[Photo provided to China Daily]

Before he returned to the city for school at 8, he also helped take care of wounded animals including a wolf cub, a fox, a swan, an owl and a deer.

"Back in the city, no one seemed to believe my stories, and when I heard about my dogs' deaths, I got depressed. It was writing that finally saved me," says Blackcrane.

Blackcrane got his first work published in fifth grade, and then went on to publish other books even as he still worked in an oilfield.

His father's two older brothers were hunters in the Heilongjiang forests. Also, they provided him with valuable sources for his writing.

Blackcrane now has a camp near the Hulun Buir grasslands in Inner Mongolia, where he can "write, ride horses and raise dogs in the most natural way".

At the camp he keeps some 40 dogs and spends at least three months a year there.

As for his routine there, he says: "I get up in the morning, boil water and feed the horses and dogs, after running them. Then, I sit down to write. This is a typical day when I am at the camp."