—An “Unprecedented Situation”.
Four days prior, at a remote railway station on the China-Nepal border.
A lean, handsome young man pushed through the crowd to the counter. “Two hard-seat tickets to Larilangg,” he said.
The ticket agent lazily extended a hand. “ID cards—”
The young man pulled out his documents from a cloth bag. The agent glanced at them and asked, “What about the other one?”
The young man silently pulled out several banknotes and slipped them into the agent’s hand.
The surroundings were bustling. Dark-faced Tibetans, smelling of earth, shouted loudly. Mud and dust-stained bundles jostled about. Outside, poultry squawked incessantly. The ticket agent tacitly pocketed the money and, moments later, handed him two hard-seat tickets.
The young man squeezed out of the crowd, stepped over various sizes of luggage scattered on the ground, and headed straight for a row of seats in the small, dilapidated waiting area. He casually tossed aside the packages occupying the seats and sat down.
Next to him, a person wearing a large hooded sweatshirt turned their head, revealing half of a beautiful, fair face, with a mocking smile on their lips. “You’ve worked so hard, my dear brother.”
The young man coldly said, “Put your sunglasses back on, Maha.”
Maha’s gray hooded sweatshirt covered most of his face. Below the sunglasses, a small part of his face and neck were exposed, as white as carved ice and snow.
His long hair was tied in a ponytail, hanging down his side from beneath the hood, very smooth and dark, making him look like a beautiful woman. His slender, graceful fingers tapped on the armrest. He seemingly casually surveyed his surroundings, his gaze flitting over passersby, focusing particularly on their body types and fat thickness.
Jia Louluo, however, wore a counterfeit sports T-shirt, a black jacket and trousers, and black fingerless leather gloves. His short hair stood up, revealing the strong, silent profile of a young man, and a lean, robust physique built from long-term activity and training at high altitudes. He lifted his package onto his lap and checked his luggage again.
Two days prior, he had withdrawn the items his parents had left for him at the only “bank” in this mountain region. This was an arrangement they had made the last time his parents visited him in the Himalayas: if Jia Louluo ever decided to leave Tibet, he would retrieve the safe his parents had deposited for him at a specified location.
The valuables and information inside would help him integrate more quickly and easily into human society. Of course, human society was constantly changing, so his parents would re-deposit items every few years, and the locations were not limited to that one small local bank but covered over a dozen different banks and credit unions across the surrounding railway network.
Jia Louluo rummaged through his bag. The items Zhou Hui had left him must have been updated just two years ago. They included an off-road vehicle key (which was useless, as he couldn’t drive), a stack of peace talismans (reportedly now selling for exorbitant prices, but not a single one could be sold in the Tibetan region), and a mobile phone—dead battery, no SIM card, with malice practically oozing from the screen.
The safe Phoenix had left for his second son, however, hadn’t been touched for several years. Inside were neatly stacked eighty thousand yuan in cash, a set of identification documents, and the most comprehensive Tibetan railway map available at the time.
A long-suppressed question resurfaced in Jia Louluo’s mind: How on earth did his mother fall for his father back then? Was it really just because of his looks?
“So fat,” Maha exclaimed, looking at a small chubby child being led by his parents not far away.
Jia Louluo immediately gave him a warning glance. “Don’t cause trouble.”
Maha’s long, crossed legs swung restlessly. Sitting among a group of “food” probably made him incredibly uncomfortable. He coldly said, “You weren’t so talkative when I was eating people on the snow mountain that day.”
“That was different; those were snow leopard poachers.”
“What’s the difference?”
“They poach snow leopards, and snow leopards are rare animals. Even if you don’t eat them, I would…”
“Why can’t rare animals be hunted?”
“Because if rare animals become extinct—” Jia Louluo choked, rubbing his forehead. “Why am I even arguing about this with you…?”
Maha was born without a sense of right and wrong; his ideas were fundamentally different from humans. The highly personified Jia Louluo felt he truly couldn’t communicate with his elder brother.
Peacock wanted to seize the Golden Winged Great Peng’s divine essence.
The two brothers had fought on the snowy peaks for seven days and seven nights, neither gaining the upper hand, both almost crippling each other.
Finally, Jia Louluo didn’t want to continue. He discussed with Maha: he would go down the mountain and find their father, distracting Zhou Hui, while Maha would seize the opportunity to find their mother and see if Phoenix had a way to salvage Peacock Wisdom King’s divine essence. Maha had lost his divine essence and was at a disadvantage in his fight with his younger brother, relying only on experience.
Continuing the fight would make the outcome truly unpredictable. He could only agree to Jia Louluo’s proposal, and for the first time in hundreds of years, the brothers embarked on the same journey together.
