Chapter 1
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“Big mountains… there are many jackals and wolves within them, brother, walk carefully. After cutting the firewood and selling it for wine money, place it by Father’s door…”
The crisp folk song intermittently echoes through the sea of clouds rising along the mountain’s waist.
The mountains stretch undulating for dozens of miles, resembling a reclining Buddha, with verdant forests swaying. Birds flying across the sky descend upon an old pine on a solitary peak. The bird ruffles its feathers, when it hears the distant song drawing nearer, it blinks its bird eyes as it gazes downward.
A winding mountain path carries the faint sound of footsteps approaching. After a moment, the silhouette of a young man emerges through the swirling mist.
“Oh wolfs… Brother is chopping firewood in exchange for wine, being filial to Father to seek calligraphy. Don’t come out and harm my life, I’ll buy meat in two days to show my respect…”
As the young man draws near, his outline becomes clearer. He carries two bundles of firewood on his back, and a struggling mountain rabbit hangs from his waist. Singing the mountain song, he occasionally glances around, noticing the welcoming old pine tree, he slowly approaches it, and respectfully bows before continuing on his way.
“The villagers say this old pine has a spirit, those who climb the mountain must pay their respects… but I don’t know if it’s true or false.”
The boy, about fourteen or fifteen years old, has handsome features, but his cheeks are slightly chapped from the wind. He wears a rough cloth garment with trousers that barely reach his calves, patched in several places. Carrying two bundles of firewood nearly as tall as himself, he laboriously makes his way down the mountain path.
When he reaches a certain point, he suddenly changes direction and heads toward a tree marked with a red string. There are many such trees along the way, and he continues until he reaches a cliffside, where he finally stops.
Removing the struggling rabbit from his waist, he strokes its fur and says: “You’re so adorable, just stay here and keep the master company. If he’s well-fed and happy, he might just take me as his disciple.”
As he said that, he placed the mountain rabbit in front of a large green rock at the base of the mountain wall, bowed respectfully to the stone, and then left, retracing his steps. As he turns a corner, the obscured view ahead opens up, revealing the scene of a village.
A stream flowing down from the mountain crosses in front of the village, resembling a white belt. The muddy path under the boy’s feet stretches straight ahead, with fields and vegetable gardens on either side. At the end of the wooden bridge, the village is enclosed by a fence to guard against the wolves, tigers, and leopards from the mountains.
“Liangsheng, you’ve been so diligent lately. Did your father promise to buy you a brush?”
“…Are you aiming to become a top scholar?”
From afar, before reaching the village entrance, an elderly man sitting on a rock, smoking a pipe, greeted the young boy who had just come down from the mountain. The old man, also surnamed Lu, was a relative, as most people in the village shared that surname. By rank, the young boy named Lu Liangsheng should address the elder as “Great Grandfather”.
Regarding the brush, Liangsheng had always hoped for one. Since he became aware of things, he had a particular fondness for writing and drawing. In these times, brushes and ink were things for scholars. Poor families couldn’t afford to buy them, and even if they did, the ink would be too costly. Moreover, knowing only a few characters, it was more practical to have someone in the city write for them.
The boy’s home was in the middle of the village. The fence around the courtyard was only as high as a person’s waist. As he entered the yard, a woman hanging clothes turned around, looked at him, and called out to a little girl feeding a hen: “Younger Sister, go help your Brother.”
“Alright.”
Under the eaves, the girl with braided pigtails clapped her hands, stood up, and ran over with a smile: “Brother, Mother says you’re saving up for a wife, isn’t that right?”
The girl was around ten years old, named Lu Xiaoxian. She wasn’t so delicate as a mountain girl, so she helped put the two bundles of firewood down. There were two or three scratches on the tanned skin of her arms, but she didn’t care.
“Hehe, Brother is saving up for a brush… Just a few more coins and I’ll have enough.”
Lu Liangsheng ruffled his sister’s hair and dragged the firewood to a corner of the house to stack it under a cool shelf. The girl puffed out her cheeks, shaking her braids, and ran over to the woman hanging clothes.
“Mom, Brother doesn’t want a wife, our family is going to run out of seedlings.”
“Little girl, don’t talk like that.” Li Jinhua said, hitting the spread-out clothes with a wooden stick. While her tone was stern, her eyes were glaring sharply at Lu Liangsheng: “When your father hears this, he’ll definitely break your legs and won’t care about your brush.”
Liangsheng didn’t argue, only smiled at the woman. Soon after, Lu Laoshi, who had been working outside, returned carrying a hoe. He glanced at his son, presumably having heard his wife’s words from a distance before even entering the house.
