Crossing the Western Tianshan Mountains

This time, Ye's mother didn't criticize the food. Instead, she said, "I think it's quite delicious. Although there are similar restaurants in Shanghai, they are not as authentic as the local ones."

He added, "I'm going to miss the food here."

Ye's father added at the right time, "Marry a local daughter-in-law, and let her do it for you."

This was a particularly inappropriate remark, and Ye's mother immediately felt that the food had lost its flavor and was about to throw her chopsticks. Ye Minglang lowered his head to drink milk tea, using the large bowl to cover a large part of his face. After dinner, Ye Minglang returned to the camp. It took him about five or six hours to get back, which made Ye's mother very distressed.

When he got in the car and was about to leave, Ye's mother said, "Minglang, we have bought the tickets and will leave this place tomorrow morning. You must work hard. If you miss your parents, call us and we will come to see you."

Ye Minglang reached out from the car and held his mother's hand, "Mom, don't worry, I'm old enough and can take care of myself."

Then he said to Ye's father, "Although it's fun here, I'm worried that you won't be able to rest well after traveling so it would be better if you go back early."

The family exchanged a few words and then parted ways.

Not long after Ye Minglang's car left, a girl from an ethnic minority dressed in bright red suddenly walked out from the crowd nearby. She was holding a tray with two small bags of homemade yogurt lumps, two beautiful yet simple stone necklaces, and a tapestry made of wool and other materials that could be hung on the wall like a painting.

There were also two small cups of milk tea. The girl first bowed to them, then offered them the milk tea. "Uncle, auntie, I'm a local girl in charge of promoting cultural tourism in the county. These are souvenirs we prepared for our friends from other places. No charge, I'm giving them to you."

"And these two cups of milk tea, for you two elders, I wish you good fortune as vast as the East Sea and longevity as great as the Southern Mountains."

The girl's eyes were as bright as stars, her lips were red and her teeth were white, she was breathtakingly beautiful. The two old men were very surprised and excited to receive such courtesy from the locals. They quickly took the milk tea and took a sip, which was salty, fragrant and mellow.

He looked at the handicrafts on the tray again, "Is this really a gift for us?"

The girl nodded and said, "Well, these are all made by us. If you have a good time here, you can take these back as souvenirs."

Mother Ye looked at the tapestry carefully. There was a line of small words embroidered at the bottom of the tapestry.

The girl explained, “That’s my name!”

Ye's mother looked at the painting on the tapestry. It was a scene of a shepherd grazing sheep on the hillside, and a young man on horseback was gazing in the distance.

It was obvious that they were two young people in love. The girl riding the horse was smiling very boldly, and the boy who was not riding the horse seemed to be amazed by her and looked at her in a daze.

"This is really great." Mother Ye admired it for a while and gave it high praise, "This is truly a work of art."

The girl was very happy to receive the compliment and asked, "Will you two stay here for a few more days?"

"We will go back tomorrow. Your gift comes at the right time. If it were any later, we wouldn't be able to see you." Father Ye said with a smile.

"This is our fate." The girl said, and then added: "I wish uncle and aunt a safe journey."

After saying that, she even performed a beautiful Kazakh dance for the two of them to the music of the dombra not far away. However, the two old people naturally couldn't tell what kind of dance it was. Anyway, to them, most ethnic minority dances are similar.

The girl danced, looked at the two old men with a smile, and gradually disappeared into the crowd.

Before the two old men could react, the girl had already entered a side door and disappeared.

Father Ye said, "This place is really nice, and this girl looks very pretty."

Ye's mother said, "But I still can't let my son marry a daughter-in-law from this place. They are good at nothing except handicrafts and dancing."

……

The next day, before boarding the plane, Ye's mother sent the photos she took of the tapestry, yogurt lumps and stone necklace to Ye Minglang.

It was already afternoon when Ye Minglang saw the photo, and his parents, Mother Ye, were about to arrive in Shanghai.

Ye Minglang didn't notice anything at first, but then he suddenly fixed his eyes on the two stone necklaces. He enlarged the photo and saw that the stones in the necklaces were actually very ordinary. They were all small round gravels commonly seen here, but they became smooth after being polished and washed.

He suddenly remembered that Gulinar had the habit of picking up small stones. She had shown him the stones she had picked up and said that they needed to be polished by hand with something similar to a needle to make small holes in the stones so that they could be made into necklaces.

She said it takes about a week to drill a small hole in a stone the size of a little finger.

Ye Minglang suddenly thought of something...

After all, he had been to the county many times. Before moving to the new camp, when they lived in tents, he often took the girls from the medical team down the mountain to take a bath.

But I have never encountered any free souvenirs. Even if someone does give me some for free, they are mostly crude mechanical works of art.

No one would wear a stone that they had worked hard to drill with their own hands and wear it on a necklace as a souvenir to give to others.

He opened the tapestry again and saw the fiery red girl on horseback, the naive young man, and the small words at the bottom...

He copied the words with a pen, wrote them on paper, and then took the paper to the reservoir.

There are now many people and cattle and sheep gathering around the reservoir every day. They are all local herdsmen, and there are also literate people among them. Coincidentally, when he passed by, he saw Azati. He was using a modern pump to pump the snow water out of the reservoir into a shallow depression beside the reservoir.

A small pool of water gathered, which was the drinking water for his cows and sheep.

Azati also greeted Ye Minglang when he saw him, "Saram (Hello)!"

Ye Minglang handed him the paper and said, "Azati, do you recognize what these words are?"

Azati took one look and said, "Isn't this Gulinar's name?"

Then he added, "Gulinar is a girl that all the local boys like. Now she has been deceived by you, a Han Chinese. It's really infuriating."

Ye Minglang was struck by lightning... He stood there for a long time, speechless.

Azati added, "A fine horse will get lost in a dense forest, and a man will be deceived by a mullah. Ye Minglang, you are the mullah who deceived Gulinar. You are a bad coward!"

Azati has never liked Ye Minglang.

Everyone can see that Azati likes Gulinar, but Gulinar never pays much attention to Azati.

It seemed that her life was not something Azati could intrude into. Azati was also very aware of this, and at this time he could only seize the opportunity to scold Ye Minglang a few more times.