Saddling up for adventure

Unfortunately, just a few days after he started his second adventure, Yue found cracks in Hotpot's hooves. So he led Hotpot for more than 400 km in over 20 days in the mountain areas from Hubei's Enshi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture to Tongren in Guizhou.

About half a month ago, to let Hotpot recover as well as it could, Yue suspended the journey and found an abandoned building in Tongren's Wanshan district, where he could unsaddle Hotpot and let it eat grass freely, brush oil onto its hooves and soak them with medicine.

"Now we are enjoying a four-story villa in the mountains," says the happy-go-lucky man. He says to live in the moment is a wiser decision than risking his companion's health.

After they became well-known on the internet, the pair was invited to attend a China Central Television show in Beijing this month, which has been postponed due to a pandemic resurgence in the capital. Yue says when the show is done, they will possibly go back to Qiandongnan Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture from Beijing by truck, and finish the rest of the trip.

He plans to take Hotpot to this year's Ili Heavenly Horse International Tourism Festival, one of Xinjiang's biggest annual events involving local horses that is held in Zhaosu county of Yining, Hotpot's hometown, to find Hotpot a mate, and help the local herdsmen to promote their rural products.

"Life is short and I'm just doing what many others want to do," he says. "As a Chinese saying goes－a man should be independent at the age of 30. Now the vision is more and more distinct."