The Gods Return

With my dim eyes, I watch the wild geese fly. Even falling snow stirs the heart. So many common folk in the world: where can one find immortality? This isn't a xianxia novel or a fantasy novel, but a cheeky soft sci-fi story. A sharp-tongued, big-mouthed, dead-skinny shut-in is unexpectedly called by his muscular, taciturn friend Datou to travel around the northwest. On the banks of the Yellow River, they meet a nurse as beautiful as a celestial maiden. The three set off together, and the skinny shut-in and the nurse fall in love, but Datou strongly objects. Strange things keep happening along the way. Datou has a wife with a mysterious illness who can't be exposed to light, and he always carries a metal box that looks like it might hold ashes. The sharp-tongued shut-in often sees things other people can't, but no one believes him when he tells them. The nurse is beautiful and kind, willing to risk her life to save others, yet Datou says she's a snake... With a long road ahead and layers of fog all around, are they something other than human, something other than divine? Is it illusion, or emptiness?