1. When there are no roads, we get lost; when there are many roads, we still get lost, because we don't know where to go. Stories always have an end, but not everyone has an ending.
—Chi Zijian, *The Right Bank of the Ergun River*2. I still love strolling at dusk, watching the sunset reflected in the water, watching the fallen leaves in the wind, watching the snow-covered mountains. I am not afraid of growing old, because I want the moonlight to blend with my hair when my black hair turns white. Let the moonlight not distinguish between moonlight and white hair; let me not distinguish between white hair and moonlight growing on my head.
—Chi Zijian, *It's Snowing in My World*
3. A wounded person is happy in an unfamiliar environment, because you don't have to pretend to be strong in front of familiar people and scenery; you can completely indulge in tears.
—*All the Nights in the World*
4. There are two roads in the world: one tangible, lying horizontally for people to move forward, hesitate, or retreat; the other intangible, lying vertically for the soul to ascend to heaven or descend to hell. Only by traversing thorny paths without regret can one walk the vertical path alongside the clouds.
—Chi Zijian, "The Right Bank of the Ergun River"
5. Because of the cold, the eternal longing for warmth at the end of the cold, and the tender, love-like attachment to salt, I think the tears of northerners are saltier than those of southerners.
—Chi Zijian, "My Tenderness Towards Darkness"
6. In the city at night, due to the occult lights, there is no darkness to speak of; but in my hometown, I can stand by the window at night entirely because of the allure of the moonlight. Who appreciates darkness? Yet on this sorrowful night, facing this pristine darkness, I felt a special kind of emotion, a warmth gradually spreading through my body, as if seeing a fire in the midst of ice and snow. How many places can truly see darkness now? In this sleepless world, darkness has been torn apart and lost its soul by artificial light. In truth, darkness is pure; the dazzling lights and revelry of the night desecrate the sacred darkness. God gave us darkness, wasn't that also a cradle for our dreams? If we abandon our dreams, constantly creating decadent light to drive away the darkness, indulging in sensual pleasures, then we may very well face a monochromatic world.
—Chi Zijian, "My Tenderness for Darkness"
7. "The morning dew wets my eyes,
the midday sun warms my back
, the deer bells at dusk are the coolest,
the night birds return to the forest," he patted my back. That one pat brought tears to my eyes.
—Chi Zijian, "The Right Bank of the Ergun River"
8. Sorrow receded like the tide. Without sorrow, people have no dreams. A night without dreams is so chaotic, a dawn without dreams is so pale.
—Chi Zijian, "Who Stifled Sorrow?"
9. Young people look back on their past because they haven't experienced much of life's vicissitudes; this kind of looking back carries a certain romantic and vain element. After truly tasting the bitterness and sweetness of life, they probably wouldn't bother looking back.
—Chi Zijian
10. When I woke up, it was a deep, dark night outside the window. I recalled that throughout the year, no matter the season, I would dream about snowflakes, even when the outside world was filled with birdsong and fragrant flowers. It seems that what surrounds me is destined to be a cool yet melancholic, romantic yet cold world.
—"It's Snowing in My World"
11. If you have no God in your heart, how can you believe in hell? Those who don't believe in hell will not have their own heaven.
—Chi Zijian, "Goodnight Rose"
12. "What does it feel like to love someone?" Chen Linyue asked softly. "You feel heartache when you think of that person." "Gu Xiuzhu said.
—Chi Zijian, *All the Nights in the World*
13. In winter, the brightly colored birds all flap their wings and fly south, but the crow still stands tall in the snowy fields of the north. Its hoarse cry, filled with melancholy, has a human quality, unlike the oriole or the swallow, whose calls, though beautiful, sound too much like the voices of heaven, always feeling infinitely distant.
—Chi Zijian, *White Snow, Crow*
14. The sun and the moon are indeed the two eyes of the sky. The sky is clever; it doesn't produce a pair of eyes at the same time. One is bright while the other is closed; one opens while the other closes. The two eyes take turns resting, so its eyes are resilient and will never break. But how fragile are the eyes of the human world! The sky is, after all, the sky.
—Chi Zijian, *All the Nights in the World*
15. In those years, I believed that what illuminated the Weng River were two moons, one in the sky, held up by God; the other on the rocks, held up by my dreams.
—Chi Zijian, *All the Nights in the World* "On the Right Bank of the Ergun River"
16. I understand that a cloud gathers and then disperses, a flower blooms and then withers, the river always flows forward, spring, summer, autumn, winter, the sun and moon alternate, in endless cycles.
17. Varoga and I are so perfectly integrated, like fish and water, flowers and dew, breeze and birdsong, the moon and the Milky Way.
—Chi Zijian, "On the Right Bank of the Ergun River"
18. You, whose soul has gone far away, do not fear the night, for here is a flame to light your journey. You, whose soul has gone far away, do not worry about your loved ones, for there are stars, the Milky Way, clouds, and the moon to sing for your arrival. The flame gradually dimmed and went out. The withered tree and the gold turned to ashes together, and the night returned.
—Chi Zijian, "On the Right Bank of the Ergun River"
19. Gazing for a long time at the misty, rain-shrouded sea, watching the surging twilight roll in, I felt that the sea before me surpassed the sun-drenched, pristine blue of the ocean; surpassed the golden sea bathed in the soft glow of the setting sun; surpassed the silvery-white sea shrouded in moonlight, overflowing with warmth. This incomparable Grieg Sea in the twilight drizzle, its appearance neither asleep nor awake, the swirling raindrops like countless dancing sprites, the rising and falling music transporting us to a realm of pure and beautiful perfection.
—Chi Zijian, "Snow Curtain"
20. The car drove through Bergen's old town, the square cobblestone streets wet. The rain in this city is like pigeons hovering in the sky, suddenly soaking your eyes when you least expect it. The clouds are a mix of dark and white; one cloud is raining, while another dances in the sunshine, a constant ebb and flow, unpredictable and ever-changing. Because of this fickle rain, the ancient buildings on the street often have wet west walls while the roofs of their east walls are as dry as autumn leaves.
—Chi Zijian, "Snow Curtain"
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