As one enters middle age, when professional success and bodily desire no longer
stir waves, can life truly become as calm and still as a lake? Beneath the seemingly
motionless surface—does genuine peace reside there, or merely a hollow void of
futility?
As this journey begins, the gateways of memory open and once-familiar figures
gradually reappear: S, who entrusted him with a final wish to visit New Zealand before
death; L, an unexpected travel companion in Yunnan, both cloaked in the shadow of
death and struggling to grasp the meaning of existence; and the elusive figure of his
mother, ever near yet distant in memory. Might she offer an answer?
To confront the ultimate question of life, the author weaves a journey aimed at
unearthing traces and clues from the past. In this narrative, he faces death head-on
and ultimately gazes upon the truth and depth of life’s meaning.
What lies at the root of life’s emptiness?
And what of the solitude and sorrows along the way? Who will finally hear them?