That was in the 1970s.
Hu Zhiping was still young and went to Inner Mongolia as an urban youth.
At that time, the Geerqin grassland was really beautiful with water and grass. People who have never been to the prairie would not understand what it means to see cattle and sheep in the wind.
As an educated young man, Hu Zhiping didn't do much work on the grassland. He just divided dozens of nearly a hundred sheep and grazing all day long.
At that time, the herders had to ride a horse to control a large group of sheep alone. Hu Zhiping’s only difficulty was that he could not ride a horse. He could walk slowly on horseback, but he would not be able to run two steps with his hoofs.
It was an afternoon. He rode a horse and slowly drove a group of sheep to graze on the west slope. The climate on the grassland changed rapidly, and the wind rose almost in the blink of an eye.
Although the Geerqin grassland is still rich in water and grass, according to a saying later borrowed by Hu Zhiping, "Although the outer shelf has not fallen, the inner bag has fallen."
With the great population migration, the population of the Central Plains once again came to the Geerqin grassland. The culture of the Central Plains has a kind of tolerance, but after many years, Hu Zhiping will still angrily say that inclusiveness is clearly aggression.
Although the words are biased, there is also a certain basis. After the farming civilization of the Central Plains came to the grassland, they reclaimed wildly and changed herding to farming. Due to political reasons, basically no grasslander dare to say no.
Therefore, the Geerqin grassland at that time was already experiencing wind and sand weather outside.
The place where Ho Chi Minh herds the sheep is already close to a source of sand.
In the afternoon, he was lying on the ground reading a book, mostly "forbidden books" that he brought secretly from the city.
As soon as he raised his eyes, the wind and sand in the sky seemed to have risen, and the dark sand and fog eroded under pressure, and nowhere was swallowed.
Many years later, after watching some science fiction movies with his grandson, he still sighed and said, that afternoon, it really seemed like the end of the world.
It was the first time for him to experience such a big wind and sand. When he was in the south, he had never seen a desert before. Nowhere had he experienced sandstorms.
The flock had long since dispersed, and the horse that had been grazing on the side was startled and ran to the center of the sandstorm, most of it could not be found.
Hu Zhiping raised his head, the world was dark, without horses, it must be too late to run, so he could only find a place to hide.
On the west slope, there is a Daozi Mountain, which was almost punched into briquettes by the Daozi on the grassland. He also followed a few other educated youths there to catch the Daozi.
The grassland is rich in products, especially meat, and otter meat is a delicacy not to be missed. Only a few years later, the otter disappeared along with the grassland and the wolves.
Several old Dianzi caves collapsed and connected together, just enough to enter a person, and the terrain of Dianzi Mountain is quite high, avoiding the sandstorm is not a problem.
However, when Hu Zhiping turned around, he found a person slowly walking out of the sandstorm.
Under the gloomy sky, gusts of wind roared, flying sand and rocks, at the junction of dark clouds and the vast land, a man led a horse and slowly walked towards Hu Zhiping.
In the world, it seems that there is only the person who is moving forward slowly.
He was startled and couldn't see the man's face clearly. After the man took the horse for a while, he stopped and looked at Hu Zhiping from a distance, just looking at each other across the vast land.
Sand clamored behind him, the man patted the horse, and the horse ran towards Hu Zhiping. After getting closer, he realized that this was the horse he had lost.
Before he mounted his horse and left, the man nodded from a distance, turned around again, and slowly walked into the whistling and shifting dust.
Hu Zhiping rode a horse and ran all the way, surprisingly it was useless to fall off the horse. After escaping from the dead, he never forgot the figure between the gloomy world.
Afterwards, he asked many old herdsmen on the grassland, and they all said it was impossible, unless the messenger of Tengger (God) was able to come and go freely in the sandstorm.
Later, Hu Zhiping left the Geerqin Grassland, and later, the Geerqin Grassland became the Geerqin Desert.
That was the last time Hu Zhiping saw the real Geerqin, and it was the last time he saw that person.
A long time later, Hu Zhiping became a well-known sociology scholar. He often told some friends about this story. Naturally, no one believed it. (End of this chapter)