Like a Spring Breeze Overnight

Altay, ringed by mountains rich in gold and water, is China’s Snow Capital, where winter stretches on. For Liang Zhaoxi, a foreign land has become home. For Yang Xingye, it is an inescapable duty and a torment. The lakes large and small along the shores of Ulungur Lake are what Xinjiang’s people, far from the ocean, imagine and long for when they dream of the sea. Gold mines dot the mountains, and cattle and sheep appear beneath the grass as the wind blows. City workers yearn for a life of unbridled freedom. On this newly reclaimed homeland, everything is vast, magnificent, and teeming with life. A wounded foal brings a forest police officer and a newly arrived veterinarian at the wildlife conservation station together in a shared secret. Though they are utterly different, neither realizes that today’s story was written long ago by those who came before them, as if by fate. The orioles return and the grass grows tall; the stars shift and the seasons turn. Home again in their newly reclaimed land, old acquaintances reunite. Liang Zhaoxi loves the snow, and Yang Xingye accompanies her to every snowy place. As if spring winds had arrived overnight, the golden mountains are blanketed in snow.