The harder you drink, the deeper the hurt in your heart.
Today, I cast aside every empty title. No elegant verses, no writing with brush and ink.
I will simply be a storyteller who speaks from the heart.
The story I want to tell is not the legend of the “Immortal Poet,” but the life of Li Bai:
the spirited ambition of a young man in fine clothes astride a fine horse,
the carefree abandon of drinking and singing wildly,
and the lonely desolation of a man weathered by hardship.
If you have wine at hand, whether or not you have food to go with it, fill your cup.
Pour yourself a drink of something clear and cool, and listen as I tell it slowly:
the feelings his poems never fully expressed,
the stories hidden in the passing years,
all are part of the everyday life that made up mine,
and the story of my life.
