In the spring of the fifth year of Shaoxing, Xiaofu takes a bowl of tea in a teahouse in Chengdu Prefecture, and sets out on a road that will last a lifetime.
At first, there are just a handful of village volunteers, suppressing bandits for reward money and escorting goods to make a living. When they come across a village slaughtered by bandits, they wipe out every last one of them. Watching the villagers shakily bring out the little porridge they have left, he waves them away and says, “In times this troubled, you should keep it for yourselves.”
He never drank that bowl of porridge. He traveled far afterward, but never forgot it.
More and more people gradually gather around him. He takes in the homeless at taverns, rescues someone condemned to die on the grasslands, and meets people by the post stations who can never return to their hometowns. He travels from Sichuan to places few have ever seen, from his early twenties until his hair turns white at the temples.
People ask where he is going. He says he doesn’t know.
People ask what he hopes to gain. He has no answer.
He once acquired a white horse, pure white from head to hoof, with a human understanding and a grasp of human speech. The horse accompanies him from north to south, from the past into the future.
He has met many people, killed many people, and saved many people. Some curse him, some remember him, and some return to haunt his dreams night after night.
He keeps walking, until he can walk no longer.
There is a road in this world that begins in Chengdu Prefecture and wanders across the land. It takes thirty years, and never finds its way back to where it began.
That white horse follows him all the way.
