The Yalong River has flowed for ages, while the red earth of Maojiao Mountain has remained barren for generations.
Jiang Yanchen was born beside the river and grew up beneath the sweet potato vines. His family was poor in his youth, and he was slandered in middle age. All his life, he was like a stone sunk in the riverbed, worn down by time, battered by fate, and swept along by the tides of the era. He silently worked the fields and silently watched the river. Amid the swirling dust stirred up by the likes of Zhao Lushan and the treacherous currents of the cutthroat business world, he never made excuses, drifted with the tide, or chased after passing fads. With a stone’s stubborn resolve, he defended justice on the red earth, cherished his wife Su Wanqing’s tenderness, and safeguarded the livelihoods and dignity of generations of people on Maojiao Mountain.
This is an epic about endurance. It portrays dawn and dusk alternating over Jinping Mountain and Maoniu Mountain, the roosters crowing and dogs barking on both banks of the Yalong River, and wealth drawn from the red earth. It tells of a middle-aged couple mending clothes together by lamplight and sharing an intimate, wordless tenderness as they sit quietly by the river. It shows how the unseen balance between parents and children is passed down from one generation to the next. With spare, vivid prose and deep feeling at its heart, the story finds a stone’s warmth and strength amid the everyday bustle of life.
People are like stones in a river, untouched by drifting dust.
After countless trials, the heart remains true; after enduring hardship, one still turns gently toward the sun.
This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.
