Ode to Life

Nothing in the world can survive easily. All life and death are a grand and stern ode to life. In the vast mountains and seas, everything is rushing towards the end in its destiny to live towards death. Whether it's capelin charging with broken bones, salmon dying against the current, or Chinese sturgeon swimming upstream and running aground on rocks, or Jingwei carrying trees to fill the sea; whether it's mayflies living and dying, cicadas hibernating and singing for seventeen years, or deep-sea octopuses devouring their bodies, and giant whales sinking to nourish all things. These nineteen kinds of creatures pave the way with flesh and blood, and use death to breed new life. They have fulfilled the most cruel and gentle ultimate law of nature: sacrifice is the only basis for the continuation of life. The fate of all living things is also the mirror image of all living beings in the world. Those ancestors who were martyred in troubled times, the lonely brave men who went against the tide, and the ordinary people who exhausted themselves to support their descendants, are all like all living beings, who go forward one after another to devote themselves to singing praises. There is never endless life and death that comes out of thin air, there is only the inheritance of living through death and continuing the life with songs of praise. With cold and transparent writing and a grand and compassionate perspective, this book faces the weight and significance of life's demise. All falls are not the end, and all journeys are inheritance. This is the most solemn and immortal tribute to all living things. Open this book and listen to this ode to life that spans mountains, seas and years.