This was a landmark event in their family relationship. However, Jia Louluo had to procure supplies, calculate expenses, plan their journey, allocate provisions, and constantly watch his brother to prevent him from running off to eat people. The hardships involved were truly unspeakable to outsiders.
The train was still half an hour away from ticket check-in. Maha, bored, scanned left and right, watching the red-faced Tibetans in various attire loudly pushing and shoving, shouting in incomprehensible languages. He suddenly asked, “This place is so rundown, why did you choose to cultivate here?”
Jia Louluo replied, “I’m used to it.”
“Used to it?”
Jia Louluo was silent for a while, fiddling with the dead phone. After a long moment, he said, “Back when you devoured the Buddha, I knew about it but didn’t stop you. Afterwards, you suffered heavenly tribulation, and I was taken by Bhadra to the Tibetan snowfield and imprisoned for a hundred years, supposedly to be tempered and punished, to comprehend Buddhist teachings… Now that I think about it, it was probably to protect me back then, since no one knew if the heavenly tribulation would also strike me down.”
“A hundred years is long past,” Maha said.
“I’ve always stayed on the Himalayas, active within the snowline glaciers. Once I got used to it, I didn’t want to go down the mountain anymore,” Jia Louluo paused, then continued, “Besides, I work as a guide for people, and life is pretty good. Although I’m not a true deity, I did receive human incense offerings at one point, so I have to find a way to repay my merits. Occasionally rescuing climbers on the snow mountain counts as doing good deeds.”
Maha suddenly remembered that he had received far more incense offerings than Jia Louluo—as the legitimate Peacock Great Wisdom King, he probably owed several times more merit than Phoenix. But he had never actually done anything to repay it. How many years would it take to repay it now?
“Mother repays merit very quickly. Working for human world nations is inherently the fastest way, and Father repays with her. In another three to five years, the incense debts accumulated over the past few millennia will probably be completely cleared,” Jia Louluo turned to look at his brother. “What are you planning to do?”
Maha was stunned for a moment, then pulled his hood over his face. “—Forget it.”
But “forgetting it” was definitely not a solution to the problem. Any Celestial Being, having received the incense offerings of believers, must repay merit to the human world in a corresponding way. Phoenix, as an ancient divine bird, didn’t have specific Phoenix temples for people to offer incense to him, but having lived for millions of years, the accumulated human world incense was no small amount. Helping national organizations was his large-scale, rapid way of repaying merit. Jia Louluo was younger and not a true deity, so he didn’t owe much. Serving as a guide on the highly Buddhist Mount Everest was also a way of repaying merit while cultivating.
As for Peacock Great Wisdom King, he was one of the legitimate Wisdom Kings and had a vast number of followers, with immeasurable incense offerings. Furthermore, he had only been concerned with devouring the Buddha and eating people, never even considering repaying merit. If he couldn’t regain his divine essence and owed too much debt, there was no telling what he would reincarnate as after the Six Paths of Reincarnation—if he turned into a domestic animal like a pig or a dog, that would be truly hilarious.
“You want me to…” Jia Louluo wanted to ask, “Do you want me to help you repay some of it when I repay mine?” But the words caught in his throat. He turned his head and saw several people approaching the low, dilapidated gate of the station.
Those people were clearly a boss with several subordinates. The boss walked at the front, a Han Chinese man in his thirties, very tall, wearing a black trench coat and black leather shoes. His demeanor was very unusual, standing out like a crane among chickens in the noisy Tibetan station. Each of the three subordinates carried a large backpack, bulging with unknown contents. Although they looked heavy, the people carrying them stood tall, as if specially trained. Jia Louluo’s gaze fell on the backpacks; he smelled gunpowder and explosives.
—Firearms? Which triad boss carries smuggled firearms in a backpack to take a train?
“—Too lazy to repay it. I’ll get my divine essence back first,” Maha said lazily.
Jia Louluo ignored him, watching the group warily.
The black trench coat boss arrived in the waiting room and stopped. His gaze swept through the packed crowd, failing to find a seat, but his eyes happened to meet Jia Louluo’s. Moments later, Jia Louluo subtly shifted his gaze, continuing to fiddle with the old phone. The boss, however, stared at him for a while, then casually looked at Maha beside him.
Maha had been looked at since childhood and was used to it, not sensitive to gazes at all. But this black trench coat boss had a truly strong presence. After a few seconds, Maha finally turned his head, revealing a small part of his face, his gaze, devoid of emotion, returning the stare from beneath his sunglasses. He sized the man up and down, then extended his tongue and licked his lips.
