Tang Miao circled the box truck three times.
Beijing!
This was the ultimate dream of every Chinese citizen!
Watching the flag-raising at Tiananmen Square, waiting for dusk at the Forbidden City’s corner towers, Wenyu Cheese on Nanluoguxiang, Niujie Bai Ji’s rice cakes, the spicy crayfish on Guijie Street…
She had already listed eight restaurants in Beijing alone.
What to eat first?
Stewed liver.
No, braised offal.
No, stewed liver with braised offal—get it all in one go.
The more Tang Miao thought about it, the more excited she became. She circled the truck once more.
Calm down, calm down. Get in the truck first.
Below the side door of the box truck was an exhaust ventilation louver. Years of neglect had left a hole the size of a fist, the edges of the sheet metal curling outward from the wind.
Tang Miao pawed at it a couple of times, then squeezed through the hole with effort.
The cargo compartment was pitch black.
A cat’s night vision quickly adapted to the darkness.
Stack after stack of cardboard boxes were arranged neatly, piled from the floor all the way to the ceiling.
The sides of the boxes bore a red trademark logo. The nearest box read “Harbin Red Sausage—Authentic Russian Style.”
This must be the shipment headed to Beijing.
Tang Miao found a gap between the boxes, took off the little knitted pouch from around her neck, and set it beneath her as a cushion.
The pouch had warmed to her body heat, and the dried fish inside gave off a salty, savory aroma.
She pulled out a piece of dried fish and crunched away at it.
Eldest Sister’s craftsmanship was as good as ever.
The fish was thoroughly dried, salted just right, and the more she chewed, the more fragrant it became.
She hadn’t even left yet, and she was already missing Eldest Sister, missing the vegetable market.
Then she thought about how she was going to Beijing. In her previous life, back in her hometown, a trip to Beijing was something you could brag about for a long time.
The melancholy of parting dissipated in an instant.
It would take about ten hours to reach Beijing—she’d arrive around evening.
After finishing the dried fish, she tied the knitted pouch back around her neck, squeezed into the gap between the boxes, and curled up into a ball.
The cargo compartment was a bit warmer than outside.
Tang Miao closed her eyes.
“Beijing, here I come.”
She slept deeply.
At five in the morning, the diesel engine rumbled to life with a jolt.
The entire compartment shook, the gaps between the boxes widening and narrowing with the bumps.
Tang Miao was jolted awake, her four paws instinctively gripping the box walls to steady herself.
The engine’s vibration traveled up through the floor, buzzing numbly.
The truck was moving.
She rolled over and went back to sleep.
Her sleep was fitful.
She woke twice in between.
The first time was when the truck stopped at a gas station. The driver’s door slammed open with a bang, and the driver’s footsteps hit the ground.
The fuel nozzle clicked into the tank, and from a nearby parked car’s radio came the song “Good Days.”
She nibbled on a few crumbs of corn biscuit and went back to sleep.
The second time was when the truck stopped at a service area. She was thirsty.
There was a depression on top of one of the boxes where condensation from the temperature difference in the compartment had collected into a shallow puddle. She stuck her tongue in and lapped up a few mouthfuls.
The water was cold and tasted faintly of cardboard, but it quenched her thirst.
She had no way to check the time, but she estimated that over ten hours had passed.
Beijing should be close now.
Tang Miao was just figuring out how to slip out during unloading when the truck finally stopped.
The engine cut off.
From the cab came the sound of the driver making a phone call.
Tang Miao pricked up her ears.
“We’re here, we’re here, at the Harbin warehouse. Send someone over to unload!”
A thick Northeastern accent.
Harbin.
Tang Miao’s pupils suddenly dilated.
Har—bin??
She crouched in the gap between the boxes, her mind buzzing.
Wait—this truck wasn’t shipping goods from the Northeast to Beijing. It was driving from somewhere else to Harbin?
She glanced at the boxes around her.
They clearly said Harbin Red Sausage.
What kind of person drives a Beijing-plated truck, a Jing-A plate, to haul Harbin Red Sausage to Harbin?
Tang Miao flopped onto the box, all four legs splayed out, her face pressed despairingly against the cardboard.
She hadn’t gone south at all—she’d gone several hundred kilometers further north.
She was already in the Northeast, and now she was in the even more northern Northeast.
“Meow, damn it…”
Footsteps sounded outside the compartment—several people. The unloading crew had arrived.
The latch on the rear doors clicked open, and with a clang, both doors swung wide.
