For Zhang Xingyan, a country boy who mingled in the streets of Raozhou, the uneventful course of his life stood on the brink of a tremendous change when he was seventeen.
The boy, who had always lived a quiet life, suddenly encountered the first great upheaval of his existence that year.
It happened in the slight chill of February, at winter's end, on that strange night when the full moon shone like a wheel. The sole possession Xing Yan's family had held for generations, an ordinary, low hill in the wilderness, rose from the earth overnight amid radiance dancing across the sky, thrusting abruptly into the clouds. That once unremarkable hill now stood proudly east of Raozhou City, majestic and magnificent.
Now, throughout the surrounding dozens of miles, whether in Poyang County beside Poyang Lake, in Shinan County, or in Raozhou City itself, people needed only to lift their eyes in that direction to see the towering, precipitous form of Horseshoe Mountain.
Yet the boy who had watched from among the crowd that night knew nothing of what lay behind it all.
After his initial astonishment at seeing a mountain suddenly tower outside the city, blotting out clouds and sun, Xing Yan abruptly thought: Judging by its general direction, that mountain seems close to our Horseshoe Mountain.
The moment this occurred to him, Xing Yan grew desperately anxious-Raozhou City had shaken so violently; who knew what had happened back home...
The boy dared not follow that thought any further.
With anxiety burning in his heart, he could no longer spare any attention for the townsmen beside him and their idle talk of strange happenings. He immediately set off, hurrying toward home.
...The closer he came to that lofty peak, the further his heart sank. His sense of foreboding deepened: walking toward this mountain that had suddenly thrust into the clouds, he was essentially following his usual route home. Its general location seemed to be precisely where his family's Horseshoe Mountain stood!
Unfortunately, when Xing Yan reached the foot of the mountain and compared the surrounding landmarks, he finally discovered that this magnificent peak, which had appeared at dawn and was now wreathed in mist, was indeed his family's old Horseshoe Mountain-a hill that had covered a broad stretch of ground but had been decidedly low and inconspicuous!
The instant he confirmed it, Xing Yan felt as though a beast's sharp claws had savagely gouged his heart. A terror and helplessness he had never known immediately filled his entire chest. His whole mind seemed to be sinking, falling, endlessly into a bottomless abyss...
Distraught, the boy hurried around the foot of Horseshoe Mountain, searching for his family's thatched cottage.
Although Horseshoe Mountain now looked vastly different from before, it took him little effort to spot-
That utterly familiar thatched cottage of his, still standing there.
Only now, the three-room cottage, which had once stood almost on level ground at the mountain's foot, had risen halfway up the mountainside!
Could Father and Mother have... Terror seized Xing Yan. He hurriedly fought his way through thorns and brambles, rushing toward his home.
Amid his desperate worry, Xing Yan could not help feeling a sense of absurdity: Since when did going home mean actually climbing a mountain? The strange transformation of his family's Horseshoe Mountain today truly bore out the old Daoist Qinghe's words: "Impossible in principle, perhaps possible in fact."
...It really was "perhaps possible in fact"!
Only when the boy, burdened with countless worries, braced for every worst possibility and even preparing to rescue his parents, reached a spot not far from the cottage did he discover, to his delighted surprise, that the father and mother he had worried about so deeply were leaning in their doorway, looking out.
Although Horseshoe Mountain was now covered in jagged rocks and utterly changed from before, Xing Yan was astonished to find that not only was their cottage completely undamaged, but even the stone clearing outside the door, the chicken coop, and the fence had all remained exactly as they were!
How strange!
How strange!!...
-The poor boy repeated those words over and over in his mind, though he had already said them several times these past few days. Who knew how many more times he thought them now?
Only after asking his parents did he learn that, while Xing Yan and the others in Raozhou City had seen all those strange sights above Horseshoe Mountain during the night, his parents had noticed nothing whatsoever. Not until his mother came out to feed the chickens early that morning had she discovered that the world before her eyes was already utterly different from the night before!
