Love In No Man's Land by Duo Ji Zhuo Ga

Author:Duo Ji Zhuo Ga [Ga, Duo Ji Zhuo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786699435
Publisher: Head of Zeus

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When dawn broke the next day, Gongzha didn’t leave straightaway. He helped the old woman tether the sheep together in pairs while Yongxi brought over the milking bucket. As she did the milking, the old woman said with feigned carelessness, ‘Our household has no man and we need to move pastures soon. As it’s just me and Yongxi, one old woman and one young woman, we’ll have to ask a man to help us.’

‘How long until you move?’ Gongzha said lightly. He tied the horns of the last two sheep together, straightened up, and looked over the two rows of sheep.

‘Ten days. We’ll move to another side of Tajiapu.’

‘I’ll help you move and then leave,’ Gongzha said. He strode over to pour the full buckets of milk into the butter churn.

Yongxi and her grandmother stared after him as he worked busily in the morning sunshine and burst into smiles.

Gongzha said little, but his hands and feet never rested, and he kept himself occupied both inside the tent and out. He hated the thought of the compassionate old woman pushing a heavy cart over the snow mountain, and anyway, it didn’t matter to him how many days he stayed. His purpose in life was to catch Kaguo; whether he did so sooner or later, the outcome would be the same. He knew Kaguo had come to this part of the country, and if he didn’t chase her, she wouldn’t go far. He would let her survive for a few more days.

Ejiu was a true wilderness and life there was fragile. The ground was covered in pebbles the size of fingernails. If heaven was gracious and sent more rain and less hail, wind and snow, then the people and the animals could live comfortably through the year. If heaven was not gracious, it took only one season of sandstorms for the grassland to become a place of starvation. The grass that managed to endure such hardships completed its cycle swiftly – it sprouted, made rapid growth, flowered, and dropped its seeds all within a relatively short period. If the herders moved their livestock to the pastures just when the grass was at its best, there was hope for the season ahead. It was the most labour-intensive task of their year.

Before they moved the cart to the new pasture on the other side of the snow mountain, Gongzha first wanted to relocate most of the livestock there. He asked Yongxi to be his guide. On Cuoe Grassland, moving pasture was something all the families did together. The busy sounds of moving would fill the air and nothing and nobody would even contemplate attacking them, neither wolves nor other people. But in the infinite wilderness of Tajiapu, they were on their own: people had become an endangered species.

Gongzha had tied his chuba around his waist, and his long, wild hair blew in the wind. He walked with his tanned face to the sun, and his rough skin could have been used as sandpaper. Yongxi was by his side.

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