Nine years passed uneventfully amid the mountain forests' flourishing and fading, their cold and heat.
Chi Ke had grown older. Often, in the middle of a lesson, he would suddenly pause and fall silent, gazing at the distant mountains. Only after a long while would he slowly come back to himself, as though struggling back from some faraway dream.
Fox and Fat Weasel brought pinecones in their mouths.
Chi Ke happily shelled and ate the pine nuts. After his lessons, he would tell his mountain friends more stories of the world beyond the mountains. Fox and Weasel listened intently, leaping with delight at the amusing parts and making strange cries in their throats.
Chi Ke could guess that the two of them were imitating and learning human speech.
Black Snake, whom he had met first, remained instinctively aloof.
If it were possible, how could Chi Ke not wish for Black Snake to learn faster? But every creature had different gifts. Fox was highly perceptive, while snakes mostly acted on instinct; awakening their intelligence was already a task of a thousand hardships and ten thousand difficulties. What Fox could grasp in ten repetitions took Black Snake a thousand, or ten thousand.
He did not know how Black Snake cultivated, but could guess the broad outlines from its daily behavior.
Fox and Fat Weasel could at least feel their way through some ancestral inheritance. Slow though their progress was, they had a path to follow.
Black Snake's methods of cultivation were exceedingly crude. Through all manner of reckless attempts and risks, correcting mistakes as soon as they arose, it forced a path of its own into being.
Nor could he say Black Snake was doing badly.
At least Black Snake was truly walking the path of cultivation. By contrast, he, supposedly a human endowed with the finest spirit of all creatures, had squandered this life for nothing.
Ah, this road of cultivation... how hard it is.
Black Snake watched Chi Ke. Over the years, it had witnessed the dwindling warmth of his life. It was slow, with no sign of easing, and as time passed, the loss grew faster and faster, approaching some boundary.
When coiled up alone, it began to feel a trace of puzzlement about death.
It had seen other foxes grow old and die, seen Fat Weasel's kind die, and even seen humans rot. In all its long life, only three beings in the nearby mountains had never approached death: itself, Fox, and Fat Weasel.
Then only exceptional beings could keep living. Exceptional beings among humans ought to be able to do so as well.
How long can I live?
What does death feel like? Is it like hunger or thirst? Or some pain I have never experienced?
To find an answer, it deliberately went and bit a wild rat.
Watching the rat gradually grow still amid its struggles and writhing, Black Snake decided that death was probably painful. It disliked pain, so it had to live. If it made its body longer, its head larger, and breathed in more rain-laden air, it would keep living.
Come to think of it...
Ever since my memories began piling up bit by bit, I've had more worries too. What a fine thing that is.
Black Snake looked on coldly as Chi Ke's life weakened.
It did not know what to do. All it knew was how to smell and watch. It smelled something bad and saw his phantom swaying, fitting unsteadily against his body. Whenever it swayed, Chi Ke would lose focus or fall into a deep sleep.
Autumn came.
The Pill Furnace in the Lone Crag Courtyard had not given off smoke for a long time.
Chi Ke was very old now. During his few lucid hours, he busied himself carefully sorting the pills he had accumulated, then packing them into separate wooden boxes. Some were to be sent to old friends, while others were left for villagers he knew beyond the mountains.
The once-young Book Boy had become a silent old servant. The young Hunter was now a sturdy man who could shoulder things on his own, and had children of his own.
Those who had followed him for many years all received pills. In an age with so few doctors and medicines, these were precious things that could save lives.
Last came the books he had gathered over half a lifetime. He probably could not give them away; even if he did, no one would value them. So he kept them.
Bending down, he carefully wrapped the books in thick paper.
Then, with the Hunter and the old servant helping, he had them carried to a dry fissure in the cliff.
Looking outward from within the dark crevice, one could see Chi Ke placing the heavy paper bundles inside one after another, slowly stacking them up. Little by little, they blocked the light outside, until at last only darkness remained...
