Doing Business on the Tea Horse Road [Tang Dynasty]

Ayuelala is a Mosuo girl who lives by Lugu Lake on the border of the Kingdom of Nanzhao (Yunnan).

The Mosuo practice a system of "walking marriages": after a man and woman take a liking to each other and perform a ceremony, they can be together like lovers.

If they grow tired of the relationship, they can end it at any time and find someone else they like.

The children born to a woman are raised together by her siblings, so the men don't need to worry about them.

Ayuelala was born into such a large matriarchal family.

She knows who her father is, but she isn't close to him. The people who truly raised her were her mother and her uncle.

After her coming-of-age ceremony, Ayuelala began helping her family run their caravan business.

She takes Pu'er tea and Dianhong tea along the Tea Horse Road into Tibet.

After selling her goods, she buys precious medicinal herbs and fine horses in Tibet to sell in the Black-Clad Da Shi (the Arab Empire).

Her travels take her along mountain trails, across snowy plateaus and through the Gobi Desert...

Ayuelala thought she would go on living this way forever, until she rescued a man in Tibet.

She knows he is a spy sent by the Great Tang to gather information in Tibet. But that's fine with her. She likes his handsome looks and strong body, and wants to spend some time with him. When their journey ends, they'll go their separate ways.

At first, the man isn't very willing. Whenever she tries to get close, he avoids her. But eventually he gives in to Ayuelala's advances, and the resistance in his eyes gradually turns to tenderness.

After returning to Nanzhao, Ayuelala prepares to break up with him.

But the man seems to have made a momentous decision. He grips her shoulders and says, "Come back to Chang'an with me and be my concubine! I can't give you the position of primary consort right away, but I promise that once you bear me a child, I'll make you my one and only primary consort!"

Ayuelala: ???

What concubine? What primary consort? What does her child have to do with him???

Ayuelala knocks his hands away. "You are you, and I am me. I'm nobody to you, and I'm not going to become anybody to you."

Reader Advisory:

1. The heroine is Mosuo and holds matriarchal beliefs. She will uphold the walking marriage system to the very end. If you can't accept this system, please don't read.

2. The male lead is a feudal-minded man of his time. His thinking isn't ahead of his era, but he's quite love-struck.

3. This story has nothing to do with feminism, nor is it about an all-powerful heroine. It simply depicts the collision of two different ways of thinking and cultures.

4. This is an alternate-world Tang Dynasty. Please don't nitpick historical details.

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