Gone in 2005.

That year, Weizhong's overseas sales surpassed China's domestic market for the first time, and the world began to hear the gentle but firm footsteps of Chinese technology companies.

In mid-January 2006, Eid al-Adha, an important holiday in the Arab world, arrived, and Egypt had a long holiday.

Qian Dan, Lao Xie and Yan Lili traveled together, went to Mount Sinai to watch the sunrise, and looked for "burning thorns" in St. Catherine's Abbey. The itinerary is decided by Lao Xie, which can be regarded as giving him a meal.

They got up early in the morning and rushed to the bus station in the center of Cairo. As soon as it was dawn, they saw traces of sheep slaughtered on the side of the road. However, the bus with the "Oasis" logo did not leave the station until 10:30 a.m., and circled around the city until about 12 o'clock before leaving Cairo.

Even in the Sinai Peninsula, where there are few direct buses, buses still stop and go.

In the afternoon, the car drove into a gas station, Qian Dan woke up from his sleep, glanced out the window, and saw the driver with a cigarette in his mouth and an oil gun in his hand. This scene completely subverted the gas station code in his heart, and he was so shocked that his eyes widened and his mouth opened.

As the sun was about to set, I felt the car speeding up, and the shadows of the mountains swept across the road in the twilight.

When they arrived at the gate of St. Catherine's Sanctuary, the clock was already pointing to seven o'clock in the evening, and they were about to get up in the middle of the night to climb Mount Sinai, and they should have hurried to find a place to sleep, but their first stop was to go to the police station.

The reason is that Lao Xie, who has been rampant in the "North Africa and Middle East" for many years, was actually troublesome, and deliberately did not bring his passport, and only brought a copy of his passport.

The Sinai Peninsula has been the main transportation route of the Middle East since ancient times, and after World War II, it was one of the main battlefields of several Arab-Israeli wars.

The three of them traveled unhindered all the way, and they had already reached their destination, and the policeman at the last checkpoint was more serious, asked Lao Xie to get out of the car, checked around, and threatened to send him back.

The three of them put on the most sincere smiles and explained to each other, but they were still taken into the police station and left in an empty room.

Time ticked by, and there were fewer and fewer people in the police station, afraid that people would forget that there were still three Chinese waiting for leniency, and from time to time they went out of the door and said earnestly to the police officers who came and went: "Hello!" ”

Finally, someone came over to sign and sign for Lao Xie and other formalities.

Then, after more than half an hour, they finally completed the process of "confession and leniency" and returned to the theme of climbing Mount Sinai at night.

The country road was lonely on a winter night, and Qian Dan held a copy of "Lonely Planet" in his hand, and opened it while walking under the dim street lamp, and found that there was a guest house in St. Catherine's Abbey. The three of them quickly came to an agreement, found the monastery, built their base camp in the guest house, and recovered their stamina first.

As he walked, Qian Dan felt that something was falling on his shoulder, and when he looked closely, it turned out to be a small snowflake. He hadn't had a chance to see snowflakes fall in years, and he didn't expect to see snow in Egypt this holiday!

When I saw the snow, I felt that the cold wind was cold, and the world was as lonely as if only the three of them were left.

After walking another two or three kilometers, when I was hungry and cold, I suddenly saw the lights in the valley ahead, and they were so gentle to call.

The snow, I don't know when it stopped, looking up and seeing thousands of stars twinkling in the night sky, the galaxy is clear and bright, and the Big Dipper is brilliant and dazzling, this is the "Valley of Rest" mentioned in the book, right?

Sure enough, it was the guest house of St. Catherine's Abbey.

Luckily, there was room in the hostel. They put down their backpacks and headed for the restaurant, where a free dinner was served.

Qian Dan usually dismisses the Egyptian soup, believing that "old fire and beautiful soup" is a realm that can only be made by Chinese cuisine. But on this cold winter night, the three of them sat in the already empty restaurant, and they were overjoyed to see the waiter bring out the hot soup, and took a sip, which warmed from the throat to the stomach, and the fatigue was relieved. Looking at the heavily colored religious paintings on the four walls, Qian Dan really wanted to say thank the Lord for giving us food.

It was past ten o'clock in the evening when dinner ended, and they hurried back to their rooms to take a nap. The small rooms were in shabby condition, and the price of $55 a night was not cheap by domestic standards, but the hot water and two electric heaters, which were the first to be seen in Egypt, exceeded their expectations.

At two o'clock in the morning, the alarm clock wakes them up and it's time to set off for the climb.

I was a little worried that I couldn't find the hiking path in the dark, but when I walked into the yard, I was startled, and it was crowded, which was quite lively.

There are two hiking paths, one is from the cliff behind the monastery, which requires conquering nearly 4,000 walled steps; The other road is a longer one, but it is a relatively gentle winding mountain road. They chose to follow the group up the winding mountain road.

