I quickly walked over to Yang Sisi and the detention center staff member. Yang Sisi grabbed my arm to comfort me before saying, "Zhou Sansan was beaten up the night before last..."
I cast a questioning look at the staff again.
The staff member told me, "The night before last, Zhou Zhencun (Zhou Sansan's real name) got into a dispute with another inmate over labor assignments. He was then beaten and injured... We promptly took him to the hospital, but he insisted on returning to his hometown for treatment. So we sent someone to take him to a hospital in his hometown. Therefore, he is no longer in Dali."
"How badly is he injured?"
"I don't know about that."
"You've been so negligent! How could a perfectly healthy person be injured right under your noses?"
The staff member replied somewhat displeasedly, "On the night Zhou Zhencun was beaten, our on-duty supervisors were on duty as usual and there was no dereliction of duty... Because the incident happened so suddenly, it was impossible to stop it in time... However, after Zhou Zhencun was injured, we promptly sent him to the hospital for treatment and covered the medical expenses, which has already fulfilled our legal responsibilities... So there is no dereliction of duty as you described!"
I was furious and about to explode, but Yang Sisi pulled me aside and said with a forced smile, "He and Zhou Zhencun have a very good relationship. I hope you can understand his feelings and not hold it against him... By the way, can you tell us where Zhou Zhencun's hometown is? We want to go and see him."
Seeing that Yang Sisi spoke politely, the staff member replied in a normal tone, "His matter is not my responsibility. I'll call and ask for you."
"Thank you so much!"
...
Back in the car, feeling terrible, I lit a cigarette and grumbled, "What I feared most has come to pass... Before I left, I had already spoken to the people in the cell and given them plenty of benefits, asking them to take care of me... I never fucking expected that those bastards would still beat him up!"
Yang Sisi sighed, "Sigh!... If those people were decent and had normal self-control, would he have ended up in the detention center?... Don't get too worked up. I think Zhou San's injuries aren't too serious, otherwise he wouldn't have the energy to ask to go back to his hometown for treatment."
I nodded and took another deep drag of my cigarette.
Yang Sisi then said, "Shangri-La isn't that far, but it's not that close either. Do you want to go see it?"
"Yes, I definitely want to go."
"You can't drive either, so I'll come with you... But I need to go back and get some toiletries first, so I probably won't be back in time tonight!"
...
After returning to the guesthouse where Yang Sisi was staying and getting our toiletries, we drove to Shangri-La...
The navigation showed that Dali was only 290 kilometers away from Shangri-La. Because I didn't know much about Yunnan, I imagined the journey would be very easy... But in reality, it was much more energy-consuming than going to Kunming, which is nearly 400 kilometers away, because the climate in Shangri-La is completely different from that in Dali. Yang Sisi and I set off wearing shorts and skirts, respectively.
I drove over 100 kilometers on the Dali Expressway and everything was normal.
I had already covered half the distance in just one and a half hours, and I was hoping to reach Shangri-La before four o'clock. But after passing Lijiang, the highway suddenly disappeared, and I ended up on a national highway.
This didn't bother me too much, after all, the scenery along the way was beautiful, and I even saw the Jinsha River and the world-famous Tiger Leaping Gorge. But after passing Tiger Leaping Gorge, the world before my eyes suddenly changed 180 degrees...
The car followed the route given by the navigation system into the mountains. Yang Sisi and I stared blankly at the temperature on the car thermometer, which was plummeting...
After driving for a few kilometers in a daze, Yang Sisi said to me, "Michael, should I switch the air conditioner from cold air to warm air?"
"I'm a bit confused too... I guess we've driven up a snow-capped mountain, and the altitude must be pretty high now."
"It's freezing!"
As Yang Sisi spoke, she switched the air conditioning to heating mode. At this moment, the temperature on the car thermometer had dropped below zero... This was really scary. Although summers in Dali aren't that hot, you can still wear shorts. But after driving just over a hundred kilometers, it suddenly felt like summer had turned into winter...
Not only was the climate changing rapidly, but everything else we could perceive was also changing at a rapid pace... We saw white stupas and prayer flags on both sides of the road, as well as some very simple Tibetan-style buildings. It was a strange feeling. Although we had only traveled a little over 100 kilometers, we already felt very far away from where we came from, because the local customs and traditions had changed dramatically.
Yang Sisi was freezing and urged me, "Quickly go online and check what the climate is like in Shangri-La. Are we going to freeze to death here?! ...I remember this place being a tropical climate!"
"That's Xishuangbanna...it's definitely not Shangri-La, but I didn't expect it to be this cold!"
"Aren't Xishuangbanna and Shangri-La both in Yunnan?"
"It's from Yunnan, but the climate is completely different..."
Before I could finish speaking, Yang Sisi honked her horn again at a bend in the road. Strangely, the horn suddenly became very faint, like someone struggling to breathe groaning in pain...
Yang Sisi pressed the horn again, but the sound was even weaker than before. Yang Sisi was almost in despair. She pounded on the steering wheel and said, "The horn is broken at this time. Is it trying to kill us? This is all winding roads along the mountain. What if a big truck suddenly comes out without a horn to warn us?"
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