"Seek the company of the wise. Play your qin at the highest place you can reach."
This is the ultimate pursuit of every soul — not of fame, not of applause, but of elevation.
In 2018, William Xu carried his guqin and set out for the Tibetan Plateau of China. At 3,500 meters above sea level, in the vast open square before the Potala Palace in Lhasa, he unfolded his qin table, sat down on the stone, and played Xian Weng Cao — "The Song of the Immortal Elder."
No concert hall. No microphone. No audience invited.
Only the wind, the sky, and a thousand-year-old instrument meeting one of the most sacred places on earth.
That single afternoon marked the beginning of what would become more than a decade of journeys — carrying the qin to wild rivers, mountain passes, and roads with seventy-two hairpin turns. Always higher. Always further.
This is the first chapter of those journeys.
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