Su Nian’an was worked to the bone in advertising, her job tormenting her until she was nearly bald. Then a strange thunderstorm struck, and somehow she ended up in a remote, uninhabited mountain wilderness.
At first, she made a life for herself in the mountains, and things were quite pleasant. She gathered wild scallions and simmered fragrant mushroom soup, then baked pine nut cakes drizzled with honey. In the morning, she was lucky enough to catch a pheasant falling off a cliff; by evening, she had sorted out plump wild chestnuts and prepared pickled fiddlehead ferns. She thought she would spend the rest of her life in peaceful solitude.
One day, while out exploring, she found a small village. In the village square, the locals had surrounded a man in tattered clothes, his eyes filled with fear and his body covered in knife wounds. The man had lost his memory and had the mind of a child. Unable to bear leaving him there, Su Nian’an took him away despite the villagers’ objections.
As they spent time together, the man regained his memories. He turned out to be a once-feared assassin. Su Nian’an assumed he would return to his old life, but he stayed, drawn by her kindness and the peace of the mountains.
From then on, they supported each other, and before they knew it, twenty years had passed. A wooden house now stood beside the cave where they had once lived, and their children were grown. When their grandchild curled up on her lap to hear a story, Su Nian’an rocked her fan and watched her husband sharpen a sickle. The mountain breeze carried the scent of rice, bringing back memories of that stormy day long ago.
Beneath the eaves, steam curled from cups of wild chrysanthemum tea. The past had all become warm memories of their years in the mountains.
