The Gesang Flower and the Boy

Chengdu, 1995. A business call connects Xiao, who loves hiking and always carries an old camera, with Xiaojia, who loves painting snowy mountains. In the days that follow, they travel across Yunnan, Tibet, and Qinghai, passing through Litang and reaching Lhasa, then sitting in silence beside Qinghai Lake. In the autumn of 2000, at the foot of Mount Autaine, Xiao meets Xiaoyu, an eighteen-year-old girl from Danba who can recite an entire collection of Cangyang Gyatso’s poems.

All four love Cangyang Gyatso. Each has a poem of their own, and each walks their own path to its end. An old collection of poems with a blue cover, a bronze plaque engraved with “Turn back at Litang,” and a pot of Gesang flowers. A story about the lives of ordinary people: how to live, how to wait, how to say goodbye, and how to walk one’s own path alone.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.