Thousand Autumns: Qian Qiu (Novel) Vol. 1

by Meng Xi Shi

The universe is fathomless; the heavens and earth vast. From time immemorial, the course of nature has run eternal, and amidst all this, human beings are impossibly small. If I wish to become one with heaven, ascending to godhood and returning to the void, then the rivers and mountains, the sun and moon, the heavens, the clouds, all of them would be me. There’d be no boundaries between all that exists in the world, and me.

After the tumult of a storm on the sea, the moon rises high above the clouds, painting the water and the heavens in one color. No billows or swells, no joy or sorrow. In late spring the thick brush grows, early autumn sees the layered clouds drift; within the well a lone lamp shines, upon the colored glaze does the moonlight glint.