At their first sight of it, Old Zhang and his wife had both thought they were still muddled with sleep and dreaming!
Ah, never mind anything else. As long as everyone at home is safe, that's enough.
Seeing that his parents were unharmed, Xing Yan felt immensely relieved.
Having met that princess of the Dragon Palace and witnessed all those strange things, the boy had already grown somewhat accustomed to the extraordinary. He therefore assumed this affair would now settle down.
What he did not expect was that, in the days that followed, he would no longer be able to return to his former peace and leisure.
Ever since his family's Horseshoe Mountain had suddenly risen from the earth and towered into the clouds, the prefectures and counties around Poyang had been buzzing with the news. People who heard of it and came to explore its wonders were as numerous as carp crossing a river, arriving in an unending stream. At first, the family could just about receive them, but as their numbers grew, the nuisance became truly unbearable.
Along with the steady arrival of these seekers of secluded scenery and scenic wonders, all manner of explanations for Horseshoe Mountain's unprecedented transformation circulated throughout Raozhou and Poyang. To Xing Yan, many of these accounts were even more bizarre than the transformation itself.
For instance, a story first spread by the nearby mountain folk was now on everyone's lips, and all agreed that the legend of Horseshoe Mountain having been formed by the tread of a Heavenly Horse in ancient times was no empty tale. Didn't believe it? Just look at the mountain's stern grandeur and myriad magnificent features-it was clearly no ordinary hill. Without a touch of that Heavenly Horse's immortal aura from long ago, how could it have assumed its present appearance?
Then there were members of the gentry, ever devoted to illustrious pedigrees, who declared that Zhang Xingyan's family on Horseshoe Mountain were descendants of Zhang Liang, Zhang Zifang, the Marquis of Liu of the early Han. This wondrous Horseshoe Mountain was where that marquis had ascended to immortality when he went to follow the immortal Red Pine. This account, scarcely distinguishable from tales of uncanny powers and unruly spirits, actually spread widely among local scholars. One scholar who firmly believed in immortals and strange tales even came to inspect Xing Yan's household, saying that he wished to marry his young daughter to this descendant of the Marquis of Liu. Only after hearing that the boy spent his days in the Flower Moon House brothel, and encountering unanimous opposition from his own family, did he abandon the match, costing Xing Yan what might have been a rather fine marriage...
Of course, once pedigree research came into it, someone naturally also proclaimed his belief that Xing Yan's family descended from Zhang Liao, Zhang Wenyuan, the famous general of the Wei Dynasty. However, since General Zhang Liao had lived not so long before the present dynasty, numerous flaws in this account were easily found. After circulating for a while, it furled its banners and fell silent...
Apart from these investigations into ancestral origins, neighbors also seized on smaller details, offering solid facts to prove that Xing Yan's family was extraordinary. According to the eyewitness testimony of several neighbors of Horseshoe Mountain's owners, one New Year, when their son Zhang Xingyan was still little, the family had steamed buns. They had put less than half a crock of rice flour into a small earthenware crock to ferment, yet the fermented dough remained no matter how much they scooped out, an inexhaustible supply. They had pulled off pieces to make buns all night long and still had not used it up by dawn.
According to those who claimed to have witnessed it, this was the "Azure Dragon Yeast," a rarity seldom seen in the world! Clearly, this family had never been ordinary!
The legend was really quite absurd, and the term "Azure Dragon Yeast" was somewhat incomprehensible as well. But those who spread rumors never investigated them. It would never occur to them to crack the clay pot and get to the bottom of things by asking what "Azure Dragon Yeast" actually meant. In any case, the story passed from mouth to mouth, its tellers making it vivid and lifelike while their listeners clicked their tongues in wonder. Knowing that it was miraculous was enough.
