Tashi, Tashi Delek

[Gentle and mild, restrained by her parents, but grows as the story progresses: office worker in a Shanghai high-rise × quiet and reserved, pure as snow, slightly aloof: son of the snowy mountains of Tibet]

A road trip through northern Yunnan | Reunion after years apart | Bittersweet yearning and angst later on | Religious culture | One waits faithfully for four years, 2,000 kilometers away | Nontraditional narrative | Realism

Tashi: A name that can be used for any Tibetan boy

Tashi Delek: A Tibetan greeting meaning hello

The title means: [xx] (the male lead), wishing you happiness

-

When Budo was 20, she traveled to Yunnan with her parents. Their final stop was Shangri-La, a name that means "the sun and moon in one's heart" in Tibetan.

There was a famous manor offering Tibetan hot pot and a performance, and her parents insisted on going.

Budo was obedient by nature and never talked back. The banquet was dull, and one segment involved presenting khata scarves to several Tibetan performers. You chose the one you liked best, draped it around his neck, and then got to hug him.

The crowd below cheered. Budo's mother glanced at her daughter and said sternly, "Don't you dare go up."

The next segment was even more boisterous. A girl was invited onstage to draw the name of the person she had chosen, and whoever was picked had to carry her offstage.

The girls around her age went up alone or with their friends, shrieking and cheering as they surged forward.

One of the men had a bunch of glittering gold ornaments around his neck. He wore tiny, inconspicuous silver earrings and quietly carried each girl who gestured to him, his manner polite yet distant.

That was Budo's first day in Shangri-La. On the fourth night, they climbed the stone steps to Guishan Park. From a quiet corner at the highest point of the old town, they looked out over the night view. He leaned on the railing, turned his head, and bent his shoulder toward her.

-

Her parents appeared out of nowhere, despite the risk of altitude sickness from climbing the stairs.

The man roared at her, while the woman burst into tears, pulled her over, and held her tightly in her arms.

That was their fifth day there. On the sixth, they hurried down from the plateau, and the difference in elevation made her eardrums throb and tremble.

-

The second time she came to Yunnan, her parents were not with her.

That year, Budo was 24.

Her friends were excited to take her out to eat, but the host drew her name, and he carried her offstage.

But only after he had set her down in a quiet storage room did Budo look at the person before her in confusion. "You are..."

He held the khata around her wrist. For a long while, he said nothing.

They faced each other in the cramped storage room. He wondered whether to answer her question first, or finally claim the kiss he had missed four years ago.

-

Budo never knew that her brief trip would make someone wait four years for her.

At an altitude of more than 3,000 meters, over 2,000 kilometers away, across most of China.

More than 1,400 days and nights, with even the moon different, distant and unimaginable.

When she left, it had been so sudden and haphazard that they exchanged no contact information. She didn't even know his name. They had no contact for those four years, and there was no way to get in touch.

He waited four years under those circumstances.

A few scenes:

1

By chance, she ended up staying at his guesthouse. As they spent more time together, Budo realized she was starting to lose control of her feelings.

But many things happened there that made it harder and harder for her to understand his cruelty at certain moments.

Budo couldn't take it anymore.

When she decided to leave Shangri-La, he finally confronted her about it.

He could not forgive her. When they reunited, he had been unable to let go of his resentment.

But she was completely bewildered.

And when they finally laid everything out in the open, Budo learned that she was connected to his mother's death.

2

In that cramped storage room, he looked down at the person in front of him. Four years had passed, and his popularity had soared. Tourists from far and wide came to see him.

But only he knew that the person he had been waiting for had finally arrived.

3

Budo shed too many tears in Shangri-La.

Snowy days, winding mountain roads, white as far as the eye could see, arguments, their first kiss.

The truth was crueler than reality could bear.

Did they, young as they were, really have the courage and ability to fight fate?

Clearly, she was more timid than he was, and felt that it wasn't enough.

Budo insisted on leaving.

While he went to Lhasa to pray for the souls of his deceased family, she planned to take her luggage across the grasslands and head for the airport departure gate.

