But in the village there was one small child named Lin, who had been asking questions since the day Lin could speak. Lin's 인생 had been spent in the shadow of the eastern 산 — a 인생 of rice pots and goat bells, of woodsmoke and the same low songs sung at the same hour each evening. The 인생 of the elders had been the same. The 인생 of the elders before them had been the same. Nothing in the village ever changed, and nothing in Lin's own small 인생 had ever changed either — except, perhaps, the questions, which grew louder every year. Why did the 산 stand where they stood? Where did the river come from, and where did it go? Was every 인생 in the wider world like the 인생 lived here, or were some of them something else entirely?

There were no 학생 in the village, because the village had no school. There was no 대학 within a hundred days' walking, because the wider world had not bothered to build one for so few people. The elders had heard of 학생, of course — wandering monks had passed through over the years, men and women whose 인생 had been spent in the 대학 of distant cities, and they had stories of buildings full of books and chalk and quiet rooms full of other 학생 like them. To Lin, such a 인생 sounded like a fairy tale. A 학생, in a 대학, in a city beyond the 산 — that was not a 인생 anyone in this village would ever live. The closest Lin had ever come to a 학생 was the morning Lin had spent watching a beetle climb a wall, and the beetle had eventually given up.

Each morning, at the same 시간, Lin's mother stood at the stove. The 시대 outside the village had changed many times — wars and harvests, rulers come and gone — but the 인간 inside the village had not changed at all, and Lin's mother had long ago decided this was a good thing. "There is always 시간 for one more story," she would say, stirring rice. Lin had nothing but 시간 in those years; what Lin had a shortage of was answers. "What lies beyond the eastern 산? What does the wider 인간 look like? What 시대 are we even in, if every day in this village is the same?" Her mother only laughed and stirred the rice.

"There are other 산, small one," Lin's mother said, on a morning much like every other. "There is a city where ten thousand people live behind walls, and the moon rises over its rooftops the same as it rises over ours. The 세계 is wide. Many 세대 of villagers have lived in this valley before us, all of them asking what you are asking now — and not one of them, not the oldest among them, not your great-grandfather, not the wandering monk who passed through when I was a 학생 — has ever known what lives at the top of our own 산." She set the spoon down. "Some 시대 ask questions and some do not. Ours has not, for a very long 시간."

Lin did not finish breakfast. Lin sat very still, holding the wooden spoon, and looked through the open door at the 산. Every day of Lin's life it had been there — blue at dawn, green at noon, black at dusk. But for the first time, Lin saw it differently. Not as part of the sky. As a place. A place with a top. A place where one small 인간 might, perhaps, climb. Lin's 결심 came then — not all at once, but in a slow gathering, the way frost gathers on a leaf overnight. The 인심 of the village was kind but very small, and Lin's 결심 was already larger than the village could hold. By the time the spoon went back into the bowl, Lin had already decided.

Lin did not say a word to her mother about the plan. Lin thought about it all day, sitting under the old plum tree, looking up at the 산. By evening Lin had made a small list. A bag. Some rice. Water. A blanket against the night cold. Shoes — Lin had only one pair, and they were already old and full of holes, but they would have to do. The 산 was 자연, and 자연 was not kind to small things that came unprepared. Lin had once read of plum trees that grew on stony slopes without anyone tending them; 자생, the book had called them. Lin thought, very quietly, that she would have to become 자생 herself, at least until she reached the top.

The next morning the sky was not yet light. The moon still hung over the 산 like a pale, half-closed eye. Lin slipped out of bed without making a sound, picked up the small bag, and looked once at the sleeping shape of her mother by the stove. Then Lin opened the gate and stepped out into the cold, cold air. The village's own 출생 had happened generations before Lin's — its first plough, its first house, its first burial — and Lin had been born into the middle of a story she had not started. But every 발생 in the world has to begin somewhere. This morning was Lin's 출발. Lin walked all the way down the one dirt road, past the well, past the last house, and toward the great dark shape of the 산. Above, the sky was beginning to turn grey.

By the time the sky was fully light, Lin had reached the foot of the 산. Up close, the 산 was much, much bigger than it had ever looked from the village. A thin, stony path curved away from the road and disappeared into the trees. Lin stood there for a long moment, just looking up. Then Lin thought of her mother, and of the warm kitchen with its rice and its old wooden gate, and of how easy it would be to turn back. But Lin had made her 결심. And once a 결심 has been made, even quietly, it cannot be unmade. Lin took one step onto the path, and then another, and the 등산 had begun.

The path was steeper than Lin had thought. After only an hour Lin's legs were burning. The 정상 was hidden far above, somewhere in the clouds, and from where Lin stood it was hard to believe such a place existed at all — only the slope existed, and the trees, and the next ten steps. When Lin turned around, the village had become very small. Lin could see the road, and the well, and the house with its smoking chimney where her mother would by now be looking for Lin and not finding her. The thought made Lin's heart hurt. But Lin did not stop. Lin took a sip of water, took a deep breath, and walked on. The 산정 her mother had spoken of, the place no one in the village had ever seen — Lin would see it, even if her legs gave out trying.

By the time the sky began to darken, Lin had climbed so high that the village below was no longer a village, only a smudge of smoke and lamplight, very small, very far. Lin sat down on a flat rock at the edge of the path and ate a small handful of rice. The trees around were quiet. Not a bird sang. After a while the moon rose up above the eastern 산 — round and yellow and large, much bigger than it ever looked from home — and Lin looked at it for a long time. "Mother," Lin said to the moon, very quietly. "My 가출 was not the kind you would have chosen for me, and I have left my 가족 behind without a word. But I had to know." Lin thought of the 가족 sleeping in the valley below, the 가족 that had asked nothing of her except that she stay. The moon did not say anything back. The moon never does.