This story was told to me by a friend named Sun. He has been engaged in the business of reselling wool in the Bayinbulak grassland in southern Xinjiang. To put it bluntly, he drives to various pastoral sites deep in the grassland to buy door-to-door purchases from Mongolian herdsmen.

The wool is then shipped out and sold to dealers (commonly known as "Erdao dealers" by Xinjiang people). Since the price can be very low when purchasing wool, this friend can make a small fortune every year.

It was October 2004, and Lao Sun went to Bayinbuluke for the last time to buy wool before the mountain was closed. It was already a little cool in Bayinbuluk in October. Lao Sun drove his second-hand Beijing 212 (a car like this in

Running on the grassland is the best), heading towards one pasture point after another.

The so-called pastoral points are the places where Mongolians graze and live. Although a large part of the Mongolian people have given up their life of living by water and grass and moved to rural counties, there are still a small number of people who still maintain this way of life.

They will go wherever there is abundant water and grass. And the place with abundant water and grass will naturally form a grazing spot. There are very few people in a grazing spot, only forty or fifty people at most. If there are more people, it is easy to fight for the grassland.

Condition.

Since the pastoral sites are mobile, finding these pasture sites is the biggest difficulty Lao Sun encounters. But Lao Sun has grown up in District 5 (the largest residential area in Bayinbuluke Grassland) since he was a child. He is familiar with this place and knows where it is.

If the grass grows thickly, there will definitely be herdsmen there.

Lao Sun drove for two days and visited four or five pasture spots, but the harvest was not great. The water and grass in these pasture sites were not very lush, and there were few sheep, so of course there was less wool. But Lao Sun knew very well that no matter what the situation,

If you drive inward, you will definitely find large pastures and large grazing spots.

Old Sun continued to drive deeper into the grassland. After driving for about half a day, the grass got better and better. Old Sun felt happy that he was almost there. The grass was so lush around here, there must be large grazing spots and large herds of sheep.

This time I was able to return with a full load. I drove in for another hour, and as it was approaching evening, Lao Sun suddenly felt a little strange. With such good grass, there should be sheep along the way. Why did we drive for so long, not even a shadow of a sheep?

See? Are there no herdsmen here yet? But soon, Lao Sun rejected this idea, because Lao Sun saw the shadows of several yurts on the mountainside ahead.

Old Sun was overjoyed and drove over quickly. As he got closer to the yurt, Old Sun's heart became colder and colder. Because there seemed to be no one in this yurt!! Usually in the evening like this, the herdsmen would come back to eat.

Smoke will rise from the chimneys of the yurts and can be seen from a distance, but in these yurts, the smoke is not visible. Moreover, with the arrival of strangers, the barking of the dogs raised by the Mongolians can be heard in the distance, but

Lao Sun never heard anything. The yurt was quiet without any sound. This kind of quietness was unusual in the evening when it was time to eat.

Lao Sun quickly drove to the yurt, got out of the car in a hurry, and shouted at the top of his lungs: Fellow fellow, is there anyone there? He called several times, but no one answered. Lao Sun walked to the door of a yurt and looked inside. There seemed to be no one inside.

Old Sun simply got into the yurt to take a closer look. It was a very traditional yurt, with neat bedding and a clean coffee table. It faced the door and hung a portrait of Genghis Khan. Old Sun weighed the teapot on the coffee table.

The water is still warm! Some clothes were dried outside the yurt. Sun touched it and found it was still wet, as if it had just been washed. All signs showed that the people here should have just left not long ago, but it was getting dark soon.

Okay, where did they go?

Lao Sun entered several other yurts, but without exception there was no one there. No old people, no children, no dogs. Lao Sun found a shotgun in a yurt. This is the most trusted thing of the herding Mongolians! No matter what

They would never leave their shotguns behind wherever they went. Lao Sun picked up the gun and took a closer look. It was loaded! What happened? Generally speaking, herdsmen would not load their guns easily. A misfire is not a joke unless

A very dangerous situation had occurred. But how could there be a loaded shotgun in this peaceful yurt? Old Sun's mind was in a mess. Everything in this pastoral spot seemed ordinary, but upon closer inspection, it was unusual.

As night fell, Mudian was still very quiet, a bit eerily quiet. Lao Sun sat back in the car with a glimmer of hope, thinking that if he waited a little longer, maybe the herdsmen would come back happily after a while, supporting the elderly and the young.

What? But Lao Sun waited until it was completely dark and did not wait for this scene.

Old Sun was a little scared. What on earth is going on? Where are the herdsmen here? Where are the sheep? Where are the horses? Why have all living things disappeared? They disappeared without a trace. This water grass is rich.

What happened in the pasture? The more Old Sun thought about it, the more frightened he became. He couldn't stay here anymore, everything was wrong here! So Old Sun didn't care whether he harvested the wool or not, turned around and left this strange place.

Lao Sun left. He watched the yurts gradually disappear into the night from the rearview mirror. Only then did Lao Sun feel relieved. This time, Lao Sun was not ready to take them in anymore, and he was not in the mood to do anything anymore.

Sun drove the car to a pasture point overnight and spent the night. At the pasture point, Old Sun told his Mongolian compatriots what he had seen and heard that day. The herdsmen also found it strange. They had lived in the grasslands for generations and had never heard of it.

Speaking of such things, Lao Sun didn't ask for anything valuable, so he had to give up.

When Lao Sun returned to the county from the grassland, the first thing he did was not to change hands with the wool, but to report the crime to the county Public Security Bureau. However, the police in the Public Security Bureau heard his story but did not take it seriously. In their view,

, the herdsmen in the pastoral area have all moved collectively, and they deliberately stayed in the yurts to come back to live in the next year. Lao Sun wanted to give pol.ice some details and explained that they would never do this, but what did pol.ice say?

He was unwilling to file a case and said that Lao Sun was making trouble unreasonably. Lao Sun had no choice but to walk out of the Public Security Expert Bureau in depression.

At the beginning of the next year, Lao Sun went into the grassland again, trying to find the uninhabited grazing spot, but strangely he could not find it. Not only the yurt disappeared, but the extremely fertile pasture also disappeared, as if it had never existed.

Live the same.

Whenever Lao Sun mentioned this to me, he couldn't hide the fear in his heart: They really didn't move away, they really disappeared, disappeared! Disappeared in the depths of the prairie, disappeared in the thick

In the night...
Chapter completed!