The sky was gray, the trees faded, and white blanketed the ground. Its ability to sense and explore had weakened, but the black snake inadvertently discovered that it had become extraordinarily light and swift.
All these changes felt unfamiliar, and the black snake was deeply unsettled.
After a brief spell of worry, a profound weariness suddenly swept over it.
Out of habit, it slid down the huge boulder and slithered toward the cave, its speed and movements difficult to control.
It hurtled and stumbled between trees and rocks, rounded the thin, elongated Knife-Ridge Peak, and precisely located the opening high on the rocky slope, slipping inside with practiced ease.
Suddenly, the gliding black snake braked hard and stared in astonishment at itself inside the cave.
It was certain that the snake coiled there in sleep was itself.
It tilted its head in confusion and struggled to understand, but the longer it looked, the more bewildered it became. The uncanny absurdity left it at a loss. Its simple brain suffered an unprecedented shock, violently tearing at its fledgling intelligence.
As it stood there dazed and helpless, everything suddenly reeled. The sensation of lightness vanished, replaced by heavy exhaustion.
It laboriously raised its eyelids and drew back its nictitating membranes, discovering that it was still coiled in the same spot. There was only one of it in the cave.
Alone, it gazed up at the skylight in silence for a long time.
In the end, it decided not to dwell on it, lowered its head, and went back to sleep.
The sun rose. At some point, the snow outside had stopped. The air was especially cold after the snowfall, endless white mountain ranges rose and fell, and the sky was exceptionally blue.
The heavy snow had only just ended, and for now there was no sign of beasts in the woods.
As the biting wind swept over the high ridge, it lifted a wisp of snow dust like white mist.
Dressed in thick padded clothes, the hunter bent over and pushed the snow unhurriedly with a wooden shovel. Amid the scrape of wood against earth, black, damp soil gradually emerged in the little courtyard, while the yellow dog bounded joyfully around him.
After clearing the courtyard, the hunter went outside. His wooden shovel rose and fell through knee-deep snow as he slowly dug out the old path to the deep pool from memory.
Rounded mounds of snow covered the thin ice along the pool's edge. Its center remained unfrozen, the water deep and almost ink-black.
He used a piece of hardwood to break the thin ice by the bank, making an opening just large enough for a bucket.
Wrapped in thick clothes, Chi Ke stood in the courtyard with his hands behind his back, deliberately straightening his waist and shoulders in a pose of lofty aloofness.
He raised his head and looked into the distance. The far mountains bore their burdens of snow, and craggy, perilous peaks revealed their rugged bones. Gazing at that clear expanse of heaven and earth, he unknowingly shed all worldly concerns.
He saw thick white snow resting on dark branches, while the mountains' steep rock faces remained blue-black. Only two colors remained between heaven and earth: the black that bore all things, and the white that covered everything.
Black... white...
Something like a spark of inspiration gently tapped at his heart, and a hazy understanding flashed through his mind. Though he sensed its weighty significance, the light scattered when he tried to dredge it up. Like scooping water to catch the moon, it left him with nothing but wistful sighs.
Shaking his head, he set aside his regret and continued admiring the snow. He narrowed his eyes, thoroughly enjoying the beauty after the snowfall.
But staying outside too long made his eyes uncomfortable.
A gust of cold wind struck him. Chilled, he hurriedly pulled his padded coat tight, and the elegance he had worked so hard to muster was swept clean away.
He turned to return to the thatched cottage.
Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a red fox on the slope. When he turned to look, it had already vanished.
Animal tracks were common in the woods, and Chi Ke paid it no mind. He stamped the snow off his shoes before entering the cottage, then devoted himself to his books and cultivation.
The secluded valley was cut off from the world. The pace of life abruptly slowed, settling into a long season of holding steady.
Meanwhile, the black snake in the cave began a life of intermittent sleeplessness.
It would generally wake on nights of the full moon, calmly regard its own sleeping form before it, then go outside to roam in silence.
Its brief wakefulness always ended in exhaustion, and it returned to sleep until, on some other night, it muddled its way into waking again.
It could no longer remember how many times it had found itself in the gray forest.