—This gesture, from any angle, was quite alluring, and a flash of astonishment appeared in the boss’s eyes. However, what he didn’t know was that after Maha licked his lips, he immediately turned to his brother, his eyes full of desire, and softly uttered two words: “Want to eat.”
“…” Jia Louluo rubbed his forehead. After a long moment, he said powerlessly, “I’ll buy you a bento box on the train, okay?”
The train finally arrived late. Jia Louluo queued for ticket check-in and boarded the train, carrying his luggage alone, followed by the empty-handed Maha. They found their compartment in the crowded aisle, pushed the door open, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.
However, he immediately held his breath again.
The compartment door reopened, and the black trench coat boss walked in gracefully with his ticket, followed by a subordinate carrying a large bag.
“Oh,” the boss seemed a little surprised to see them, but then he smiled. “—Han Chinese? Tourists? Hello, both of you!” His accent was a genuine Northeast one, very rare in the Tibetan region. But Maha sat regally behind the table, hands in his pockets, hood up, eyes closed in meditation. Jia Louluo settled his luggage, then silently sat down, not uttering a sound from start to finish. Both completely ignored the presence of the black trench coat boss.
The boss wasn’t embarrassed. He chuckled and had his subordinate put down the backpack, then took out tea eggs, instant noodles, sausages, and chocolate, and handed a bottle of mineral water to Maha. “Miss?”
Jia Louluo: “…”
Maha had no idea he was being addressed and didn’t even open his eyes.
The boss persisted, “Miss? Would you like some water, Miss?”
Jia Louluo reached out from the side, took the water bottle, and then gently tossed it back into the boss’s lap. “Thank you, we don’t need it.” The moment the young man moved his hand, his knuckles protruded, his arm muscles were solid, and his gaze was calm yet sharp, sweeping across like a cold wind.
The boss paused, placed the mineral water on the table, and chuckled, “It’s fine, we’re all friends when we’re out and about. ‘Let’s drink one more cup, for once you leave the Western Pass, you’ll have no old friends’—Ah, this vast and magnificent frontier! How can one not feel the urge to drink heartily?” As he spoke, he unscrewed the cap and took a sip.
Jia Louluo: “…”
The train let out a long whistle, full of passengers, and slowly started moving on the railway of the Tibetan plateau. The platform receded behind them, and the scenery outside the window quickly turned into vast land and rolling plains.
“My surname is Wu. You can call me Brother Wu or Old Wu,” the black trench coat boss said, preparing a cup of instant noodles, peeling a tea egg as he asked, “Where are you both from? Are you backpackers going trekking to Everest?”
Jia Louluo silently fiddled with his old phone, seemingly oblivious to everything around him. The boss stared at him for a while, then a light suddenly flickered in his mind. He pulled out a power bank from his bag. “Little brother, do you need this?”
Jia Louluo: “…”
“You put your phone on it, yes, just like that, connect this cable… It’ll take about three or four hours to fully charge, but you can turn it on and use it soon…”
Boss Wu enthusiastically taught Jia Louluo how to charge his phone step by step. Then he carefully examined his worn and outdated clothes and chuckled, “There are many new things in the outside world, little brother. You’ll gradually see them. Where are you two going? Lhasa?”
“Thank you,” Jia Louluo said simply, “To Geri Lang.”
“Oh—what for, transfer?”
“Mm.”
“Transfer where? Lhasa? Xining? Sichuan?”
“…Sichuan.”
“Sichuan is a good place!” The black trench coat boss immediately brightened, looking straight ahead, and said emotionally, “I went to Chengdu when I was a child—the Sichuan Basin! The Land of Abundance! Dujiangyan, Wuhou Temple! On the bustling Jinli Street in the afternoon, warm and honest people, fiery young women!—What are you going to Sichuan for?”
“Transfer.”
“…” The black trench coat boss asked, “Transfer where?”
Jia Louluo lazily leaned back, crossing his arms, his well-defined, muscular forearms showing beneath his fingerless gloves. He stared at the depressed face of the black trench coat boss, then, after a moment, said with interest, “Beijing.”
He waited for the boss to passionately introduce the moonlit Great Wall, the grandeur of the imperial city, and perhaps even some practical information about current Beijing prices, transportation, and hotel accommodation.
To his surprise, the black trench coat boss just looked at him silently, his expression particularly indescribable. After a long moment, he finally asked, “—You’re going halfway across China to a place with PM2.5 values of 90 for three hundred days a year, for what?”
The brown leather train whistled across the plains. In the aisle outside the compartment, the conductor pushed a dining cart back and forth, shouting loudly in Tibetan.
Jia Louluo observed the black trench coat boss, then swept his gaze over his subordinate, before shifting his attention to the bulging large bag they had put down in the corner of the compartment.
