On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in the thirty-first year of Guangxu's reign, the Yellow River turned a dead bend.
Zhao Tiesheng squatted in the ice ballast at the ferry. The soles of his shoes were worn through, and the soles of his feet felt like they were stepping on the edge of a knife. On the other side is Ordos, outside the mouth, the "place where you can survive" in my father's words.
"Tiesheng, if you don't leave, you'll freeze to death here before spring begins." His cousin grabbed him. In the tattered robe on his shoulder, there were only half a bag of oats, an axe, and an old sheepskin that his father secretly stuffed into him.
The ferry stopped early. They walked westward on the ice, and the sound of the Yellow River water under the ice was as muffled as the roar of a cow. Halfway through, someone pointed in the distance and shouted: "Look - that's the tiger's mouth!"
Zhao Tiesheng looked back at Shanxi. The loess land and the gray sky looked like an upside-down cauldron. He didn't know that once he left, he would never come back in this life.
Three months later, in the carriage shop outside Guisui City, he heard someone talk about "Darkhan Maoming'an" for the first time - that person said that further north, the grass is taller than people, and the sheep can dye the mountains white.
Zhao Tiesheng tightened his grip on the ax. He thought, let's go there.