She tried the suitcase combination three times, but it wouldn't open.

Budo was stunned, almost laughing from frustration.

That man was a thousand kilometers away in Lhasa, and he had changed her suitcase combination to keep her there.

Fine, then. She didn't want the luggage.

She went out to hail a taxi. The driver had cheerfully greeted her, but after taking a phone call, he suddenly changed his mind and said he wouldn't take her.

After three or four drivers did the same, she finally realized who had called them.

There were only a few drivers operating on the grasslands, and later, one of them turned around as soon as he saw her from the other side of the mountain.

To get off the plateau, Budo went straight to climb a mountain, hoping to trigger such severe altitude sickness and oxygen deprivation that she would have no choice but to leave.

She collapsed halfway up the mountain. A backpacker caught her, only for the man who suddenly appeared to shove him away.

He had rushed back from Lhasa, 1,100 kilometers away, and dragged her down the mountain without a word.

Budo was always soft-spoken, but now she glared at him with red eyes and issued a harsh ultimatum.

"The woman at the monastery taught me to paint thangkas. She told me there's a belief passed down here."

"Buddha says every parting is predestined."

Hard to let go, hard to part, hard to find release.

Fate begins, grows thin, then ends.

"If we meet in this life, then we must have owed each other something. If we owed each other nothing in a past life, then we would never meet in this one."

Thinking of all the things that had come to nothing, and of how vast the world was,

Budo, tears on her face, smiled at him and said, "The world here is so vast. There's nothing wrong with giving up anything."

She was included, and so was everything between them.

"Let's listen to them too, all right?"

At an altitude of 3,300 meters, the cold wind whipped at them, chilling the dzi bead around his neck.

He thought, no, that was wrong.

Meadows stretched in every direction. It was precisely because this place was so vast that once he began longing for someone, he could never let her go.

Faith was empty, suspended in the air.

People, however, were real. There was someone in this world who could make his heart pound with fierce, warm emotion.

4

After a final argument, they ended up in bed.

The altitude sickness was real, and it finally made her behave.

Their feelings had reached their peak, and they were on the verge of falling apart,

just as her body could no longer take it and she had to leave.

5

She let go so openly only because she could not glimpse even one ten-thousandth of his feelings for her.

At their first meeting, there were hundreds of people in the audience, and Budo felt insignificant among them.

Her expression was listless and uninterested. She couldn't even make out the people onstage.

But she didn't know that someone had already looked at her several times.

[Han Chinese × Tibetan]

"If we meet in this life, then we must have owed each other something. If we owed each other nothing in a past life, then we would never meet in this one." These words come from the Tibetan song "Hard to Untangle," by Ba Deng Dun Zhu / Zi You Shi.

P.S.:

1. When they first meet, the male lead is performing onstage as a locally popular inheritor of Tibetan opera. Many Han Chinese girls in the audience have flown in specially to see him, and some are obsessive fans.

2. The male lead is usually low-key and aloof, and doesn't like to talk. He only interacts with the audience as part of his job, but among hundreds of strangers from all over the country, he notices the female lead.

3. And starts paying attention to her.

4. The female lead has no idea.

5. They feel an entirely physical attraction, and by the fifth day of knowing each other, they want to... kiss...

6. The male lead doesn't fall in love at first sight. He simply notices her the first time he sees her.

His feelings develop after they spend a few days together.

7. If the female lead hadn't gone back to revisit the place with her best friend, she would have forgotten him.

8. The male lead is kind of losing it...

9. He's falling apart inside, but still has to act like he doesn't care.

10. There will be a baby 🥹

11. The male lead doesn't know (.

Below are some upcoming stories from this eclectic author who writes a bit of everything.

If you like the author's imagination and writing, feel free to add them to your collection~

"The Trap"

Marriage first, love later | Older man | Office romance

Qiao Yin is just a low-level manager at Weize.

She's determined, and knows only that the company owner came from a wealthy family but chose a field he didn't love, then started a company from scratch and became a CEO at a young age. She admires him, which is why she joined the company.

