Desert edge, evening.
A young man wearing a straw hat was inserting a ruler on the sand. He was bent deeply, and his white shirt was blown close to his back by the wind. It could be seen that the man was very thin. The side face exposed under the straw hat is clean and young, unlike the silence that should be expected at this age.
Someone called him from a distance: "Dr. Li——! A new person is here. He is said to be a new aid doctor. Can you pick him up?"
He straightened up, pushed up his glasses, and shook the sand off his hands.
This is his third year back in the desert. He still thinks of the last question his supervisor asked during his doctoral thesis defense: "Have you really thought about it?"
He thought about it. Then he came back.
*
The off-road vehicle stopped at the door of the field. Zhang Xingze pushed the door open, and the wind and sand immediately hit his face. He squinted his eyes, picked up the medical kit and came down. His feet stepped into the sand, which was soft and not very solid.
He straightened up and glanced into the distance. The desert spreads to the horizon under the setting sun, gray and yellow, leaving nothing behind.
Someone was saying something to him next to him, and he nodded in agreement without paying much attention.
Last fall, one of his patients failed to leave the operating table. The family members cried at the door of the department for a whole afternoon. He sat in the office, listening to that voice, and read a page of medical records for forty minutes without turning over.
Later, he took annual leave and went to the northwest alone. After standing in the Gobi Desert for a whole day, the wind was blowing. When I came back, the notice of aid to Xinjiang had just been posted.
He signed up.
The director asked him why and he said he wanted to take a look.
The director looked at him for a while, signed without asking any more questions.
When the off-road vehicle stopped in the wind and sand, Zhang Xingze got out of the car with the suitcase and stepped onto the desert sand for the first time.
He looked into the distance. Sand, sand, sand. The sun was setting, dyeing the entire desert an indescribable orange-red color. The wind was so strong that nothing could be retained.
He thought maybe he had come to the right place.
*
Li Yiyuan (receiver) × Zhang Xingze (attack)
Double Cleansing Year
Concept: Green waters and lush mountains are mountains of gold and silver