Chapter 1.1

Chapter 2

He had spent the previous two days visiting as much as possible of the city of Beijing, including a brief stroll through the Forbidden City and a sightseeing, which although selectively showed what the Chinese want to exhibit gave him at least an idea of the magnitude of the gigantic city. He had promised himself to return before going to Europe in order to complete the visit to the Palace Museum, although this was an almost impossible task to carry out fully on a brief visit.

Now he had packed his bags and was eagerly waiting for his host and guide in China to show up. In a couple of opportunities he thought that the expected person had come in front of him, middle-aged Chinese men, who in his fantasy had the appearance of university professors. In one case he stood up in order to greet him but the candidates passed by to the hotel refectory where breakfast was being served. He began to get nervous fearing that the organizers of his trip had forgotten about the appointment they had made with him what would have meant having made the long trip from Venice to Beijing in vain. As he meditated over all these things, his eyes absentmindedly followed an Oriental woman walking through the hotel lobby. Much taller than the rest of the women, and even than most of the men passing through the busy hallway, her silhouette stood out by her slim, well-groomed appearance. Ivo began to encourage the illusion that she laid her eyes upon him but shook his head not to encourage false hopes. With surprise he noticed that the woman, once in the middle of the lobby, looked in every direction as if looking for someone and unexpectedly made her way towards him without hesitation. The young man looked at her a little disoriented as she approached and extended her hand.

"Mr. Bianchi, I suppose." She said in English. "I'm Dr. Zhou."

Surprised, the man jumped to his feet and shook her hand. In spite of being six feet two, he noticed that the lady was at his eye level.

"Doc ...?" Ah! Yes. Nice to meet you, I'm Ivo Bianchi all right.”

"Zhou Lian," the young woman replied. "Or perhaps for you Lian Zhou." She looked with his slanted eyes the face of the man who could not recover of his surprise. "My name is Lian ... you can call me that." Then with a slight pout added. “Sorry, unlike many Chinese women I do not use a Western nickname, such as Lucy, Nancy or Susan.”

“No no. Lian is absolutely fine." Ivo tried to get out of his surprise and smiled." It's ... musical.”

For some mysterious reason, this statement produced a loud laughter to the woman whose sound also seemed melodious to the interlocutor.

"I have an SUV waiting at the door with a driver. Are you ready to go out?”

“Yes Yes. I´ve already paid the hotel bill. "Ivo realized that if he did not get out of his state of stupor he would seem stupid.

"Allow me to help you with your luggage." Dr. Zhou said.

"Absolutely no, thanks. I can carry everything. It is not a big deal.”

Once the suitcases were loaded into the vehicle the driver, a young man who only spoke Chinese and laughed all the time approached the traveler. The Italian extended his hand one more, which the driver shook with a little surprise.

"Dong was born and lives in the area we're headed to. It is not a cosmopolitan region like Beijing or Shanghai and therefore he is not accustomed to deal with foreigners or their familiarities. But he knows the route and the region to which we are going.”

Lian's voice was soft and indeed harmonious and spoke English with a slight Chinese accent. Ivo would later discover that she had lived four years in San Francisco in her childhood, accompanying an uncle, a manager of a Chinese state-owned overseas trading company. The boy was staring at Lian's face, though he tried not to be intrusive. It was a perfect oval and her features were delicate and feminine forming a beautiful ensemble. Her body was slender and elegant, an impression her height enhanced. The Italian felt the embarrassment that her nearness caused him.

The trip lasted twenty hours and was done in two stages, so they had to stop at a rather humble inn on the way. As Lian apologized for the strenuous trip the young man explained that he used to travel backpacking all over Europe so that he was accustomed to all kinds of discomforts. The talk between them became fluid so that both could exchange news and form a general opinion about the other.

Zhou Lian was three years older than the boy, had obtained her diploma of anthropologist and had worked doing studies in her professional area for diverse Chinese universities in communities of the Desert of Gobi, and already had been years before in the general zone where Liqian stands although for a few days. When Ivo asked her what institution the girl was working for, she gave the name of an office dependent of the University of Beijing dedicated to ethnic studies.

