Wang Ziqu was born in an obscure mountain village. He was mature beyond his years from childhood. When he was twelve, his parents left to find work, taking his younger brother and sister with them and leaving him and his older sister to attend school at a relative’s home. The siblings went through one difficult experience after another, and at last their parents returned.
The family enjoyed a happy life for a while.
But fate played a cruel joke on him. Those happy days would become a cherished memory, like an ink painting that never fades. Then, on a rainy day in 2006, an accident caused the fifteen-year-old’s right leg muscles to atrophy, leaving him with a limp.
Yet this did not crush his love of life. He kept going, doing whatever he could each day. He treated others kindly and never did anything wicked.
But fate still would not leave him alone. When he was thirty-two, another accident brought his life to an end…
Before closing his eyes, he made a silent wish: “If there is another life, may I become a fresh green leaf on a tea mountain, unfurling in the morning dew to greet a new beginning.”
Author’s afterword: When the strings of a life snap in this world, may the spring breeze of another time and place carry him to the sights he longed to see and the reunion he never got to have. Perhaps in some parallel world, that boy who chased the wind is still running along the field paths, where Chinese milk vetch flowers bloom in purple.