“Where are you going again?” he asked with interest.
The subordinate seemed to shift uneasily, but then the black trench coat boss sighed, lamenting, “I’m also going to Beijing—oh, life is tough these days! As a boss, you have to support your subordinates, dabble in small businesses, and even travel all the way from the Northeast to Nepal to get goods…”
Jia Louluo said indifferently, “A boss who’s also so artistic?”
“Not at all! You flatter me, little brother.” The black trench coat boss looked out the window, a melancholic expression appearing in his eyes: “Actually, being a boss was not my original intention. My dream is poetry and distant lands. A traveler’s journey has no frontiers…”
He silently picked up a sausage from the table, casually tore off its wrapper, squeezed it into the bowl, and cut it into several pieces with a fork.
The next second, Maha suddenly took off his sunglasses, his eyes gleaming as he stared intently at the sausage.
“…”
The carriage fell silent. The breathtaking beauty of his face appeared without warning, causing everyone to simultaneously lose their voices. The black trench coat boss’s mouth hung open, unable to utter a sound. The subordinate’s eyes instantly went straight. Maha turned to Jia Louluo. “Didn’t you say you were going to buy food?”
Jia Louluo’s face was expressionless. He stood up and walked out, but hadn’t taken two steps before he heard the black trench coat boss’s extremely excited voice from behind him: “Come, come, come… Miss, it’s this sausage’s honor to be favored by you. Please, by all means, grace us with your acceptance…”
Maha reached out and took the sausage. He put several pieces into his mouth at once, not chewing, but swallowing them directly like jelly. He narrowed his eyes in dissatisfaction, scanning the man in the black trench coat before him.
This was actually his favorite type of food—unlike some demons who liked to eat women and children, he preferred a chewy texture and a small amount of fat. If the eaten subject also had a small amount of magical power, it tasted even better. And he could tell that this man indeed had magical power on him. If he were roasted to medium-rare…
“Hello, Miss, may I venture to ask your esteemed name?” The black trench coat boss seemed a little overwhelmed by Maha’s fiery gaze, but he still bowed gracefully and said smoothly, “Hello, my surname is Wu, I’m thirty-three years old, I do some small business in the Northeast, I have seventy or eighty subordinates, and my family assets are just a few hundred million, not much really…”
Maha didn’t listen to him speak. A sizzling steak on a plate meant nothing to a diner. Maha reached out, his long, slender fingers white and graceful, like a reserved lover looking down from above, extending towards the black trench coat boss’s chest.
The next second, crack! With a sharp sound, Jia Louluo grabbed his hand in mid-air.
The boss’s voice cut off abruptly. Maha and Jia Louluo stared at each other. The former’s eyes glowed with a demonic light, while the latter’s face was resolute and unyielding. He uttered two words: “No.”
Maha dangerously narrowed his eyes.
Jia Louluo, however, ignored him. Maintaining his grip on Maha’s hand, he turned to the black trench coat boss and said in a deep voice, “May I ask Mr. Wu’s full name?”
“Oh,” the boss said, puzzled. “My name is Wu Bei, little brother, you…”
“Mr. Wu Bei,” Jia Louluo interrupted him, “Please switch carriages immediately, or get off at the next station and transfer. Don’t ask why. If you don’t leave, you might not make it off this train alive. Something like this happening in a crowded place would be very troublesome for me.”
Wu Bei: “…”
Wu Bei blinked, a look of confusion on his face. After a moment, he cautiously began, “I say, you two—”
Bang!
The carriage suddenly shook, followed by a sudden uproar of human voices outside! The four people in the compartment simultaneously looked towards the door. Someone screamed and ran down the aisle, then was swept down by a “Bang!”—a gunshot. Blood splattered onto the dusty, old glass. The next moment, heavy footsteps echoed from the other end of the carriage. Someone roared something in Tibetan, screams rose and fell, suppressed by several loud gunshots.
“Over there! More over there!”
The footsteps drew closer. Then, a lama in a red kasaya kicked open the compartment door, pointed a crude gun at Jia Louluo, Maha, and the others inside, shouting angrily in Tibetan and gesturing for them to leave. Wu Bei’s gaze fell on the cloth tied around the lama’s neck. He took a shallow breath. “Snow Lion Flag…”
He suddenly stood up, his face grim, and turned to the young “couple” next to him. Just as he was about to quickly order them to step back, he was astonished to find that the “girl” had already stood up, staring intently at the lama, an indescribably excited and evil expression on her exquisitely beautiful face.
And the young man stood firmly in front of him, angrily saying:
“No, Maha! I’m going to buy you a bento box right now!”
