was just like him: full of adventurous spirit, with a touch of willfulness. He stopped wherever he liked, without caring whether they reached that day's destination. He kept asking Shang Zhitao:
"Want to stop?"
"Get off the highway?"
"Go explore over there?"
Wild. Every time this happened, Shang Zhitao thought the word "wild" suited Luan Nian perfectly. He was wild like a beast, utterly unrestrained, dangerous and captivating. Over time, it became something she couldn't help getting used to, almost addicted to. He dressed differently while traveling than he did at work, cycling through outdoor gear, motorcycle jackets, hiking boots, all of it a pleasure to look at.
Shang Zhitao tugged at the ash gray cashmere scarf around his neck and asked, "So are you and your friends going on a trip or entering a beauty pageant?"
Luan Nian brushed her hand away. "Just a matter of aesthetic preference." Then he added, "Though I admit, it is likeable."
"So when you travel together, do you have romantic encounters?"
Luan Nian pulled the car over and didn't answer, leaving her to wonder for herself.
They pulled into a rest stop along the highway in Linxia, once a strategic pass on the ancient Silk Road, with rugged, magnificent scenery stretching as far as the eye could see. Luke was overjoyed. He seemed to consider himself a proper traveling dog, wearing the K9 harness that had just become popular that year, running about pure white and full of swagger. Every time they stopped and opened the door, he charged out to inspect the surroundings. Luan Nian followed behind him, blowing a whistle, and no matter where Luke ran off to, he came back the moment he heard it. Luan Nian spoiled Luke with meat, but he had trained him well all the same. Shang Zhitao watched, a little dazed.
She couldn't quite understand how the dog she had raised had ended up so well trained by Luan Nian.
Luan Nian's phone rang. He picked up, and even through the wind, he could hear Song Ying's voice. "Luke, I've got a draft of the creative proposal for the northwest project. Could you take a look and give me your feedback before I send it to Sister Flora?"
"Flora what?"
"Sister Flora."
Luan Nian glanced at Shang Zhitao and suddenly realized that after all their years together, Shang Zhitao was no longer twenty two. And yet she seemed unchanged, standing just as straight and upright as she had back then, sincere with people, her eyes just as clear.
"Yilia, at our company we don't add extra suffixes to people's English names. It sounds strange."
Song Ying seemed a little surprised, but replied all the same, "Okay, Luke, got it."
"Good. As for the proposal, just send it straight to Flora. She's not from a creative background, but as a project manager she has her own professional judgment. You should ask her for advice more often."
"Okay, Luke, I won't bother you further then. Bye."
"Goodbye."
Shang Zhitao remembered Song Ying once telling her that she liked Luan Nian, but she said nothing. Luan Nian put away his phone and teased Shang Zhitao, "So you've become 'Sister Flora' now?" He reached over and pinched her cheek. "Let's see where you look like anyone's older sister."
Shang Zhitao let him pinch her cheek until her mouth twisted sideways, and she mumbled, "Aren't men supposed to like young girls? What do you think of Song Ying at twenty two?"
Luan Nian actually gave it some real thought. Song Ying at twenty two was a blur in his memory; he couldn't even recall exactly what she looked like. All he knew was that she was talented, and he respected that talent. But he remembered exactly the clarity and the anxiety in the eyes of the twenty two year old Shang Zhitao, and how often her face had flushed under his gaze.
"Why aren't you answering me?" Shang Zhitao asked him.
"Answer what? Are we starting a comparison?" Luan Nian asked her.
"There's no comparison!" Shang Zhitao said, a little flustered as she tried to explain. Luan Nian took out a piece of candy and popped it into her mouth, telling her, "I don't know Song Ying at twenty two well. But I know Shang Zhitao at twenty two very well."
Then he added, "Inside and out."
Shang Zhitao's face suddenly burned, and she pulled away from his fingers, scolding him, "What kind of nonsense is that!"
"Why did you ask that?" Luan Nian walked over and asked her.
"Just asking."
"We're standing on thousands of years of civilization. Lying on our ancestors' land wouldn't do, it would be an insult to them." Luan Nian was unusually patient this time; he wanted to get to the bottom of what Shang Zhitao really thought.
Shang Zhitao thought about it for a long time before asking, "If Song Ying at twenty two and Shang Zhitao at twenty two both fell for you at the same time, would you still choose Shang Zhitao at twenty two?"
Luan Nian genuinely thought it over, then said, "I'd want to sleep with Shang Zhitao at twenty two, and I'd want her to want to sleep with me too. As for Song Ying at twenty two, I feel nothing. So I'd still choose Shang Zhitao."
Shang Zhitao took a moment to respond, then said, "Sure enough."
"Sure enough what?"
"Sure enough, my surname wins out." She glanced at Luan Nian and walked off.
Shang Zhitao believed Luan Nian when he said he felt nothing for Song Ying. Luan Nian was a man who never lied. If he had wanted to sleep with her, he probably would have said something like, "It's hard to compare, maybe I should get to know her more deeply and see."
Lumi sent her a message: "You took a long leave?"
"Ah..."
"Going to Cambodia with a friend for that long?"
"We ended up adding Thailand and Singapore too..."
"Wait, the stubborn mule actually gave you leave?"
Shang Zhitao glanced up at "Lumi's stubborn mule," then lowered her head and typed back, "He must have taken the wrong medicine, but he said yes."
"Damn. I want to go out and play too."
"Then take leave."
"But I still haven't slept with Will, I don't want to waste time playing."
