Lanzhou, Tonight We Won't Be Forgotten

They say I'm a kite with no string. From the age of twenty-five to thirty-one, I traveled all across China, thinking I could leave the past behind.

Then a deadly game in Lanzhou brought me face-to-face with her, a woman I should never have gotten involved with. After that, the road stretching out behind me was no longer the only thing in my wake. There were three women's eyes, too: one like a blazing meteor, lighting up my darkness before suddenly falling; one like a silent snow mountain, standing behind me as an eternal landscape; and one like a gentle harbor, who ultimately made me drop anchor and give up my drifting ways.

I once thought freedom mattered more than anything. It took losing everything to understand that some debts take a lifetime to repay. My story is hidden in one cigarette after another, and in the city called Lanzhou.

The answer scatters on the wind.