Never Fall

World War II:

How can we describe it? It was a savage fire fueled by national interests and racial hatred, a mad hurricane borne by people across the world at the cost of blood, tears, and dreams.

Seventy years have passed since then. The storm may long since have been washed away by time and fallen silent, like a nightmare whose time has run out, forced to quiet down. Bearing the acrid, ominous stench of blood, it sleeps fitfully in the pages of history, while every trace of its misery and pain is carved in blood across the previous century.

And we know that in any age of bloody conflict, glory belongs to butchers, would-be butchers, and those who emerge from the butcher's grasp. Wounds alone belong to the people.

I used to think people shouldn't write stories like this, conjuring up dark smoke in peaceful times, quietly borrowing an old, hard scar from some corner of history as if to fool themselves, then asking it with curiosity when it would finally fall away. The scar would answer with a question: Of all the things people can know, what is certain, what will not fall, and what will never fall? The question leaves people silent. Perhaps it is too abstract and impractical, but anyone willing to answer it must carry a faint, subtle feeling in their heart:

It is this feeling that compels us to keep wandering in poverty.