I fainted on the street for no apparent reason, and that's how I met the woman who changed my life. A woman of stunning beauty, she said she'd been waiting for me for many years. I didn't know which of her words were true and which were false. But I knew for certain that her sincere, passionate gaze was meant for me alone. Mine was a life of quiet simplicity, a life cursed by the Heavenly Dao and yet cherished by it. I looked at the pattern as if it were someone who couldn't speak. I couldn't hear Mukin's voice. Had the sound of the rain drowned it out? My tears had long since run dry. How I longed to hear your voice. The wild geese have arrived; they are birds that remember the departed, but they brought no word from you. Since I turned twenty, I have yearned passionately for distant horizons. I felt that I belonged to faraway places, and that I should travel as far as I could. I wanted to reach the ends of the earth and vanish somewhere even I did not know. Every time, I hear a voice: Go far away. It is a calling. It is as if life can only truly be called life when entrusted to distant horizons. But what am I searching for? I don't know. What kind of inner world is this, one we must spend our whole lives exploring?
This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.