Only Xing Yan himself, on hearing this rumor about his own family, did not know whether to laugh or cry. Although he might no longer remember much of his early childhood, this tale of "Azure Dragon Yeast" was almost certainly unreliable. The number of times his family had steamed buns for New Year could be counted clearly-they were exceedingly few. Even when they did make buns, how could they have afforded flour milled from rice? Whoever started this legend had probably taken rather too much for granted.
Besides these legends, another explanation circulated in the streets, one still more absurd. No one knew where it had originated, but it claimed that beneath the soil under everyone's feet lay a great quantity of red-hot, softened rock, like a charcoal furnace, flowing endlessly like molten iron inside a smelting furnace. The present Horseshoe Mountain, towering into the clouds, had formed when this fiery liquid rock suddenly spurted out and hardened in the cold wind...
Because this explanation was far too ridiculous, it had scarcely any supporters.
Apart from these vague, fantastical, preposterous rumors, Xing Yan also encountered some more troublesome matters.
Ever since Horseshoe Mountain had assumed its towering new appearance, several down-and-out fellows from nearby towns had actually come to claim that this mountain, with which they had not the remotest connection, had originally been their property!
Still, to the young Xing Yan, such matters were merely an itch on the skin. With help from his neighbors, he showed no mercy, driving away those scoundrels who hoped to fish in muddy waters with several sound beatings. After that, no more of these ruffians came to harass them-
For this sudden transformation of Horseshoe Mountain had made the young Xing Yan quite famous throughout Raozhou. Idle people dug up old, stale scraps of his past, whether they had happened or not, and passed them from mouth to mouth until they became popular conversation over tea and after meals. Naturally, his feat at the Flower Moon House a few months earlier, when he had driven back the martial expert known as the Thunderclap Soul-Shocking Hand with a single punch, was now embellished with extra oil and vinegar until every street and alley knew of it.
Having witnessed the boy's fierce bravery for themselves and matched it against those rumors, not one of those down-and-out ruffians now dared come to his door to make trouble.
As for the genuinely powerful local bullies, although they too harbored thoughts of seizing the property through fraudulent claims, the strangeness of the event had initially filled them with awe and reverence, and they had not immediately thought of acting. By the time a few days had passed, their minds had settled, and the desire to annex it arose, time was no longer on their side. Everyone already knew that Xing Yan's family owned Horseshoe Mountain-if they acted now, they would inevitably become the target of every arrow.
Without realizing it, Xing Yan's family had escaped a genuine calamity.
Still, after several incidents of ruffians coming to make fraudulent claims, Xing Yan worried about his parents. Though it pained him to lose those few wages, he took several days' leave from the Flower Moon House to stay home and look after them. Such a vast stretch of mountain, covered in thorns and brambles, truly did need some time spent putting it in order.
Even then, the young Xing Yan did not know what changes his family's transformed mountain would bring to his future life. After a few more days, once the affair settled down, he would presumably return to the Flower Moon House and continue working as a brothel musician.
Xing Yan and his family continued to think this way. Only when several unusual visitors came to their door one day did the boy learn that his life might amount to more than mingling in brothel lanes and wine-shop alleys, earning enough to keep himself clothed and fed.
It was probably the fifth day after Horseshoe Mountain had suddenly risen from the earth to tower east of Raozhou City when several Daoists from Mount Sanqing, near Poyang Lake, arrived at Xing Yan's home. Among them was a man famed far and wide for his skill in warding off evil and capturing demons: Daoist Wang Pan of Mount Sanqing.
This Daoist from Mount Sanqing, wearing a Pure Yang headcloth and a gray-black Daoist robe, solemnly told the astonished boy before him:
His family's Horseshoe Mountain, which had suddenly risen from the earth, was one of the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands recorded in the treasured Daoist scripture, the Seven Canons of Cloud Register. Moreover, it was the place where the ancient True Person Zizhou had cultivated and ascended to immortality.
The canon recorded: Horseshoe Mountain in Poyang, Raozhou, was an immortal mountain for cultivating the Dao, a blessed land for ascending to immortality!
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