The wisdom of simplicity and balance.

My name is Sun Yun and I have been accompanying Feng Li for travel for several years. The man is kind, wise, and compassionate monk, who also concerned and caring about the beings in his surrounding. He is a scholar, he knows literature, traditional medicine Yet Feng Li does not hesitate to cultivate his own garden. This man has shaved and vowed to live a simple lifestyle. I assist him to lift his baggage bearing texts, recipes. Including also broken and simple types of tools, plants, seeds, roots and remedies of diseases.

And thus we have come through the years of lazing through lakes and seas, across rocks and snow cresting mountains. The climate is often quite harsh, but the trip is always exciting. Every time we get to pause, we get the feeling of being wanted and needed to spread out the goodness that this uncomplicated kind of living could impart.

But now, as snow on roofs of the houses, years have accumulated and are already telling on us.

Thus, Feng Li chose to go back to his origins and go home to his home village – thus the premise of the story. He left it too long ago expecting that he might not meet anyone he once knew there but only the memories would be there.

This we had to do so was advised by travelers we came across on the trip, informing us that battles were being fought a few kilometers away. The farms stay uncultivated. The population — the women, children, and the elderly — will remain weak and without means to cope with the consequences of a disaster.

On our way back, as we stopped under a willow tree, a young woman pale like the moon, with long black hair a