Cold air rushed in, carrying snow pellets. Several burly men in military greatcoats stepped onto the compartment in leather boots.
Tang Miao had no time for self-pity.
She shot out from the gap between the boxes, using the daylight flooding in through the doors, and sprinted at full speed on all four legs.
An orange blur darted out from beneath the boxes and vanished beyond the warehouse gate.
“What the heck was that?”
“A cat!”
“How did a cat get out of the truck?”
“Whose is it?”
“How should I know? Check if the goods are damaged!”
…
Tang Miao slipped into the bushes beside the warehouse and crouched behind a snowdrift, panting.
So cold.
Even colder than the small county town where she’d been reborn.
The wind lashed against her face, and Tang Miao finally understood what it meant to live in a city where water freezes mid-air.
The skin beneath her fur was contracting. Every step sent a piercing sting through her paws, and the tips of her ears had gone numb.
She felt dazed, beginning to doubt whether this decision to set out on a trip had been wise.
As a human, she couldn’t even leave that small county town. What gave her, now a cat, the courage to just up and go?
If she hadn’t left the market and just waited for people to feed her every day, she wouldn’t have to freeze and go hungry like this now.
Wouldn’t it be nice to just lie around comfortably every day, grooming her fur?
She lowered her head to look at the little knitted pouch hanging on her chest.
A few pieces of dried fish remained, most of the jerky was still there, and there were also some crushed corn cakes and dried apple slices.
If she rationed carefully, she could make it last two days.
That is, assuming she didn’t freeze to death first.
She blew a big puff of white breath at the snowdrift and flicked her tail in annoyance.
Whatever. If the direction was wrong, it was wrong. Worst case, she’d have a big pot of braised goose and then figure things out.
Harbin was a place she’d longed to visit for a long time. Back then, her phone was always showing her travel guides from other people’s trips here.
It was super popular.
Since she was here, she might as well make the best of it.
Harbin—consider it the first stop of the journey!
Tang Miao crawled out from under the bushes and shook the snowflakes off her fur.
She walked along the warehouse wall, her paws crunching on the packed snow with every step.
The sky was just beginning to lighten at the horizon, and the streetlights were still on, casting warm yellow light onto the snow piled into small mounds on both sides of the road.
A snowplow rumbled in the distance, the sound of its blade scraping against the asphalt carrying far across the empty streets.
Tang Miao’s nose twitched.
It was the toasty aroma of baked bread!
That caramelization reaction of rye flour under high heat—rich, deep, with just a hint of sourness.
Mixed in was another scent: the oily fragrance of smoked sausages cured over pine wood—salty, with notes of garlic and black pepper.
The two smells intertwined, drifting over from some street in the distance.
Tang Miao’s saliva dripped onto the snow with a plop, instantly freezing into a tiny round pit.
She followed the scent.
She crossed two roads, passed a row of shops that hadn’t opened yet, and turned into a tunnel beneath a railway bridge.
Inside the tunnel were tattered quilts and empty liquor bottles left by the homeless, and a row of icicles hung from the walls.
Emerging from the tunnel, the view suddenly opened up.
A great river.
Tang Miao had lived in that small county town for twenty-eight years and had only ever seen the ditch south of town that gave off a strange smell all year round.
In summer it floated with green duckweed, and in winter the ice it formed couldn’t even hold a stray dog.
The Songhua River before her was so wide it stretched beyond sight.
The river surface was frozen solid, a vast expanse of white covered in a layer of snow smoothed flat by the wind.
People were walking on the ice, and there were even two cars driving out onto it.
On the distant skyline, the dome of a church emitted a faint glow in the morning light.
An onion-shaped dome with a Byzantine silhouette, its dark green copper sheathing oxidized by time into mottled patches of varying shades.
Tang Miao crouched beneath the stone railing of the river embankment, craning her neck to gaze at that dome.
She’d seen it countless times while scrolling through short videos.
Back then, she’d be lying in her six-square-meter rented room, holding her phone in one hand while keeping an eye on plugging in her power bank.
And now, before her, was the view without any filters.
Morning light leaked through the gaps in the clouds, striking the cross atop the church dome, and the metal reflected a small glint of light.
So beautiful.
So much better than on her phone.
Tang Miao’s tail gave an involuntary little swish.
Worth it!
She was completely absorbed in the sight.
“Thud—”
Something hit her right on the forehead.
The pain made stars burst before her eyes, and she plopped down on her rear in the snow.