In the waning years of a forgotten era, Japan was not yet the land of painted screens and silk robes that travelers would one day praise. Villages clung to barren soil; the great lords hoarded rice behind wooden walls, while the poor scraped the earth for fallen grains. The air was thick with smoke from hearths that barely warmed, and the cries of hungry children echoed in narrow alleys.
It was an age ruled not by swords, but by greed. The merchants raised their prices as crops failed, the farmers withheld food for fear of tomorrow, and the lords taxed the starving, blaming the gods for their own cruelty. Honor was a word for poems; hunger was the law of life.
Yet, in the darkest of times, even a single act of kindness could shake the heavens. This is the tale of a boy born with nothing—no name, no family, no future—who would walk a path carved not by wealth or power, but by the hands of a wandering monk.