Dusk Returns to the Ruined Building

The green mountains always become withered and desolate quietly, and sometimes they may be covered with silver. Looking back, another year has passed with the change of summer and winter. Certain memories of the past always hit us from time to time, as if it was just yesterday. Then, every time we recall them, it means that the past has become much farther away from us. Some memories seem to be lost a little and become more blurred.

On Guanxing Mountain, next to the hanging cliff, a young man with ragged clothes but handsome face was quietly looking at the old Taoist priest sitting on the hanging cliff.

The Hanging Cliff is not a cliff at all, but a round protruding stone platform. However, this stone platform is very abrupt, with straight and smooth cliffs on three sides. This stone platform is more like a platform artificially embedded in the cliff. However, this stone platform is naturally formed, and there is a bottomless abyss under the stone platform. Every morning and evening, sitting on the stone platform, looking around, there are clouds and mist, as if you are in a fairyland; at noon when the sky is clear, the clouds and mist disperse, and looking down, there is no bottom, only a gray mist. No one knows how deep the stone platform is, because no one has ever seen whether there is a mountain, water, or something else under the abyss!

At this moment, an old Taoist in a white robe was sitting on the cliff, holding a whisk leaning naturally on his arm, his eyes slightly narrowed, his breathing barely noticeable. At first glance, he seemed to be dozing off.

"Master, why are you still sleeping? You've been sleeping for ten years. I haven't seen you eat in the past ten years since I went up the mountain. I only saw you drinking a cup of tea all day and sitting all day. Is that tea made of grains, meat or seafood? Aren't you hungry? Or do you eat secretly when I'm sleeping? Although we cultivators can eat less than ordinary people, you're exaggerating!"

"You little brat, this is called Zen meditation. It's not sleeping. It's about looking inward, observing the outside world, absorbing the yin and yang energy of heaven and earth, and feeling the breath of all things. It may seem drowsy, but it's actually very clear. In ten years, you haven't made any progress in the practice of Zen meditation. What a pity! Is my Zen meditation skill going to have no successor?!"

The old Taoist spoke to the young man with dissatisfaction in a slightly doting and teasing tone.

"Tsk, I don't want to sleep all the time. I heard from the uncle who came up the mountain to chop wood that the world below the mountain is so beautiful and lively. It's nothing like here on the stargazing mountain, where there are only two of us and you still sleep all day. I've been hanging out with monkeys for the past ten years. I say it again, I want to go down the mountain!"

The old Taoist calmly looked at the child in front of him, with whom he had been living day and night for ten years. His childish face had turned into a handsome face now. The sweat marks on his temples, which were a mixture of dust and sweat, made his handsome face look a little thin. Ten years had passed, and this was the first time that he talked about going down the mountain without mentioning his mother!

Looking back on the past, there were several times every year when she would cry and pull his hand, shouting that she wanted to go down the mountain to find her mother. He had really grown up, not only in his strong arms and sturdy body, but also in his heart that was bound by hatred and family affection.

The old Taoist priest withdrew his gaze with relief, closed his eyes again and concentrated. No matter how the young man called out to him, there was no response, as if he had really fallen asleep. The young man got tired of shouting and left the cliff angrily.

It's not that the young man didn't want to wake up the old Taoist priest. Over the past ten years, he has tried all kinds of methods, such as hitting him with stones, pouring water on him, burning him with fire, and sometimes even pushing him off the cliff. Without exception, nothing worked. The old Taoist priest seemed to have merged into one with the cliff.

Sometimes, he would drive the monkeys over to cause trouble for the old Taoist priest, and lure down the flying eagle to catch the old Taoist priest. What made the young man collapse was that the monkeys would sit quietly when they approached the old Taoist priest, while the flying eagle would stop directly on top of the old Taoist priest's head.

"Oh, what should I do? The stinky Taoist priest and the stinky master still won't let me go down the mountain. It's so boring!" The young man muttered to himself while whipping the weeds on both sides with a branch.

The young man was very depressed. His master wouldn't let him go down the mountain, and he himself couldn't go down either. He was really worried!

For ten years, the young man tried countless times to sneak down the mountain, but he just couldn't get out. No matter which direction he went down the mountain, east, west, south, or north, his destination would always be the damn Observatory - a pavilion, a table, and a cup of tea!

The boy was very confused. Why could the farmer go up the mountain to chop wood, but he couldn't go down the mountain? He followed the farmer down the mountain and even asked the farmer to carry him down the mountain, but in the end he would inexplicably return to the Observatory!

The young man had also asked the farmers, and all the farmers said that they had never seen any pavilions on the top of the mountain, let alone seen the old Taoist priest. Over time, as he asked more and more times, the farmers who went up the mountain to chop wood were a little afraid of him. There were even rumors that the young man was a mountain spirit or monster in the deep forest. In the past two years, the farmers who went up the mountain would run away when they saw him.

Sometimes when the boy was lying in the Star Observatory at night, he would think about these interesting things. There were towering mountains and steep cliffs, in this place where few people were. He was wearing a tattered Taoist robe, which could not be called a Taoist robe, but just a piece of rag that barely covered the main part of his body. He had no family and no house, and he played with monkeys in the mountains all day long! He even asked for directions from time to time! After coming down the mountain, the woodcutters would wonder in their hearts: "Did I encounter a mountain spirit or a wild monster?" I guess they would feel cold on their backs when they went to bed at night!

As the boy was walking, a wild fruit flew straight towards his forehead with a "whoosh". The boy stretched out his hand to catch the fruit easily, and without raising his head he shouted: "Xiao Ling'er, are you itching again? I'm in a bad mood today, be careful or I'll hit you".

Xiao Ling'er is a wild monkey in Guanxing Mountain. His family of three lives near the hanging cliff. The name was given by the boy. When the boy first went up the mountain, he was a five-year-old child who knew nothing. The little monkey always bullied him, threw fruits at him, stole the fruits that he had picked with great difficulty, and sometimes even urinated where the boy slept.

As the child grew into a teenager, he learned more and more skills from the old Taoist priest. As time went by, he became more mature, and his relationship with Xiao Ling'er changed. The monkey became a one-sided abuser, and the teenager would chase Xiao Ling'er all over the mountain at every turn. His favorite thing to do was to tie Xiao Ling'er to a tree in the mountain and let its parents come to find it. But it was often at this time that the teenager always watched Xiao Ling'er's family reunion with tears in his eyes. In addition to envy, he missed his parents more!

The old Taoist priest probably saw all of this. Every time the young man had tormented Xiao Ling'er and her family of three and returned to the Observatory, the old Taoist priest would say some inexplicable words.

"Everything has a cause, and every cause has an effect; don't force anything, and don't be obsessed with anything. The grudges and hatreds in the world will die after they are born, and only when things die can they be born..."

So the boy always suspected that the old Taoist priest didn't let him go down the mountain because he was afraid that he would go down the mountain to seek revenge. But the actual situation was that he didn't know who his enemy was. Moreover, as time passed, although he missed his mother more and more, his memory of that year became fainter and fainter. He vaguely remembered that his mother fell into the water, but he had forgotten where she was...

"Swoosh", another fruit was thrown over, interrupting the boy's thoughts. The boy looked up and saw Xiao Ling'er gesturing for him to follow it.

"Since we can't get down the mountain anyway, I can only play with you, Xiao Ling'er! Let's go!"

The young man jumped up and caught up with Xiao Ling'er.