After leaving the county office, Cheng Zhi returned home and went straight to his study. As he thought over everything, he picked up his brush and dipped it in ink several times, growing more delighted with every thought.
Suddenly, the door creaked open.
His wife came in, walked up to the desk, and reached out to pinch him.
"I've heard it all from Wang Er. You encountered an immortal while on duty today. So why did you come home and hole up in your study instead of telling me about it?"
Cheng Zhi hissed.
"My dear, go easy on me. Go easy on me."
Lady Zhao let go and glanced over the brush and ink on his desk.
"You're writing... an ode?"
After studying it closely, Lady Zhao set the paperweight back in place and smoothed out the sheet. She said tactfully, "You'd be better off paying someone to write it for you."
Cheng Zhi looked down at what he'd written and laughed, too. He crumpled up the waste paper and tossed it into the basket.
Rubbing his neck, he asked, "What did Wang Er tell you?"
Lady Zhao found a chair and sat down, curiosity in her eyes.
"Was there really an immortal?"
"Truer than true."
Cheng Zhi thought back to what he'd witnessed that morning. Regretfully, he slapped his thigh and said, "If only I could have followed him and learned the path of immortality!"
He pulled his wife over to his seat, took the copy of Biographies of Immortals he'd been reading that day from the desk, and turned to the fresh annotations. Then he handed it to her along with the booklet tucked inside.
"I heard that when the gentleman arrived at the Lu Family, nobody noticed him. He simply walked here step by step, yet nobody saw where he'd been before. At first, his body was impossible to make out; it only gradually became visible."
Magistrate Cheng had clearly made some careful inquiries.
He recounted everything in detail.
Then he speculated, "Huainanzi says, 'The hun is the spirit of yang, and the po is the spirit of yin.' I've heard that some who have mastered the Dao can send their souls out of their bodies."
"Do you think that's what the gentleman did?"
Wang Erlang hadn't explained things in such detail. Lady Zhao had encountered the matter herself while playing cards with Lady Wang Er at the Wang Family home.
At noon, they had all played a round of Leaf Cards. Lady Zhao had specially commissioned the set of jade tiles; they were cool and smooth in her hands, and had cost a pretty penny. At the table, the other three had set aside their past petty grievances and joined in comforting Lady Su, Wang Er's wife.
Lady Zhao held a special position there. She was the magistrate's wife, and her husband governed the county.
With so many people having disappeared from Xiangyang County, the county magistrate was the first one responsible for dealing with it. Many of the missing were wealthy local gentry, too, connected to one another by marriage. They had all called in favors, and their pleas had eventually reached the magistrate.
Lady Su was Cheng Zhi's cousin, so Lady Zhao comforted and reassured her with great patience.
She also promised to have the constables search more thoroughly. Erlang was blessed by heaven; surely nothing bad would happen to him.
As it happened, the moment she finished speaking, a servant came rushing in to report that the nineteen people who'd gone missing at the Lu Family home had been found—and they were still there. They'd slept for seven whole days, and now they were eating as though they'd come back from the dead.
An hour later, Wang Anlan was already sitting before them, recounting the tale in vivid detail.
In his dream, he'd experienced forty years, though in reality he'd slept for seven days straight.
He was still alive.
An immortal...
Could such a thing really happen?
Wang Erlang had also said, "My brother-in-law knows a lot. He even spoke with that immortal and said he'd pay him a personal visit another day."
After a moment's thought, he added, "The gentleman doesn't care for empty fame. He told us to call him 'Sir.'"
Because of those words, Lady Zhao had left the Wang Family home early and told a servant to wait at the gate and inform her as soon as her husband returned. Who could have guessed that Cheng Zhi would come home from the county office and head straight into his study without saying a word? She'd waited in vain all that time.
Lady Zhao thought it over.
"That's hard to say."
"We don't know much about immortals. And here in Xiangyang, who would have thought Lumen Mountain really had a Mountain God?"
Cheng Zhi nodded, too.
He still remembered the Mountain God: his beard and hair were entirely white, without a single black strand in his hair or eyebrows. Every movement of his carried an air of lofty grace.
