(2018.9.12 Rebuilt)

Early in the morning, Qingyun Mountain.

Heavy rocks are stacked on top of each other, and the clouds are shrouded in mist. Towering on the verdant hills, the cold winds of late autumn blow away the clouds, revealing a slightly reddened skyline in the distance.

The altitude of Qingyun Mountain is only more than 1,000 meters, but the terrain is complex and abnormal. The steep slopes are almost vertical, and cliffs and caves are everywhere. The cliff to the south is hundreds of meters vertical, and below it is the river that flows eastward, and if you fall down, there is no chance of survival - hence the locals call this cliff "Broken Soul Cliff".

The mountainous area is rarely inhabited, with only sparse villages on the gentle slopes. Villagers living deep in the mountains have little communication with the outside world and have relied on tea picking for generations. Tea trees mostly grow on steep mountain cliffs, and even if the local tea pickers are accustomed to walking between the cliffs, it is inevitable that they will stumble.

I don't know when a legend began to circulate in the village - when a tea picker accidentally falls off a cliff, if he is lucky enough, he will be lifted up by a fresh breeze and sent back safely. Some people swear that they have experienced such an incredible thing, while others say that they have witnessed their companions being swept up in the air by some invisible force.

Many villagers believe that the top of Qingyun Mountain is inhabited by immortals.

"- fairy fart!"

The thin bamboo pole in the old man's hand knocked the boy's buttocks mercilessly, and scolded in his mouth, "If you look at any more broken stories, I will beat you!"

The little boy was beaten and retorted aggrievedly, "It's not a story...... It was Brother Da Zhuang who told me. He said his dad ...... one day."

"Ming'er, he said that his ancestor is an immortal, do you believe it!?"

Seeing that the little boy finally stopped talking, the old man who picked the tea snorted and tugged at the tea basket on his back.

Two figures, one tall and one short, walked for a while in the rugged mountains. The mountain road that had just rained was so wet that even a little boy who had been jumping in the mountains since he was a child felt that the soles of his feet were slippery, so he quickly slowed down his steps carefully.

When the grandfather and grandson took a break in the gentle place on the edge of the cliff, the lively child had long forgotten the hot pain on his buttocks a few minutes ago, and couldn't help but ask again, "Grandpa, who did you say saved Uncle Niu? Is it a fairy?"

The old man made a straight face, "Your Uncle Niu climbed up by himself!

"Oh......"

"Pick your wild vegetables! I won't give you food at noon if I don't pick a basket. ”

The little boy immediately closed his mouth obediently, and ran to the grass pit with the small bamboo basket in his arms, and looked for wild vegetables.

"All day long, the fairy ......," the old man muttered angrily, and the second half of his words gradually lightened and dissipated in the little boy's brisk humming.

He is the oldest tea picker in the village. Because his son went down the mountain early to go to the big city to make a living, he has not heard from him for a long time, and his body is still quite strong, and he has not let go of the tea picking skills that have been passed down from generation to generation over the years.

The old man had lived in the small village for more than sixty years, and had seen enough strange things. Although he scoffed at the "fairy theory" and repeatedly forbade the children in the village to talk about related topics, but-

When the old man was still young, he had seen with his own eyes the miracle of the invisible weathering turning into a helping hand.

Years ago, after he was rescued, he wanted to spread the word about it to everyone, just like the young people in the village now. However, for the old man who has witnessed the wind and rain for decades, this is just a small thing.

The old man knew that there was nothing strange in the world. At the foot of Qingyun Mountain, there is a very famous family that has opened the hall, it is said that they have the ability to communicate with ghosts for generations, and can talk to ghosts, attract spirits to possess the body, and gain insight into people's karma and future. Since such strange people exist in a grand manner, what is there to praise for being able to manipulate wind, rain, thunder and lightning?

In addition to the psychic family that made it famous in the area, the old man has received many more low-key guests with strange powers in his more than sixty years of life. Most of them just pass by in search of a place to live, and never make a big show of what makes them special. Even the gods and ghosts who helped him were not gods and ghosts, but humans, and it was just the result of the old man's secret guess after he accidentally caught a glimpse of the cyclone swirling in the palm of a careless young man.

