Three Thousand Dreams Beneath a Pillow of Dust is my first full-length novel. The characters kept me company in my mind through four years of seasons and days. It won't satisfy everyone, but it's a work I can stand behind with a clear conscience.
Before it came into being, what had I written? Nothing worth mentioning. There were only a few memories worth looking back on, collected here. If you're interested, they're good bedtime reading: each chapter is a complete story.
My style changed from one period to another. If the writing isn't good, then it isn't good, but that's all right. Babies are all wrinkly when they're born, and that's precisely why the beauty of growing up is so moving.
Short Story 1, "Where Are the Old Friends?": A light historical fantasy inspired by the story of the song "The Zither Player" by Yin Yue Guai Wu. A brief encounter between a ghost from the imperial palace and a zither player trapped in a cage. A gorgeous, sorrowful ancient zither melody, written in a fit of historical-literary angst.
Short Story 2, "Wang Huohuo's Thorn": A modern story with a touch of demons and ghosts. A locust-tree spirit in the narrator's hometown has watched over them in silence for years, until one day it repays a kindness and vanishes like smoke. A faint scent of locust blossoms drifting from the home of their childhood, a story about missing home.
Short Story 3, "The Last Line": A soft sci-fi story about a person and a parrot, threaded with the loss of family. Science fiction in the vast silence beneath an old Hong Kong song, written after a migrant worker living alone in a foreign city was suddenly struck by inspiration.
Short Story 4, "What Is Real?": An elderly corrupt official takes a con artist for his daughter. A fragile, lonely bond of family between two sinners. A sigh from someone who returns after half a lifetime, carrying nothing but desolation. A spin-off of The Bad Kids.
Short Story 5, "Letters to Sylvia": A story about a reclusive painter and a deceased martyr, with a faint affection spanning many years and regrets scattered to the wind. A bundle of letters arriving years too late and a boy who never fades. Written after wandering in a dream through animated films in the style of Hayao Miyazaki.
Theme: Where in the northwest is my hometown? How many times has the moon been full in the southeast?
Jiu Min, the only song I have that is not out of tune (choking) is so well written???
Wow, he is actually a gross liar, and he still can't get out of Amway because of his name...