Watching and listening to the woman gave Ivo a special pleasure. Her gentle voice and a pleasant tone were relaxing and her face constantly attracted the young man's eyes much to his regret.

<< God, how beautiful she is! >> He thought trying to keep her thoughts and feelings from being too obvious.

Ivo had noticed that even when the woman spoke to him she avoided looking directly into his eyes, which he attributed to some real or feigned shyness of well-bred Eastern women. Unable to contain himself, he heard himself expressing his desires aloud.

“Come on! Give me a look.”

The surprise was mutual and the man's face was stained with flush for not being able to control his impulses, but the message fulfilled his purpose. Obviously flattered Lian focused her eyes on him and kept gazing. They both felt that a thin sheet of ice created between them for cultural reasons had been broken. The girl had a beautiful smile and Ivo had to react to not appear as an enthralled fool.

"Sorry, I…" He did not know how to go on with the sentence but he did not have to; Lian burst into a cheerful laugh that showed that the event had been liberating for her too. Her hand settled for a moment on Ivo's, the first non-formal physical contact between them.

The rest of the long journey became more bearable. Although she had been in Europe before, Lian was very curious about Milan, the man's hometown, and especially of Venice, and asked him to tell his experiences in the city, which Ivo did selectively, so he avoided talking about his relationship with Federica, who was actually the source of most of his experiences in Venice. The young man aptly thought that her curiosity was an obvious sign of his intelligence and cultural level. Added to that was the fact that they both had many interests in common, which was not surprising since their professions had many points of contact. The fact that they were both speaking English, which was not the native language of any of them, did not prevent the flow of sympathy between two people of very close ages. The ethnic and cultural differences, far from representing a barrier between both, were a further incentive to reciprocal interest.

As the trip advanced Lian also had to admit to herself that she secretly felt a strong attraction for this tall, thin foreigner with reddish hair and light eyes, something like the antithesis of the Chinese man.

The car made three stops in Lanzhou, capital of the extensive province of Gansu, in Jiling and in Yongchang, no too far from its destination.

Finally, the chauffeur, who participated in the conversation by means of Lian's translations, announced.

"We have reached Liqian.”

The three of them descended from the vehicle and began to walk with no definite direction in order to stretch their legs and obtain a first view of the town. Ivo felt a first disheartening impression of the small, humble village, with its houses scattered on sandy, dusty ground. The homes, with a total that would not reach a hundred, were entirely of a single floor, made of clay bricks and alternated with posts of unknown use nailed to the dirt streets and a few trees gathered in a lonesome group. The small town is surrounded by the low, relatively close hills behind which the immense Gobi Desert stretches, while looking to the south they could see the snow-covered Qinlian Mountains. A small irrigated area with the scarce previous water of Qinlian was the only green note of the rugged panorama.

Walking a hundred steps they reached what was the remnant of a wall of military origin, now reduced to about thirty meters in length and a height that oscillated between a meter and a meter and a half but that according to the stories of the locals had been much more extensive and high in the past. Its presence was explained by the military post that the town had had in the past.

Everything, hills, streets and houses had the same ocher color and a light wind that raised dust of the roads gave to the set an aspect that was somewhat depressing to the traveler accustomed to the polychrome landscapes of the Chinese tourist circuits.

Liqian, now called Zhelaizhai, is located in the northern province of Gansu and as stated lies on the eastern edge of the Gobi Desert, of which it is actually part.

A tractor passed and turned a corner, dragging a wagon with three people on board, and the raised dust took a few seconds to settle. Suddenly Lian lightly touched Ivo's arm and motioned to a child playing on his knees in front of the door of his house. Both of them approached trying to go unnoticed so as not to alarm the boy and the Italian watched astonished his hair of a completely unusual gold color in China. Lian walked over and patted the boy's head, who after a moment of hesitation got up and obviously frightened ran into his home. After a moment a woman appeared in the door carrying the little boy. Lian approached and spoke with the woman for a few moments, after which both ended up laughing in a very common way in Chinese women.

Lian approached Ivo and said exultant.

"Welcome to Liqian, the last stronghold of the lost legion. A Roman territory in the midst of China.