The weather was cold, so he spent whole days wrapped in an old blanket, leisurely listening to the crows' racket.
Outside the window, heavy snow filled the sky; inside, the fire kept the room toasty warm.
Looking back, his life had actually been quite good. He had never suffered the torment of a serious illness. His ears were not deaf, his eyes were not blind, and he could enjoy a peaceful end. In these troubled times, when human lives were worth no more than grass, he could count himself blessed. Apart from his unfulfilled dream of refining qi and becoming an immortal, he seemed to have few regrets.
As he thought, he drifted drowsily to sleep.
Spring came.
Under the warm sunlight, the lingering snow on the shaded slopes softened and dwindled. The frozen waterfall at Dripping Water Crag thawed, and from the valley floor came the sound of flowing water, muffled all winter.
Inside the window, Chi Ke tucked his hands into his sleeves and watched the icicles break loose from the eaves, streak past the window, and shatter with crisp cracks. Everything was waking, while he alone was like the last patch of ice clinging to the shade, melting without a sound.
The mountain apricot blossoms burst open in haste, tree after tree of pale pink, spreading through the withered yellow mountain ridges and tinting the jagged gray-green cliffs before him.
The wind carried petals drifting into the Lone Crag Courtyard.
Chi Ke laboriously lifted his heavy eyelids. His breaths stretched long, a drawn-out wheeze like broken bellows rising from deep within his chest. He extended an old, wrinkled hand and tremblingly picked up a petal from the table.
With a long sigh, he braced his hand against the edge of the table and pushed himself upright, little by little.
He took a cushion and went outside with the old servant supporting him. The sunlight was bright, falling warm and soft across his face.
Then he slowly straightened his back and followed the path, worn shiny by footsteps, toward the great boulder. He had not seen Brother Snake all winter; surely it ought to be awake by now.
The great boulder stood halfway up the mountainside.
Basking in the sun, Black Snake saw Chi Ke approaching slowly and flicked its tongue. To its heat sense, the warmth he gave off was no different from usual. But when it switched to its gray, dim vision, it could clearly see the warmth of the phantom within his bodily shell draining rapidly away. A thought surfaced in its mind: after this, there would probably be no one rambling through lessons in the morning light.
A fox's cry sounded from the distant slope, and Fox came running lightly over.
A little while later, Fat Weasel rustled up onto the rock as well. The four wilderness cultivators bathed together in the morning light, breathing in and out.
Near noon, Chi Ke rose with a smile.
He straightened his robes and solemnly cupped his hands toward his three mountain friends.
"Friends, I take my leave."
Fox and Fat Weasel stood upright, clumsily clasping their forepaws and making a passable imitation of a bow.
Black Snake twitched the tip of its tail, Chi Ke's clasped hands and farewell reflected in its vertical pupils.
Once the farewells were made, there were no more words. He turned and retraced the path one step at a time, no differently than in days gone by.
For once, Fox and Fat Weasel did not go hunting. They stayed on the great boulder, waiting quietly, moving into the shade when the sun grew hot.
Apricot trees scattered blossom-snow across the slopes, and the wind carried it through the woods and over the streams, flying throughout the valley.
Chi Ke returned to the Lone Crag Courtyard.
The Hunter and the old servant brought out mushrooms dried the previous year and stewed a pot of chicken. They also prepared a dish of pickled vegetables and cooked thick porridge.
He enjoyed this meal immensely, then sat leaning against the wall, examining inch by inch the little
courtyard he had tended for half his life, from the doghouse to the stonecrop on the eaves that had withered and grown again. He looked very slowly, very carefully, afraid he might forget it afterward.
At dusk, Chi Ke raised his wine cup high and offered three toasts to the Vast Mountain Valley, which had sheltered him for half his life.
Finally, he returned to the old bed where he had slept for countless nights, pulled the quilt over himself, and peacefully closed his eyes.