It was a black bow with an iron back and rhinoceros horn handle, two feet seven inches long, its string made of sheep sinew. The bow back was jet black, the string silvery white, and it lay flat on a rough sheepskin rug. Above the rug was a worn, sturdy tent, also made of sheepskin, dyed a hazy blue. Now, even the blue had peeled away, like a face fading with youth. A woman sat on the rug, carefully wiping the bow with a fine cloth; the back of her hand and the iron back of the bow gleamed with different textures. In her left hand, she fiddled with a small arrow, listening to the low whistling of the wind and the clatter of hooves outside the tent. She looked up, lost in thought: the horse racing festival on April 20th was approaching again. Years ago, this little arrow had struck such a person, such a love—a love that would haunt this lifetime…
Three years have passed in the blink of an eye. How long is three years? How many wrinkles can it leave on a person's forehead? How many calluses can it form in a girl's heart? How many horses can it raise? How much longing can it fade? Li Yongrong didn't know. In these three years, she led a caravan yearning for permanent herding, leaving the Grassland Sands, heading west, going far, far away. The people of Grassland Sands had almost settled down. The court sent envoys, and many Han people returned to their hometowns on the southern slopes of the Qilian Mountains, picking up their hoes again and living a life of farming. When the smoke from their chimneys rises, do they remember their herding days? Li Yongrong didn't know. She only knew that her fourth brother, Shi Zhen, had stayed in Chang'an and entered the court, and her third brother, Ma Yang, was still serving as a military officer. The court still had wars to wage, and they had their place to use their talents. As for her, Li Yongrong, in this life, she only longed for eternal wandering and eternal nomadism. That was her eldest brother's lifelong ambition. He was gone; let her fulfill it for him.
Why did a sudden wave of melancholy wash over her? Why did a feeling arise, a longing for home? Li Yongrong was puzzled. After a long, long time, she realized that the sound of a flute filled her surroundings. It was night; was it another auditory hallucination? Her heart skipped a beat, but not as strong as when she first heard the flute's sound—it was like a leap from withered wood and dead ashes. Li Yongrong listened intently. She thought time could heal all wounds, that everything was in the past, that… she could finally forget. But why did those past feelings slowly resurface with the flute's sound, so weak, so faint? Who knew if the flute's sound would once again stir within her that terrible, bone-deep yearning?
"No, I don't want to..." Li Yongrong thought; but another voice in her heart asked herself: "Is it him? Is it him? Is it him?" Then the image of that damned man who had ruined her life flashed before her eyes. She didn't want to see him. But the sound of the flute was plaintive, so plaintive in this night. In the night, what can we resist? Fate pressed down heavily outside the tent, forcing you to remember companionship, warmth, and the intimacy of flesh. Yes, Li Yongrong could now think without blushing—that intimacy of flesh, that ordinary intimacy, was so beautiful, so wonderful, like the beauty that the grassland had long yearned to bear. In the starlight billions of years ago, in the winds howling for tens of millions of years, in the hurried decades of life, on the journey of tens of thousands of miles, wasn't it all for the sake of this beautiful intimacy?
Li Yongrong was torn between two conflicting thoughts. She gently touched the knife she always carried. Should she go out into the wilderness at night, or not?
The grassland was filled with the soft sound of a flute and the heartfelt melody of a girl who wasn't very old, but whose heart was already weary: Should I go, or not...?