It was dark, and everyone turned on their flashlights or headlamps, and the lights meandered up from the foot of the mountain, like a fire dragon swimming. At first, they were able to walk like a fly in the midst of talking and laughing, but gradually they felt that their steps were heavy, and they began to gasp and stare at the small piece of ground under their feet that was surrounded by the light of the flashlight.

The road is not wide and winding, and it is even more hectic and tiring to make way for the tall camels who are peddling up and down the business.

Fortunately, there will be a small stone house of the locals not far along the way, and the lights in the house will shine brightly, brightening the road and adding warmth to the winter night.

Inside the stone house there are tea, drinks, sweets and snacks, and there are benches inside and outside the house for people to rest. They took these small stone houses as their goal, and when they were tired of walking, they squeezed into a bench and sat down, holding a cup of hot tea, eating two pieces of chocolate, and looking at the people passing by.

After about two hours, we walked to the end of the camel road, and we were not far from the top of the mountain.

There is a large open area, and the locals have built wooden huts for people to "refuel and recharge" before the final summit.

It was still early, and it was estimated that the sunrise would be more than an hour later, and the cold wind was even more bitter before dawn, and the lights in the wooden house were gently beckoning, so they opened the curtain of the door of one room and walked in.

This night, there was a Korean tour group mainly composed of middle-aged and elderly women, and the whole group was also crowded in this wooden house, and the air was filled with the smell of Korean instant noodles beef.

The three of them were tired and sleepy, too lazy to talk to each other, and sat silently reading the graffiti from all over the world that stretched from the ceiling to the four walls.

The fragrance of instant noodles gradually dissipated, and the well-fed Koreans began to sing, and their songs were one after another, the more they sang, the more neat and loud they became, the more they sang, the more they were devoted, and after singing, some people had their eyes closed, their hands pressed to their chests, and their faces were full of tears.

What exactly is it singing in the song? Is it a national feeling? Or just cheer yourself on? The piety of the house made Qian Dan even more afraid to speak loudly, and just silently looked at this group of "neighbors".

It's time to get to the top.

As soon as he walked out of the door, the cold wind rushed in his face, freezing Qian Dan's two rows of teeth straight into a fight. The owners of the wooden houses had blankets for rent, and there were a lot of piles on the ground in front of the door, and each of them spent two Egyptian pounds to rent a bed to put on their bodies, and it was warmer, but the blankets were too heavy, and they made it harder.

The last few hundred meters to the summit are even steeper, although there are stone steps, but they are in disrepair, and there are many tourists this night, all crowded on the narrow road.

They slowly squirmed with the flow of people, and finally reached the top of the mountain.

Heaven and earth were still shrouded in dark night, and there was an old chapel on the top of the mountain, and they saw by the light of a flashlight that there were already many forerunners wrapped in blankets lying on the ground outside the church, and it was difficult for them to find a place to stay for a while.

The sky gradually brightened, and a few rays of light appeared on the top of the distant mountains, but the sun was hiding behind the thick clouds and disappeared.

"Determination is beautiful, but impermanence is even more beautiful", the beauty of life may lie in its uncertainty, Qian Dan what they want to encounter is a round of red sun jumping out, waiting for the sky full of snowflakes fluttering down, and it snowing again.

Overlooking the reddish-brown mountains in the snow, Chandan's thoughts flew to Bible times: Moses took the Jews to escape the oppression of the Pharaoh of Egypt and wandered for forty years to the foot of Mount Sinai. One day, when the old man Moses was going up the mountain alone, perhaps to feel the rising and setting of the sun, suddenly there was a loud noise, and the Lord came down in the light of the fire and gave him the Ten Commandments. Therefore, Mount Sinai is also known as Mount Moses, and its name is always recited with the "Ten Commandments".

The three of them stood side by side, Qian Dan turned his head and saw that Lao Xie was also looking at the mountains, but Yan Lili was staring at Lao Xie's side face, and her eyes were clearly flashing with a soft warm light.

When they came down the mountain, they walked fast, and they rushed down the mountain almost all the way. Rushing down the hill, the sky was already blue and white, and the main courtyard of St. Catherine's Abbey had opened its gates.

The monastery has been one of the monastic centers of the Orthodox Church since the 6th century AD and preserves a large number of valuable artifacts, including the oldest surviving translation of the Bible. The main courtyard of the monastery is not open to the public, and several of them do not understand religion, but only look at the flowers.

The most famous of the courtyard is the biblical miracle "The Burning Thorn", from which God appeared to Moses and told him to go to Pharaoh to free the Israelites from slavery and take them to the Promised Land.

