Dingze Frequency

Winter 1943, Yanyuan, Liangshan. Seventeen-year-old Jimu Anuo, of mixed Han and Yi blood, grew up by the salt wells. Every day he helped Apu pile stones to repair the salt banks, listened to the bimo chant scriptures, and watched the horse caravans return from Yunnan. The radio said there was a war far away, and Anuo felt it was very distant—until the caravan leader Lao Leng brought back a gravely wounded outsider from the mountain pass, clutching an iron box and refusing to let go. Anuo later discovered that someone had hidden something inside the salt blocks of his family's salt well. The horse caravans on the ancient Runyan road, the donated silver of the Muli Lama Temple, the pig-trough boats of Lugu Lake—all were connected by a line he could not see. The Zuo people piled stones to build houses; salt could be hidden in the cracks between the stones, and so could lives. Anuo did not understand grand principles. He only knew what Apu had said: the Zuo people's road is carried on one's back, not waited for. So he hoisted the salt jar onto his back and set out on a road no one had ever told him about. — Description from novelcodex.orgFull novel: Dingze Frequency — read the rest free on N​o⁠v​e⁠l​C⁠o​d⁠e​x⁠.​o⁠r​g⁠