In just ten short days, Chen Shi'an had already cycled through five cities.
He had seen the smiling faces of different ethnic groups, experienced life in different towns and counties, and sampled a wealth of distinctive local foods.
His Dōfuku had picked up tea stains, campfire ash, and nature's snow, frost, and dew, yet the sunshine had also left it smelling of warmth.
As the saying went, read ten thousand books and travel ten thousand miles. After this journey, Chen Shi'an felt he had gained a great deal.
From forests of peaks, he learned the scale of heaven and earth;
From sour soup, he tasted the treasures in the smallest things;
With room in his heart for a mustard seed, mountains and rivers came naturally.
That broadening of his horizons, that clarity that came from stepping into a myriad of worlds, was truly wondrous.
The eleventh day of his cycling trip arrived.
Early that morning, after thanking his host for the motorcycle tour and his hostess for the sweet, fragrant milk fans, and giving a protective talisman to the little child who had kept pestering him for old tales, Chen Shi'an bid farewell to the hospitable Bai family who had put him up and climbed back onto his bicycle, now bearing a little road dust.
His next stop was the provincial capital to the southeast, Jianzhang City.
At six in the morning, as Chen Shi'an cycled along the road, he received WeChat messages from Lin Meng Qiu, Wen Zhixia, and Li Wanyin.
The two girls had extra classes to attend, and ordinarily could only use their phones in the morning, at noon, and after evening study hall. Those were also the times when they most often contacted Chen Shi'an;
The older woman's schedule was less fixed. She generally contacted him