Lumi used to take leave every few days to go out and play, but lately she rarely took time off at all. One day she came to work with a cold, fever, and a runny nose, and Shang Zhitao wondered if Miss Lu had been cursed by something. Lumi wiped her nose while staring toward Will's office and said, "Yeah, I've been cursed. Cursed by that man."
Shang Zhitao couldn't help laughing out loud, but when she caught Luan Nian's gaze sweeping over, she pressed her lips shut.
"Good luck. I hope you sleep with Will soon."
Shang Zhitao put her phone away and got into the car with Luan Nian.
"What do you and your mentor talk about every day?" Luan Nian asked her. He found the two of them funny, a pair of fools who seemed to be joined at the hip. He couldn't figure out where they got so much to talk about.
Shang Zhitao couldn't very well tell him they'd been discussing whether Lumi had slept with Will yet, so she just said, "We talk about work and our ambitions."
"Talking about whether Lumi's slept with Will yet?" Luan Nian put on his sunglasses, the corner of his mouth curling into a small smile. Shang Zhitao looked at him, a little alarmed.
Luan Nian hadn't been spying on their conversation. The two of them had simply been whispering furtively in the office pantry, and he happened to walk by just as he heard Lumi say, "When am I ever going to sleep with Will..."
"You can tell your mentor she'll never sleep with Will in this lifetime. Will's family isn't any worse off than hers, but he comes from a family of scholars, and neither he nor his family can accept new money. Call it the pride of the literati."
"...Sleeping with someone depends on family background?" Shang Zhitao wasn't pleased to hear him say that. "My parents are just ordinary workers, and didn't I still end up sleeping with someone from a distinguished family like you? As long as you're not aiming for marriage, what's wrong with sleeping with someone?"
She had only meant to speak up for Lumi, but her example was a poor choice. Luan Nian, who had already been about to start the car, stopped at that and turned his head to look at her. Shang Zhitao couldn't make out his eyes behind the sunglasses, but she sensed a trace of coldness.
"Collecting medals, are you?" Luan Nian's tone was flat, giving nothing away. But Shang Zhitao could sense the anger churning inside him.
"As long as you're not aiming for marriage, you'll sleep with whoever you want? No moral boundaries at all? Then tell me, who do you want to sleep with next?"
It took Shang Zhitao a long moment to realize Luan Nian had missed her point entirely. She explained, "What I meant was, when it comes to Lumi and Will, if they both have feelings for each other, it wouldn't be strange for something to happen between them."
"What did you mean by 'as long as you're not aiming for marriage'?"
"...I was just talking nonsense."
Luan Nian took off his sunglasses and looked at her. Shang Zhitao knew he was going to press her properly on this. She leaned over quickly and covered his mouth with her hand. "Everything I just said was nonsense. I only meant that I hope Lumi gets to sleep with Will soon. Will's a talented young man, sure, but Lumi's great too, and she genuinely likes him, it's not just some passing whim."
Luan Nian kept looking at her. That line about it being fine to sleep with someone as long as you weren't aiming for marriage had struck a nerve; it made him irrationally angry.
"Lumi was wrong, she shouldn't have wanted to sleep with her boss. Can you please not hold this against us?"
Luan Nian started the car. The scenery was so beautiful, why should he bother arguing with Shang Zhitao's careless mouth?
The deeper they drove into the Tibetan region, the more beautiful the scenery became. Even Luke perked up. His eyesight and sense of smell were excellent, and he noticed every movement along the road, barking the moment he spotted something, startling Shang Zhitao again and again. Finally she couldn't help scolding him. "Luke! What's wrong with you! Can you stop jumping at everything? You bark at anything you see! Calm down!"
The words had barely left her mouth before she was pointing ahead. "Whoa! Look, the colors are different! Stop the car!" The very person who had just been mocking Luke couldn't keep her composure either. They had timed their trip to avoid the crowds, and in those years not that many people traveled by car, so they encountered few vehicles or people along the way. Alone in the landscape, one side of the road was emerald green and the other sky blue, a salt crust highway winding between the two colored lakes and stretching out to the horizon.
Shang Zhitao felt as though her heart might float away. They got out of the car. Luan Nian started fiddling with his drone, Luke bounded off in excitement, and Shang Zhitao chased after him. "Come back!"
Luan Nian blew the whistle, and Luke ran back, with Shang Zhitao following behind him. Luan Nian took hold of Shang Zhitao's wrist, and the two of them watched the drone lift into the air. Shang Zhitao waved at it. Luan Nian, seeing how silly she looked, pinched her cheek.
"Was taking the detour the right call, Ms. Shang?" The two of them had argued for a long time over whether to take the detour. Luan Nian had insisted on it. At the time, the Two Colored Lake hadn't been developed yet, and very few people came here. Luan Nian had insisted on seeing this rare, unspoiled scenery, and in the end they'd settled it with rock paper scissors, which Luan Nian won, bringing them here on the detour. So, as it turned out, Luan Nian wasn't so stubbornly set on having his own way after all; he was starting to believe in democracy.
"Yes!" Shang Zhitao leaned against his shoulder, the wind lifting her long hair, and Luan Nian bent down and kissed her. Then he went back to operating the drone.
Shang Zhitao stood beside him. The scenery was intoxicating, but there was still one question she wanted an honest answer to, so she asked him again, "Luan Nian, between Shang Zhitao at twenty six and Song Ying at twenty two, which would you choose?"
The drone made noise as it landed, and Luan Nian didn't catch her question. "What did you say?"
"I said, between Shang Zhitao at twenty six and Song Ying at twenty two, which would you choose?"