After Mr. Mo Xuyou Took a Plane

After Mr. Mo Xuyou Took a Plane is Fei Ming’s last novel. It has a quality of “returning to simplicity,” recalling the author’s life in his hometown during the years before the war, when he sought refuge there, and expressing the truths he came to understand. In “Mr. Mo Xuyou Sets to Writing,” Fei Ming explains why he wrote Treatise on Alaya Consciousness, while also shedding light on the purpose behind After Mr. Mo Xuyou Took a Plane: “Mr. Mo Xuyou is truly like a religious believer at prayer, hoping his book will be completed successfully. Then he would count himself a filial son, and, as far as Buddhism is concerned, he would have fulfilled his duty to the truth.” Mr. Mo Xuyou’s philosophy can also be summed up in a single phrase: the mind is like a tree, and its fruit is the truth it bears. The truth is that there is nothing there to begin with, so where could dust settle?