The stories below are all based on real life. Many are ones I heard as a child from my parents and the people in my village. In summer, we would sit around bamboo beds, beneath the moonlight and starlight, in the deepening dusk. I would snuggle up in my father's or mother's arms and listen to the grown-ups tell stories. These stories left a deep mark on my memory, and I would often think back on them. Over time, they began to take on a certain charm for me. They were so mysterious and elusive, so poetic and thought-provoking. These stories seemed like mysterious passageways that I could enter and travel through, leading me to a world that was both part of our lives and beyond them. I was amazed that my elders in the village, amid their difficult and monotonous lives, had unconsciously explored a world of the soul, passing on those explorations to their descendants in the form of stories. These stories have been passed down from generation to generation, though undoubtedly they have, to some extent...
This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.