Realizing that its time was short, the black snake simply abandoned its aimless wandering. At last, it noticed the full moon in the gray sky. To its nearsighted eyes, the moon seemed larger and brighter than before.
When it focused on the moon, an extremely faint, cool freshness seeped into its heart, bringing a wondrous comfort akin to the moist air of rain.
So it climbed to the clifftop, raised its head toward the moon, and breathed in that barely perceptible freshness.
The black snake became absorbed in breathing.
It never noticed that exhaustion came a fraction later this time...
Its monotonous life underwent a few adjustments.
Its hibernation alternated between deep sleep and brief wakefulness. Whenever the moon was full, it seized the time to take long, slow breaths toward it. There was no purpose behind this; it simply came naturally.
Late one night, it left the cave again, only to find heavy snow falling outside. The dense curtain of snow shut out the heavens.
The moon was completely hidden, and it could breathe in none of that freshness.
The black snake gazed at the silent woodland, unsure what to do.
It merely existed in silence, like a solitary dot of ink in a white world.
Dazed, numb...
Finally, bored beyond endurance, it remembered its neighbor. With nothing else to do, it decided to visit Chi Ke's den and promptly slithered toward the valley floor.
On a bare branch, an owl tilted its head.
It kept feeling as though a streak of shadow had swept swiftly and silently over the snow.
The snake found a stretch where snow covered the little stream and slid across.
The little courtyard beside the pool.
Inside its bark kennel, the yellow dog suddenly shivered. An invisible chill had swept over it, as though something were lurking in the dark and watching it. It wanted to go out and investigate, but could not bear to leave the little nest it had only just managed to warm.
From another gray perspective, the black snake had already slithered into the fenced courtyard and was studying the little creature in its kennel.
What it saw now differed from its usual view. Familiar details had grown hazy, while tiny things it had once overlooked were clearly visible.
It confirmed that birds and beasts truly could not see it as it was now.
The yellow dog and the three human figures stood out fairly clearly in the gray world. It wondered what things would look like during the day.
Looking again at the yellow dog, it noticed that the dog had grown fatter since autumn.
Unfortunately, it could not touch the yellow dog. Each lunge felt like plunging into water and only made the dog shiver, while causing the snake some discomfort as well. After a few attempts, it could only give up.
It turned and slithered toward the thatched cottage, circling along the foot of the wall without finding a way inside. Then it raised its head and body, drawing close to the paper-covered window lattice to peer into the room.
Inside, the cottage was pleasantly warm.
Sleeping Chi Ke suddenly felt a little cold and unconsciously tugged at his quilt. His dream spread silently onward, and he actually saw the black snake outside his window, the acquaintance he had known for several months. Finding nothing strange about this, he reflected that it was rare for his friend to visit and warmly greeted the snake.
"Brother Snake, it has been so long."
In another room, the drowsy young attendant turned over when he heard his master's indistinct muttering.
He paid no attention to his master's sleep talk, tucked his quilt tightly around himself, and fell asleep to the sound of the hunter grinding his teeth.
Chi Ke wanted to chat with the black snake about cultivation, but the snake that had just been outside the window suddenly vanished without a trace. Anxious, he tried to chase after it, only to find his legs too heavy to run. With another effort, he opened his eyes and realized it had been a dream.
The room was pitch-black, and the blurred shadows on the window obscured the view outside. There was only the faint, continuous rustle of falling snow,
a soft whisper, as though heaven and earth were murmuring quietly to each other.
All sleepiness left him, and a powerful sense of loss welled up in his heart.
Chi Ke sat quietly in the darkness, feeling hollow inside. Since retreating into seclusion, his predicament of having no path through which to seek the Dao had only grown more oppressive...
Bound by its limited time, the black snake calmly returned to the cave.
Its body stirred slightly before sinking into deep sleep, waiting for the next full-moon night.
Outside, a great tree seemed to have buckled beneath its burden. A teeth-grating creak echoed back and forth through the valley, followed by a dense succession of cracks as its fall snapped dry branches, and finally a heavy crash as it struck the ground.
The tremendous noise startled the yellow dog. It sprang out of its little bark kennel, barked perfunctorily a few times at the snow-filled night sky, then hurried back and curled into a ball before the warmth inside could dissipate.