He looked like an immortal.
Earlier that day, the aide had told him there was no chance the immortal would take him as a disciple, and Cheng Zhi had put the thought out of his mind. But with someone so extraordinary actually here in Xiangyang, Magistrate Cheng couldn't help feeling his heart stirred.
The magistrate was filled with longing. Unable to help himself, he asked:
"Tell me, when I go see that gentleman tomorrow, how should I conduct myself?"
Lady Zhao thought it over and asked him to explain what sort of temperament the gentleman had shown that day. Turning her bracelet over in her fingers, she mulled it over and said, "Wang Erlang also said that the immortal doesn't care for empty fame. And you said you'd be going as the people's magistrate to thank him on behalf of Xiangyang's people. So you shouldn't be too deferential."
"If you ask me..."
"Just speak with him as you would any reclusive sage."
"Respect comes from the heart, not from a temple."
"Deal with him the way you've dealt with other sages."
Lady Zhao was quite animated as she spoke. She added, "That gentleman has traveled here, so find out if he has anywhere to stay. Or why not invite him to stay at our home?"
Cheng Zhi considered her words.
Lady Zhao thought for a moment, then brought up another point. "Didn't they say there was someone with the gentleman besides the Mountain God of Lumen Mountain? Wang Er said he was a talented scholar from Shu Region. If he can stand beside an immortal, he must have some kind of connection to him."
"Make some inquiries and see if you can get a sense of things."
Cheng Zhi stroked his beard.
"My dear, you're right. I nearly forgot about Li Taibai. I'll see what I can find out."
The magistrate took his wife's advice to heart and acted on it without delay.
At noon the next day,
Meng Haoran was having a meal at an inn with several friends. The four of them were scholars who lived nearby. Meng Haoran was closest to Lu Xiang and Zhang Zirong, and the three were known as the Three Friends of Xiangyang.
Lu Xiang put down his wine cup and joked, "It's a shame Zirong is serving as Lecheng's county commandant now, buried in paperwork. If he heard about this, he'd probably leave home and sleep right outside the immortal's door."
Meng Haoran laughed, too.
"Of course we have to tell him about something so extraordinary. I've already written a letter. Once Zhang Ba brings back his reply, we'll have quite a story to hear."
Lu Xiang came from the Fanyang Lu Clan, which was nothing like the Lu Family here in Xiangyang, whose connection to his clan was anyone's guess. He had a wide circle of friends.
"You're right. I should write a letter, too."
He picked up some food and continued, "As it happens, Wang Mojie wrote to me. He's in Luoyang now, spending time with the princes, including Prince Qi and Prince Ning. He's no longer weighed down by the gloom he felt after his earlier demotion, so I'll tell him about this."
Meng Haoran asked,
"Wang Wei?"
Lu Xiang said, "Who else would I mean by Wang Mojie?"
"You were there that day, and you disappeared along with everyone else. I nearly wrote to the governor of Xiang Prefecture and asked him to send people to investigate. Luckily, it turned out to be a long dream, and bandits hadn't carried you off. Otherwise, I might have offended the magistrate."
"Now tell us exactly what happened."
A look of fascination appeared on Lu Xiang's face.
"I've lived all these years, yet I've never seen a true immortal."
The other two men at the table paused with their chopsticks as well, straining to hear.
Xiangyang wasn't very big, and news traveled fast. After the missing people returned home, tales of their encounter with an immortal spread like wildfire throughout the city.
Meng Haoran thought it over briefly.
He put down his chopsticks and began:
"Today, Haoran has seen the way of the immortals."
He met three pairs of eager eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, he also noticed the nearby diners had stopped eating, clearly hanging on his every word.
Meng Haoran smiled and continued, speaking in detail.
"I spent forty years in a dream. That kingdom was called the Ancient Locust Kingdom, and its sights and customs were unlike those of Tang Land. When I looked up, I saw neither moon nor stars..."
As he spoke, a diner at the next table stopped eating to listen and stroked his beard.
When the tale was finished,
the diner asked with a smile, "Could you be the great scholar Meng Haoran of Xiangyang?"
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