The wind in Haiyuan is salty, with the smell of loess and sheep dung. Blowing into your eyes will form a thin scab—not a real scab, but a tiny piece of evidence of your homeland that you can't get rid of no matter where you go.
Ma Long, a native of Haiyuan County, Ningxia, is of the Hui ethnic group. He is 1,000 degrees myopic and cannot play table tennis, but he has the same name as the world champion. He studied accounting because his father said, "Mr. Accountant will never die of hunger"; he waited for his father, from the long-distance bus station to the high-speed rail station, from "this time it will be sure" to "waiting itself is the answer"; he taught Ma Yuan to play, not to win, but to tell the child with his name: It is difficult to be yourself, but it is good.
This is a novel about the wind, about accounts, about balls, and about the total ledger of life that has to be settled. From 1961 to 2076, from Ma Long to Ma Yuan to Ma Haiyuan, three generations, two Malongs, a Haiyuan style, continuous and blowing about "becoming oneself".
