The winds and snow sweep over the pass in the Tanggula Mountains, and the prayer flags are bleached by the fierce gales.
On the plateau, Shen Yu meets the volunteer Suolang Pingcuo. An earthquake rescue takes away all hope of his return.
Back in the noisy, bustling city, he remains trapped between daze and forgetfulness. Every late-night bus ride is an illusory cycle, repeating over and over.
The snow mountains, meadows, and promises left unfulfilled beneath the low walls replay again and again.
He repeatedly reunites with the dead, and repeatedly experiences losing them all over again.
The wind blows past the mani stones year after year, but some people will never come to meet you.
Theme: No one can completely dispel their inner confusion and obsessions with a single journey or a stretch of mountains and rivers. Mountains, rivers, wind, and snow can shelter a stranger's fleeting emotions, but they cannot bring about self-reconciliation. In two summer journeys as a youth, I accompanied him across plateaus and deep mountains, hoping to entrust our fears and worries to the vast landscape. Yet our bonds and regrets still clung to us both, drawing us into a silent spiritual cycle. When the journey ended, reality came crashing in, and in the end, there was no perfect homecoming.