The thorns were surrounded by a stone wall, but they stretched out from the top of the wall lushly, reflecting the small mottled stone building next to it. Qian Dan couldn't see that it was related to God, and only felt that it was a lump of green that was unwilling to be lonely within the high wall.

Walking back from the monastery, they saw a queue in front of a hut on the side of the road, thinking it was a bathroom, and they followed in a queue.

Walking into the hut, I felt that the cold air was overwhelming, and when I looked closely, I saw a large simple room with countless bones piled up, and a large pile of skulls staring at them neatly.

It turns out that St. Catherine's Abbey has followed a peculiar custom since its founding, in which monks are buried in a tomb after death, waiting until their bodies decay, and then their bones are removed from the tomb and placed here. Thousands of years have passed, and generations of monks who have cultivated have not cared about this life or the next life, but have just stayed here.

"Impermanence is beautiful, but certainty is even more beautiful", on the hill of Moses, in the monastery of St. Catherine, everything they can see and cannot see, is silently telling the story of time and life, about faith and eternity, the cycle of generations, forever.

In the afternoon they took a taxi and went to Zaihaib because there was a bus back to Cairo in the evening.

Zahaip is a diving mecca on the Red Sea, and although it is not as famous as Sharm el-Sheikh on the Sinai Peninsula, the town is cheaper and attracts many backpackers.

The three of them spent the whole afternoon in a restaurant called "Jasmine".

The restaurant is actually a shed by the sea, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows on only one side facing the sea, and no walls on the other three sides, and the roof is made of nets woven with straw ropes.

Winter is the off-season, and there are only three of them in the restaurant, with a bonfire burning in the middle. They woke up around the roaring campfire on the soft couches to the sound of the waves.

When Qian Dan opened his eyes several times, he saw Lao Xie sleeping soundly, while Yan Lili kept staring at the end of the Red Sea.

THE NIGHT THEY RETURNED TO CAIRO FROM THE SINAI PENINSULA THEY WENT TO THE CHINESE RESTAURANT CALLED "CHINA HONG" TO EAT HOT POT, AND ALL THREE OF THEM DRANK A LOT OF "SAKARA" AND RETURNED TO 200 STREET WITH A BIT OF DRUNKENNESS.

Lao Xie sent Yan Lili back, and Qian Dan went back to his dormitory first.

Lin Han went camping in the black and white desert, and Qian Dan spent time alone in front of "Fashion TV".

It was nearly twelve o'clock before Lao Xie returned to the dormitory, and as soon as he entered the door, he sat at the dining table and flipped through it with a mobile phone. Qian Dan thought about Yan Lili's gentle eyes on Mount Sinai, and went to talk to Lao Xie full of gossip, but Lao Xie avoided the topic until he sent Qian Dan into the bedroom.

That night, Lao Xie kept sending Yan Lili to the door of the dormitory, Yan Lili fumbled in her bag and hesitated: "I can't find the key." ”

Lao Xie said: "What should I do then? You look for it again. ”

Yan Lili panicked inexplicably: "You go first, I'll look for it later." ”

Her two roommates were also in the team to go camping in the black and white desert, and of course Lao Xie didn't worry about leaving her who had drunk a lot of wine. But Yan Lili leaned against the door, carrying her bag with one hand and putting the other hand in her coat pocket, insisting that "you can't find the key, you can't open the door", "you go first, I'll look for it".

Until there was another sound of footsteps in the stairwell, and the two colleagues who lived in the dormitory opposite them came back, Lao Xie was about to say, "Okay, you can go to their dormitory to borrow for one night first", but Yan Lili took out the hand in her pocket, holding the key in her hand.

She opened the door, dodged in, closed the door until there was only a slit, opened it a little more, showed a blushing face, said "good night" to Lao Xie softly, and then disappeared behind the door.

On the way back to the dormitory, Lao Xie Zheng felt that this farewell was too weird when he received a text message from Yan Lili: "The key has always been in my hand, I am panicked, afraid that you will follow me in after I open the door, and I am afraid that I will not be able to help but pull you in." ”

Lao Xie replied heartlessly as he walked: "I thought you really lost the key", and after the news was sent, he was enlightened, from a science and engineering man who is committed to enriching people's communication and life to a coquettish "Xie Guolin".

Back in the dormitory, he regarded Qian Dan as nothing, and sat at the dining table for a long time.

A few days later, Lao Xie left and went to Northwest Africa to report before the Spring Festival in 2006.

New employee Wang Haitao moved into his room. The people living in this dormitory have become Qian Dan born in 1975, Lin Han born in 1979 and Wang Haitao born in 1983.

Maybe in some units in traditional industries, the three of them are all the same label, but in this fast-changing industry, in this fast-growing company, among this group of fast-moving people, their age difference can almost be regarded as three generations!

People come and go, just like flowers bloom and flowers fall, occurring in the cycle of the four seasons.