Tales of the Martial World: When the Blossoms Fall and Spring Returns

I have always been deeply fond of wuxia novels.

I tried writing them long ago, but time and again I found myself puzzled by what it meant to be a hero...

I have always drawn nourishment from the novels of those who came before me, often moved by the smallest moments: when Li Xunhuan took A Fei's hand, when a tear from Xiao Shiyilang fell onto Feng Siniang's hand, when Fu Hongxue met Zhou Wei, when Hua Manlou sat alone in his tower, listening to flowers bloom. It was as if I could see a bud struggle at last to unfurl its petals...

Gu Long is my greatest favorite, yet I have never managed to capture his kind of atmosphere: the feeling of tears shimmering in your eyes as you smile, of something casually touching the softest place in your heart, of a mood and imagery that seem impossibly distant yet somehow within reach. Most of his characters are repressed and tragic, much like so many lives.

When you drink and sing at the height of your fame, behind all the dazzling glory lies the morning breeze and waning moon by the willow-lined shore. It is beautiful, to be sure, yet always marked by a trace of sorrow.

Suddenly, I remembered something said by another person I greatly admire: We toil, we struggle, but every now and then life gives us a few perfect moments. That is where the meaning of life lies. Whether we can go on to live happily ever after doesn't matter.

So long as we have seen flowers bloom, seen tears shed in true affection, and been moved by something pure, whether it lasts forever no longer matters so much.

So I write, hoping to preserve the mark of what moved me as I imagined it.

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