In June 2021, I filmed a day in the life of Zhao Jiaju.
Not long before, on that night in Baiyin,
our good friend Liang Jing, and more than twenty trail runners,
had been taken by the wind of the Yellow River Stone Forest.
The grief had not yet faded.
I walked close to Jiaju and filmed his day.
He says little — he simply answers everything by running.
Jiaju is honest and straightforward,
simple like a child of the mountains,
giving all his feelings to the road beneath his feet.
The sunlight was bright that day.
Watching his back, I suddenly understood:
no grief, however deep, can dim the light in a man’s eyes.
You know the rest of the story:
he ran past that shadow,
toward a bright future of his own.
“Running carries the light, and it goes on.”