The threshold of the old house in western Hunan was shiny. Qin Ming squatted in front of the stove and listened to his mother saying that his father had been missing for ten years. At that time, my father dressed in weird clothes and went out carrying gongs, drums and bells and never came back. My mother's temples turned gray for ten years before she said that she would take on responsibilities at the age of twenty. He carried the rations on his back and headed into the mountains to find Xi Niang, his father's only companion during his lifetime. Xiniang was sitting in the main room peeling peanuts, with dark red mud embedded in her fingernails.
