目录 Preface Chapter 1 Years of Innocence Chapter 2 At Age 20 Chapter 3 Farewell, Mom! Chapter 4 Saying Goodbye to Grandma Chapter 5 En Route to Inner Mongolia Chapter 6 Carters’ Inn Chapter 7 First Love Chapter 8 Loss and Gain Chapter 9 New in the Company Chapter 10 Transferred to the Horse-keeping Squad Chapter 11 Death of a Wild Horse Chapter 12 Horse Keeping Chapter 13 Silver Needles and I Chapter 14 Veterinarian Training Class Chapter 15 Reunion Chapter 16 Lovesick Chapter 17 Serving as a Veterinarian Chapter 18 Little Black Chapter 19 Conquering Little Black 97/ 105/ 113/ 121/ 129/ 137/ 147/ 155/ 165/ 177/ Chapter 20 Trips on Horseback Chapter 21 Feast of Fish Chapter 22 Saving the Master Chapter 23 Theft of Melons Chapter 24 Pastime Chapter 25 A Visit to My Father Chapter 26 Treating Constipation Chapter 27 Practicing Veterinarian Chapter 28 Saving Little Black Chapter 29 Studying Cancer Chapter 30 Shattered College Dream Chapter 31 The Hee-hawing Donkey Chapter 32 A Stealthy Love Affair Chapter 33 Birth of a Baby Horse Chapter 34 Dream Shattered in Yinchuan Chapter 35 Choice Chapter 36 Farewell to Little Black Epilogue
精彩内容 PrefaceI spent the whole year of 2014, theYear of the Horse in the Chinese zodiac, writing the story of me and LittleBlack. Of course, there was no way of going around my life at the InnerMongolia Production and Construction Corps, including my first love. Fourdecades have passed since I left the Corps, but Little Black has never departedfrom my heart.My memories of the horse drove me intotraveling to Inner Mongolia a decade ago justto look for her. In the vast prairie, however, it was hard to find any vestigeof Little Black, which gave me ample cause for melancholy and pain.The Year of the Horse made me miss herall the more. The momentI closed my eyes, the image of LittleBlack dashing in the wilderness would loom. It featured shiny black hair, alithe and robust figure and an agile, freestyle and wild gait. During thehardest period of my life, Little Black was a companion of courage andstrength, who befriended me and loved me, and enabled me to keep going even inthe most depressing eras. When I was walking in the valley of the shadow ofdeath, she empowered me to break through confusion and bewilderment and move onwith a positive and persevering attitude. In those days of injustice, she propelledme to advance from darkness to light and from setbacks to glory.My wife best understands my specialfeelings for Little Black. Before the advent of the Year of the Horse, sheordered a precious gift, which came in a huge box, for my sixty-fifth birthday.She further spent half a day assembling the contents therein before setting theassemblage at the turn of the staircase. When I returned home from a day’s workat the hospital and saw it for the first time, the lovely surprise touched meto the quick. The little black horse of the grassland was now right here in myhome! I could easily see her every time I went up and down the stairs and Iwould routinely greet her in an endearing tone of voice. Hence, the Year of theHorse became a year of many thoughts, a year that brought me back to that specialera – those tender, unforgettable days of mine as an “educated youth.” As Iworked to place myself back in time, past memories flooded back to me as thescenes of my youth loomed larger and larger. I kept typing on my computerkeyboard day and night and words began gushing out like an endless fountain.Chapter 1Years of InnocenceI was born in 1949, the year thePeople’s Republic of Chinawas founded, on the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year. In my younger days Iused to brag a lot about it, thinking that only great men could be born on sucha special day. Only decades later did I realize my birthday pretty much fadedinto insignificance because of the annual Chinese New Year’s eve dinner. Ihardly had any birthday celebrations at all. And, because I was born at the endof the lunar calendar year, it was hard to determine whether I was an ox or arat in the Chinese Zodiac. When some of my relatives joked about my being “ahair on the tip of the rat’s tail,” my dad would come to my rescue, claimingthat because spring had started when I was born, local custom determined that Iwas in fact an ox, though in all good conscience I felt that did not hold waterand left it as a mystery until I met with a fortune-teller. Depending on thespecific time of birth of the year, the ox and the rat actually had utterlydifferent fortunes. The seemingly deep and knowledgeable fortune-teller sizedme up with his eyes half closed and asked:“Have you ever sprained your ankle?”I tilted my head to one side to think,and nodded in emphatic affirmation – yes, as a sports fanatic I was prone tohaving my ankles sprained. The fortune-teller immediately concluded I was bornin the year of the ox.As if to substantiate that conclusion,my mom said that my due date fell within the year of the ox. On the day I wasborn, she said, she had exhausted herself helping Dad sort and shelve books. Bythe evening, while playing cards with friends, she began to feel spasms ofabdominal pain and had to be rushed to hospital. I was born premature by about onemonth, she said. I got the pet name “Xiaoxiao” (meaning “small”) because Iweighed just two kilograms.The narrative above actually serves nopurpose but for clarifying one thing: It took a miracle for me to survivebecause I was born before being fully developed in my mom’s womb. Congenitaldeficiency determined that I was going to be a weakling. If caught in a majorwar or catastrophe,I could have died prematurely or endedup being abandoned. Even in times of peace, I would not be immune from fallingvictim to bullies. AssumingI worked real hard and smart and hadthe backing of mighty andpowerful friends along the way, I atbest stood a slim chance of having a barely successful career after goingthrough many trials and tribulations.I
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