Time flowed like a stream over blue stone, leaving the marks of passing years.
Time had erased the scars of the wildfire. Only a few charred trees still stood stubbornly, their blackened trunks like silent gravestones commemorating the inferno buried in the past. Humus and dead leaves filled the gaps between the scattered rocks, burying the charcoal beneath layer after layer.
After the rain, thin mist drifted through the mountain ravine like threads and wisps of cotton, slowly climbing past the treetops.
Halfway up the mountain.
A black snake nearly twenty feet long lay coiled upon an enormous blue-black boulder, its surface smooth as a mirror. Morning dew beaded on the snake's cold, dark scales. With its head raised toward the sky, it slowly drew the moist, crisp air into its lungs, as though breathing together with the mountain forest.
The black snake had never kept track of how many springs, summers, autumns, and winters it had lived through, nor wondered how it differed from others of its kind.
A lifespan spanning decades, a body far beyond the normal size-the black snake simply lived, wholly unaware of its own abnormalities.
The mist quietly dispersed, and sunlight filled the valley with peaceful serenity.
The black snake settled into its coils on the rock again.
It quietly used the sunlight to regulate its body temperature, indifferent to everything around it. Its heat sensitivity, far exceeding that of its kind, detected a heat source circling overhead, for instance, but it ignored it outright.
A bird of prey searched for something to hunt. It saw the black snake, but its gaze did not linger on that unusually enormous body. The snake was too large to fall within its hunting range and had nothing to do with its survival. Ignoring it as it would a silent rock, the bird concentrated on searching for mountain rats or wild rabbits.
Once its body temperature had risen to the desired level, the black snake left the boulder and slithered away, occasionally pausing to flick its tongue in search of prey.
It avoided the shaded, dense woods and headed for a sunny slope where prey was more plentiful.
After several failed hunts, it slithered down to the valley floor to seek opportunities near the stream.
It swallowed a few forest frogs. Better than nothing.
Suddenly, it sensed unfamiliar vibrations.
The slithering black snake stopped.
Raising its head slightly, it sensed carefully, judging direction and size from the vibrations transmitted through rock and soil. This was not suitable prey. It had no intention of getting entangled, but the other party was approaching.
It darted its tongue out and quickly withdrew it, gathering scent particles from its surroundings. The smell was unfamiliar, unlike anything it had encountered before.
Deeming it a threat, it coiled up and lay waiting.
Its heat sensitivity soon detected three heat sources, and it heard intermittent sounds. The approaching creatures moved slowly, their various vibrations heavy and disorderly, unlike those of the forest's fierce beasts.
The three creatures drew closer and closer.
As they advanced, they laboriously shifted rocks aside, opening a rough path through the stream valley.
The black snake arched its body and tensed, adopting a striking posture to warn them to keep their distance!
Yet they never noticed the danger within arm's reach. As they passed nearby, the black snake's shortsighted eyes made out their appearance. Unlike the familiar birds and beasts, they were peculiar, behaved strangely, and were unsuitable prey. Since they did not attack, it chose to ignore them. There was no need to waste energy fighting.
The three retreating figures gradually blurred in its sight. The black snake turned away and continued searching for prey.
The next day.
The black snake saw those unusual creatures again. This time there were more of them, walking slowly along the streamside path opened earlier.
It again confirmed that they posed no threat and ignored them, slipping into the dense forest and making its way halfway up the mountain to find a dry place to lie still. Gradually, its entire body grew dull as though coated in dust, and its outer skin dried out...
The group stopped upon reaching a deep pool, then began construction on the sun-drenched southern slope.
They felled trees, dug earth, and carried stones.
A few days later, several low thatched cottages with fenced yards stood in the valley.
The roof thatch was thickly layered, with low, drooping eaves. The walls were built of yellow mud mixed with grass stalks. The windows were rather small, covered with rough, plain paper. The doors bore neither paint nor ornament, showing only the long grain of the wood.
The craftsmen gathered their axes and chisels, shouldered their baskets, and followed the stream downhill. Their footsteps faded into the distance, leaving the new cottages standing silently beside the water.
Day and night alternated several times, and the mountain breeze dried the fresh earth on the walls.