He was a mild-mannered person and couldn’t be truly harsh. He went into the house and put the hoe away: “Liangsheng ah, we’re living in hardship. If you want to buy a brush, you need to first learn how to read.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know anything!” The woman’s voice grew louder: “Save up more money, prepare the bride price, find a matchmaker, and get your marriage settled. That’s what really matters!”
Seeing her brother being scolded, Lu Xiaoxian covered her mouth and giggled, then went over to pat her brother’s arm with a kind of “Ha! Brother, you’re not going to fulfill your wish” satisfaction.
Scenes like this happen almost every day. Lu Liangsheng was used to it and had never given up on his aspirations. If he could learn to read and have a brush, he truly wanted to study.
Moreover, a few days ago while gathering firewood on the mountain, he had seen a purple mist descending from the sky into the mountains.
He had heard from the neighbor’s eldest son, Er Gouzi, that “there are indeed great masters in this world who do things even greater than officials”. He was the only person from the village who had been to a large city like He Valley Prefecture.
Although he didn’t know if it was true, Liangsheng immediately followed the direction of the descending purple mist and found the large stone where he had placed the rabbit today. The stone clearly showed signs of having been moved, suggesting that there might really be a great master here.
“A great master should be able to read and write, right? If they take me as a disciple and teach me how to write, I could even set up a stall in the city in the future, which would be a skill to make a living.”
With this idea in mind, Liangsheng continued to gather firewood on the mountain. Sometimes he would bring any game he caught and place it there, if not, he would save his own food. Every time, the offerings he placed there for the apprenticeship disappeared without a trace, and there were no signs of wild animals around.
This further convinced him that there might be a dwelling and a chance to be a disciple.
After dinner, when night had fully fallen and the cool moonlight shone down, Liangsheng broke a twig and wrote and drew on the ground. His sister sat beside him, propping her chin and gazing at the moon, occasionally glancing at what her brother was writing.
“Brother, what are you writing?”
“I don’t know either… I’m copying according to the characters from the broken plaque at the ruined abandoned temple outside the village. It says ‘temple’ or something like that… I’m not sure.”
“But it looks really nice, just like the characters on the plaque.”
“Nice looking doesn’t help if you don’t know what it means.”
The character drawn on the ground was actually the Chinese character for “Deity”. Lu Liangsheng rubbed his foot over it a few times, smoothing it out, and then drew a little tiger with bared fangs and claws in its place. The tiger had a majestic king character on its forehead but big, silly eyes, which made his younger sister beside him clap with excitement.
“Brother, you’re so amazing! Draw another one, please…”
“Okay, I’ll draw a bird for you. Watch!”
The siblings sat together under the eaves, drawing on the ground under the moonlight. By the door, Li Jinhua sat on a stool weaving baskets, while inside, Lu Laoshi, who had worked all day, was snoring, blending his snores with the cheerful noises of the siblings, creating a warm atmosphere in the night.
As the night deepened, occasional dog barks could be heard from the village, and when the wind picked up, dark clouds gradually covered half of the clear moon.
With the shadows closing in, the chirping of insects fell silent.
Lu Liangsheng, alone in his room, mumbled in his sleep. As the moonlight was obscured, his body suddenly trembled, and his senses began to fade. His forehead was covered with cold sweat and a dream appeared.
Like a hallucination, a thin, emaciated hand reached out from the void towards him. In his ears, the voices of men, women, the elderly, and children overlapped in a confusing cacophony.
“Lu…
Liang…
Sheng…”
In the darkness, Lu Liangsheng screamed, “Ah—” and abruptly sat up, his face drenched in sweat. He turned his head, the window was open, and the eastern sky was beginning to lighten.
His mother had already gotten up early and was busy in the kitchen, and the sounds coming from there reassured him.
“What happened… I remember the window being closed.”
He got out of bed, put on his shoes with exposed toes, opened the door, and checked inside and outside the window, but found nothing unusual.
“Maybe Mom opened it when she got up…”
As Lu Liangsheng glanced at the smoke drifting from the kitchen, he turned his gaze and swept across the ground. Suddenly, his body stiffened in place. On the ground, where he drew with his sister yesterday, were human footprints, or more accurately, men’s footprints, because women’s footprints were not that big.
Someone had been here…
…Facing the direction of my room… the window was still open…
…Which means someone was watching me at night??
…And the dream from last night.
Putting it all together, Lu Liangsheng felt a shiver run down his spine, as if ants were crawling on it, and a cold sweat broke out. He forced himself to remain calm and, when he moved closer to examine the footprints, he suddenly noticed that not far from the footprints, the soil had been disturbed to form a picture—a large stone stack on a mountain wall, with a mountain rabbit placed there.
“That’s the large rock…”
He murmured softly.
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