A Bronze Casket, Wine of Long Life, and a Mad God Within Me

(My hometown is a small Jiangnan town embraced by flowing waters. It has never appeared on any popular tourist map, and for that very reason, it has preserved a quietude and unhurried grace that are almost stubborn. Woven through with crisscrossing waterways, the town is gently divided in two. More than a dozen old stone bridges, like weary elders bent beneath the weight of years, stitch its scattered homes back together. My whole world slowly unfolds from deep within these waterside lanes.)