The midday sunshine was sweltering. Another crowd entered the mountains, carrying things on their shoulders and in their hands. At their head was a middle-aged man with a lean face and three long wisps of beard. His blue robe was soaked through and clung to his back. Though empty-handed, he was panting, unable to bear the oppressive heat, and kept wiping the sweat from his face with his broad sleeves.
After following the winding stream at a slow pace for a long time, they finally reached the thatched cottages deep in the valley.
At the sight of the beautiful mountain forest, his exhaustion vanished.
When the wind passed, the entire mountain gently swayed. The pool was clear and cool, undisturbed by the clamor of the dusty world-a secluded realm of mountains and waters beyond worldly cares.
The man threw back his head and laughed.
"People speak only of the bitter hardship of secluded cultivation. What do they know of its true savor!"
"You toil and rot in the turbid mortal world, chasing empty fame on a snail's horn and trifling profits on a fly's head. In the end, you are nothing but dry bones in a grave!"
"Only by refining qi and becoming an immortal!"
"Only then can one share the lifespan of heaven and earth, and endure alongside the sun and moon!"
"...Ahem, ahem, hahaha."
As he laughed, he suddenly began coughing and nearly failed to catch his breath. His young attendant hurried forward to thump his back. Around them, the household servants busy furnishing the cottages saw that their master was all right and turned their eyes away, pretending they had seen nothing.
On the mountainside, the black snake shed its old skin and lay coiled in the forest to rest, quietly waiting for its new scales to adjust.
At dusk, cooking smoke rose from the thatched cottages, accompanied by coughing. Blue smoke drifted slowly upward, lingering halfway up the mountain before leisurely spreading out into a light ribbon of cloud.
From then on, the secluded valley had human inhabitants.
The blue-robed man, his young attendant, a hunter, and a yellow dog.
The outlines of the distant mountains gradually merged with the darkening sky, while candlelight illuminated the window paper, tinting it a warm hue.
The night was as usual, with an occasional bark breaking the silence.
In the dense forest, the black snake's scales grew harder and harder as it completed its shedding far faster than others of its kind. Yet it noticed that its body had grown markedly less after this molt, as though some mysterious, inscrutable fetter had invisibly constrained it.
An unprecedented impulse welled up within the black snake. An instinctive restlessness rose from deep in its blood, urging it to break free of the shackles binding it so tightly.
Then came confusion and bewilderment.
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It remained in a bewildered daze until dawn. Then it sensed a subtle change in the air, bringing its nightlong confusion to an end, and became happy and delighted.
The first morning light filtered through the treetops. Though the sky seemed clear, the birds and beasts already knew mountain rain was coming.
Just as the black snake was about to head for the boulder, it sensed unusual tremors. Looking down the mountain, it discovered heat sources slowly approaching...
That morning, the man had spotted the enormous boulder halfway up the mountain. Curious, he had decided to climb up and investigate.
He had not expected the steep slopes and loose stones, which left him so exhausted that sweat soaked the back of his robe.
The hunter walked ahead, scouting the way.
Just before they reached the boulder, the yellow dog abruptly stopped and stood rooted in place. Its ears pricked up as it stared tensely ahead, repeatedly looking back at its master.
Suspecting a wild beast, the hunter lowered his voice.
"Please wait here a moment, sir. I'll be right back."
With that, he gripped his iron hunting fork, bent low, and slipped into the dense forest. The yellow dog led the way, following the scent.
The blue-robed man paid little heed to the hunter's words. With the boulder so close at hand, his curiosity only grew. He simply straightened his robe and continued up the mountain with his young attendant.
They happened to be upwind, and their scent had long since spread on the breeze.
They had no idea they were as conspicuous as torches in the dark.
The yellow dog darted out, plunging first into a patch of jagged rocks. The hunter saw it growling with its head lowered, straining to drag something out of a crevice.
Once he saw what it was, he breathed a sigh of relief.
It was a shed snakeskin. The dog had bitten onto its tail end and was tugging it out of the crevice inch by inch.
The old snakeskin seemed rather long. The hunter suddenly realized something was wrong.
The dog was still pulling...
Drawing on his years of experience living in the mountain forest, he reckoned that the snake which had shed this skin must be enormous, perhaps twenty feet long!
His nerves abruptly tightened.
A chill shot up his spine, and he hurriedly turned and ran back.