Distant Hot Springs — Latest Series of Chinese Novellas

Author: A Lai
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: A Lai, a renowned writer whose novel Dust Settles gained acclaim in the literary world and won the Mo Dun Literature Prize, resumed writing after a long break. With deep affection for his homeland, he poured his passion and talent into a series of middle-length novels: Distant Hot Springs, The Oda Horse Troop, and Fated Love.
Table of Contents
Distant Hot Springs
I have listened to the old horseman Gongbosa since childhood, talking about a hot spring in the distant land. This hot spring became a longing in my childhood, where I wanted to wash away my joys and sorrows. Several years later, after my childhood friend Xianba, who had joined the army, returned and became an official, he developed this mysterious hot spring into a place that was neither fish nor fowl. Along with the beautiful dreams of my childhood, it shattered, like a sigh from a forest that had already vanished. The surface tranquility of the forest seemed to be forgotten by the noisy world outside. The mountains surrounding the village were almost completely bare. The slopes exposed grayish-yellow soil and grayish rocks, marked by the traces of debris flows everywhere. There, the forest of memory, along with numerous streams, had disappeared, and the fairy-tale atmosphere and song-like colors of my homeland had vanished.