Calcite

In 2002, a geological survey team ventured deep into the first sacred mountain of the Sichuan-Tibet region to conduct measurements.

As they descended the mountain, snow filled the sky. Five members of the team remained. Holding black umbrellas, they carried the red flag into the Martyrs' Cemetery.

Twenty years later, a coffee shop opened in a small county town at the foot of the snowy mountains in southern Tibet.

Some said the female owner spoke eight languages and was a superb cook.

Others said she had trouble walking and that the coffee shop had long since closed.

Only Fang Jie knew that the shop opened only when the snowstorms raged without end.

**

In the winter of 2022, the day Fang Jie first arrived at Pumoyongcuo, it snowed heavily for three days straight.

After paying his respects at the 500-year-old Tuiwa Monastery perched on the cliff, he planned to drown himself in the ice-covered lake.

It was his third year unemployed at home. He had come to Tibet determined to die, but failed: the sacred lake and snowy mountains were forbidden areas.

He crouched on a street in a small town in southern Tibet, the chill seeping into his every limb. He would probably freeze to death on this cold winter night.

Amid the endless snowfall, the soft crunch of footsteps approached him: crunch, crunch.

A woman came toward him with an umbrella, bathed in warm yellow light. Beneath the umbrella, an elegant, slender hand rested on a black cane.

She raised the umbrella, and he saw a pair of compassionate eyes.

As if under a spell, he followed the woman home.

The warmth indoors melted the snow covering his face. She brought out a steaming bowl of tomato noodles.

He swallowed, realizing just how hungry he was. As he wolfed down the noodles, he heard the woman say in a graceful, unhurried voice, "Tomatoes cost twenty yuan per half-kilo. You'll have to pay."

"Are you robbing me?" He looked up with noodles in his mouth. Thick broth splashed onto his face, and he rubbed his stinging eyes.

The woman gazed toward the distant snowy mountains outside the window. "Transporting goods up here is difficult. Fresh vegetables don't come cheap like they do in the city."

He was broke, counting every penny twice before spending it. At her words, he lowered his head again.

"No money? Then stay and wash dishes to pay off your debt."

He shook his head and started chattering in English, pretending to be a foreigner so he could make a getaway.

Then he heard the woman ask him with an even more fluent, natural accent which country he planned to pretend he was from. She could do them all.

Only later did Fang Jie learn that the woman who had taken him in spoke eight languages and owned a coffee shop in the snowy mountains.

As he wiped down the heavy, chipped wooden tables and beautiful ceramic cups and saucers, he kept wondering why anyone would open a coffee shop in a place like this.

Later, a post about the Snow Mountain Coffee Shop went viral online. Some people came looking for it, only to leave disappointed. Others, wandering through a snowstorm, stumbled into a warm little house.

By the red fire, on a Tibetan-style painted wooden table, sat plate after plate of colorful food.

"We have more than coffee here. We have tea, wine, food, and your stories."

Divorced women, newlyweds, senior travel groups, girls on graduation trips...

Everyone who stepped into the coffee shop shared moments from their lives over steaming, comforting butter tea and barley cakes.

"Now it's your turn. Please tell me your story, miss." He finished cooking a bowl of tomato noodles and sat down in front of the woman.

She stroked the gleaming beast head on her cane and smiled elegantly.

Up in the snowy mountains, tomatoes cost twenty yuan per half-kilo.

That was a story from the snowy mountains twenty years ago.

**

Calcite is one of the most common calcium carbonate minerals on this land, widely distributed in all kinds of mineral veins.

The rolling mountains, the winding rivers, the vast grasslands, the boundless deserts...

Calcite forms points that join into lines, countless upon countless. It is every inch of the land beneath our feet.

Content warning: Twenty-year age gap

Younger fox cub × gentle big sister

Theme: Not one inch of our land will be surrendered