Chapter 210: The Ghost Building

Either don't do it, or don't dawdle—the next day, I confirmed my trip to Golmud.

I'd never been to that area before, so I asked a friend at a travel agency for the route. He told me there were no direct flights to Golmud, so I'd have to fly to Chengdu's Shuangliu first and then transfer. He'd handle the tickets and could even arrange the local hotel. I let him take care of it, and since I couldn't just leave on a whim, I booked a flight for two days later.

This time, I wasn't going to rob a tomb, just to stroll around downtown Golmud, and it wouldn't take long, so I only brought a few changes of clothes and some cash—just one backpack, and it was barely full.

Fatty went back to Beijing that same day, and I didn't tell him about this. Since I'd decided not to tell anyone, Fatty was no exception.

Over those two days, I told Wang Meng to handle things at the shop, gave a vague explanation to my family, sorted out some connections, and two days later, I got on the plane.

I slept the whole way, and by the time I got to Chengdu's Shuangliu, I was well-rested. During the few hours flying to Golmud, I just sat and thought. Around eight that evening, I arrived in Golmud, known as the "Highland Inn."

It's a legendary city. "Golmud" means "a place where rivers gather" in Tibetan. Although all I'd seen flying in was the Gobi Desert, I could still imagine what the city must have looked like when it was named. From what I'd read on the plane, the city was born when General Mu Shengzhong, the "Father of the Qinghai-Tibet Highway," pitched tents there for the road construction crew. The city was only about fifty years old, once incredibly prosperous, but now its status had gradually been replaced by Lhasa, leaving it in an awkward position.

After getting off the plane, I suffered an embarrassing bout of altitude sickness and blacked out for two or three seconds at the airport exit. It wasn't like the exhaustion-induced fainting I'd had in the Qinling Mountains; it felt more like the world was slipping away from me, everything darkening from the edges, and then I collapsed. Luckily, I came to after a couple of seconds, already lying on the ground. Even more embarrassing, when I bought some medicine, I found out I was on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. My geography of China was so bad, I hadn't even known Golmud was on the plateau! The pharmacy guy thought I'd gotten on the wrong plane.

I drank a bowl of Tibetan tea for fifty cents at a roadside stall, took the medicine, and settled into the hotel my friend had arranged. Despite my headache and fever, I hurried out nonstop, hailed a taxi, and handed the driver the address, telling him to take me there.

But after looking at the address, the driver immediately shook his head and said the place was a tiny alley the car couldn't get into. The whole area was full of old houses with narrow roads. He could take me to the vicinity, but I'd have to go in on foot and ask around.

I figured that was fine, so I told him to drive. In no time, I arrived at the old part of the city.

The driver told me Golmud was a new city, with generally wide roads. The old district had been expanded countless times, but there were still pockets like this, left behind because of their awkward locations. Most of these single-story houses were built in the 1960s and '70s, crammed with illegal structures. My address was one of those small alleys.

I got out of the car. It was almost dusk, a murky darkness mixed with the last traces of sunset. I looked up and saw, silhouetted against the light, the shadow of a long row of black-tiled houses. These were tube-shaped apartments from the 1960s and '70s. At this hour, the old district looked especially mysterious.

I walked in, looking around, and realized this place couldn't really be called a district anymore. It was just a few leftover old streets that had survived the city's expansion. These buildings had no historical value and hadn't been maintained regularly. They all looked ready to collapse, probably not long for this world. There weren't many people around, just a few hair salons. Weaving between the houses, the old buildings and aging wires mixed gloomily with the colorful salon lights, creating a very strange feel.

I wandered around for about two hours, back and forth, so much so that the girls in the salons thought I was a coward with ambitions—they opened their doors and smiled at me. But just as the taxi driver had said, the layout was too chaotic. Many alleys were partitioned off by illegal structures, with no street signs. Asking people was useless; a few passing migrant workers just smiled and shook their heads apologetically, meaning they had no idea where that was either.

Having an address and still not finding the place—this was a first for me. I walked and smiled bitterly, feeling the unpredictability of things. Just as I was getting dizzy from all the circling, a three-wheeled pedicab with a yellow canopy caught up to me from behind. The driver asked if I wanted a ride. I was tired from walking, so I climbed on and let him take me around.

The driver was Han Chinese, probably also from the south originally. Hearing my southern accent, he got chatty. He told me he was from northern Jiangsu, his surname was Yang, and his given name was Yang, so everyone called him Er Yang. He'd been pedaling this tricycle for twelve years. He asked where I wanted to go for fun. Golmud had no famous historical sites, but the surrounding Gobi had grand scenery, and he knew it all.

I found it amusing—if his father had given him a three-character name, he could have been called Hengyuanxiang. But when he brought this up, I had an idea. These drivers had spent years here and knew most streets and alleys like the back of their hands. Why not ask him a few more questions? Maybe I could learn something from him.

So I showed him the address and asked if he knew the place.

I didn't have high hopes, but as soon as I finished speaking, Hengyuanxiang nodded and said he knew it. He started pedaling, and soon he took a very remote small road.

Old houses lined both sides. Under the dim streetlights, there was almost no one around. When he stopped, I was genuinely panicked—I thought I was about to be robbed. Seeing my expression, he laughed and told me we'd arrived at the place I was looking for.

I looked up. It was a three-story building with a courtyard. Under the streetlights, the building was pitch black, only the outer wall visible. It seemed completely empty inside. The whole place gave off a ghastly, eerie vibe.

I was stunned and asked the driver what kind of place this was. He said it used to be a sanatorium from the 1960s, abandoned for a long time.