She insisted on starting at the bottom and working her way up on her own, despite her parents' objections. She had no connections to help her.

The boss is incredibly handsome.

She's only seen him at meetings, and in the past six months, she's only seen him twice.

Qiao Yin had been working diligently and enjoying a quiet, uneventful life for quite some time.

Until he suddenly called out her name, despite her being a nobody, at the kickoff meeting for a new project.

Qiao Yin was shocked, and so was her work buddy.

The 28th floor. The CEO's office.

"I'm getting married."

Qiao Yin's first thought was that the company's private chat group would explode. Her second thought was:

...What did that have to do with her?

"My wife-to-be studied abroad. You've had some experience, so I'd like to ask you a few questions."

Oh, that was all.

At the meeting, they were preparing a research report on what stimulated the most dopamine in young people, in order to decide the direction of the company's new products and services.

The number one answer was sex.

As the leader of Team A, Qiao Yin voiced her opposition.

Someone in the audience asked, "So when you get married, will you choose a Platonic relationship with your partner?"

Qiao Yin had no answer.

She had come back from studying abroad with a strange condition: a lack of sexual desire.

Ji Xu, sitting in the audience, had not commented on her opinions at all.

He only looked at her for a long time, his expression rather hard to read.

Having studied abroad, she was good at cooking and picky about food. For some reason, Qiao Yin started taking her boss to the supermarket. "For meat, choose this kind, with fat marbled through it. The fat melts slowly when you cook it, so it won't get tough."

"Tomatoes with a dent at the stem and a springy feel... These are great for scrambled eggs with tomatoes."

The boss, who made decisive calls at the negotiating table, listened thoughtfully and nodded along. Qiao Yin thought it was so funny.

She almost couldn't stop herself from laughing.

.

Her father finally told her that she had to get married.

She knew this uncle, an old friend she hadn't seen in years. She'd lived abroad and had never met him, but knew he had a very accomplished son.

Whether she wanted to or not, she had to marry him.

Her parents were pressuring her.

She felt aggrieved and sent him a message.

He looked at her insults about herself and replied, "..."

"I'll give you an allowance."

"No, I'm still going to run away from the wedding." He read her message and frowned.

A moment later, he let out a long breath through his nose, set his phone on the glass table, and closed his eyes wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose.

There really was no dealing with her.

Before the wedding, her uncle had told him, "Yin has always said she can't possibly marry someone she doesn't know. But she won't go and get to know you either. We're at our wits' end."

The next day, she was stuffed into a wedding dress, and even eight people couldn't hold her back.

"I'm not getting married! I won't!!!"

The man heard her over the phone and said helplessly, "Uncle, wait a moment. I'll come over."

"It's all right," he said calmly.

The boss really did appear out of nowhere.

Everyone fell silent, then hurried out all at once, leaving her and him staring at each other.

Qiao Yin: Boss...?

"We went to the supermarket together, we worked overtime together,

we ate barbecue together, we went on business trips together,

we went to the park together."

"Does that count as knowing each other?"

The man raised his hand, showing the wedding ring on his left ring finger, a match for hers.

"Qiao Yin, the person you're marrying is me."

Qiao Yin swore that the only reason she hadn't run away for the rest of the story was the sheer power her boss held over her as an employee.

-

Later, she pleaded with everyone at the company to put in a good word for her.

The man who had calmly said, "I won't force you," on their wedding day wrapped an arm around her from behind and held the woman trying to run out the door. Their cheeks brushed as he murmured, "Yin Yin."

"Let's give it a try, okay?"

[Junior employee × boss]

2. "The Intern and the Mentor Fall in Love"

A total rookie at romance, she looks up tutorials on pursuing someone and ends up blushing herself bright red: intern × watches it all unfold, growing helpless and even speechless, but finally takes the initiative and advances their relationship: full-time employee

The heroine's pretend feelings turn real (though perhaps she was attracted to his looks from the start). He rejects her, and she decisively leaves, heart turned cold × he only meant to look after the intern and play along, pretending not to notice all her little schemes

But later, he's the one who regrets it.

Theme: Live well