In my previous life, I went with him to the Central Plains and withered away for thirty years in the inner quarters of a Chang’an residence.
In this life, I stayed in Dunhuang. It wasn’t that I didn’t love him. I just had to become my own person before I could love him.
I Guard the Flying Apsaras in Dunhuang tells the story of a young painter’s growth while embracing the larger theme of safeguarding civilization. Through the everyday work of restoring murals, it conveys the positive values of self-reliance, protection, unity, and inheritance. It doesn’t show readers some grand principle, but rather that “a person can choose to live this way.”