The last time he saw a "special guest" visit was a year ago. A young man came to the village with a girl the age of a middle school student, stayed for two nights and left in a hurry after a short rest. They didn't do anything out of the ordinary, except that the girl's long knife, which looked like a child's toy, revealed their identities - he had seen the pattern engraved on the scabbard on "some careless young man" many years ago.

The old man did not tell them anything, but only entertained them for two days in his empty house as a local. In his opinion, these guys who can call the wind and rain are just ordinary human beings.

Both men were dressed in a very ordinary way. If he hadn't heard the girl call another person Master, he would have thought it was a father and daughter who were out to play. The young man has an approachable temperament and gets along well with the people in the village - at least much more likable than the big-name photographer surnamed Wang who came to collect the wind a few days ago. The girl who walked with the youth seemed to be the age of a junior high school student, and her temperament was much quieter than that of the youth, and she always wrote and calculated with a heavy workbook, no different from the children in the town under the mountain who were oppressed by schoolwork.

The visitor's face from a year ago had long been blurred in the old man's mind, and he only remembered that the girl had a dark red burn scar on her cheek, which at first glance looked a little terrifying. His heartless grandson Xiaohu hasn't learned to judge people by their appearance, pestering his big sister every day to play, making the old man's temples jump suddenly - it's also a shame that the girl who has been playing with her for two days has a good temper, and she didn't kick the bastard thing that interferes with people's studies directly out of the door.

The old man kept an eye on the visitors. He is grateful that these unknown people have come to the rescue of the villagers when they are in distress, but he will never reveal the secrets of the "immortals". The old man didn't want the young tea picker to embark on a dangerous mountain path with the thought of "maybe someone will save me" - guests with strange powers only visited the place occasionally, and were not obliged to return to serve as a humanoid safety rope. Instead of pinning your hopes on others, it is better to walk the road under your feet steadily, and the tea pickers on the mountain will always rely on their own feet to protect themselves.

As for the legend circulating in the village, let it always be an ethereal myth.

The next second, the boy's exclamation interrupted the old man's memory.

"Snake, snake, grandpa has a snake......"

The small bamboo baskets fell to the ground, and the wild vegetables were scattered everywhere neatly stacked in them. The old man breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the blue-green snake head poking out of the grass.

It was just the most common grass snake in the mountains, and it could only scare the little kid who had just started to go out and pick tea. The old man was about to speak, when he saw the grass snake seem to be frightened, and jumped out of the grass pit in a panic.

The little boy felt a green shadow swishing at his feet, screamed in fright, stumbled and turned his head and ran. When the old man saw the mountain road in front of him, the blood buzzed all over his body, "Don't run over there—"

Before he could finish speaking, the loose earth under the little boy's feet collapsed. The old man's outstretched hand grabbed the air, and the small figure had already slid down the cliff.

Just as the boy was about to fall into the abyss, the old man suddenly heard the wind.

The sound was not harsh, like the breeze gently blowing through the curtain on a summer night. And the child's figure was visibly frozen in the void - as if an invisible hand was gently supporting him.

Until the little boy's feet touched the ground again, the old man was still speechless.

The frightened toddler crawled to the ground and hugged his grandfather's waist, and he cried. The old man, who had finally come to his senses, raised his head sharply and looked at the top of the mountain where the clouds had gradually dispersed.

"Boom—"

Dazzling thunder exploded in the sky, and there was no cloud overhead.

In the midst of the deafening sound, a certain thought came to the old man's mind very clearly.

"—it's them. ”

After a few breaths, the sound of wind and thunder drowned out the insects in the mountains, as if a storm was coming. The old man decisively dragged his grandson into the depression of the cliff, avoiding the sand and gravel debris rolling down from above.

"Grandpa......" The little boy clutched the old man's shirt and sobbed and whispered, "just now...... Did the gods save me?"

When the old man heard this, he immediately rolled his eyes.

Well, the previous words were all in vain.

How could this stupid thing be so frightened by a grass snake that he jumped off a cliff? This is good, not to mention how to find a life-saver to thank them—seeing that the child in his arms was already sobbing and casting his searching eyes upwards, he couldn't even say anything about the movement on the top of the mountain.

Do you want to tell this little cub that there are immortals fighting on the top of the mountain?

The old man didn't bother to bother with it, and scolded and said, "Shut up, I told you that I dare to mention any more immortals......"

"Bang!"

The deafening sound of gunfire interrupted the old man's rebuke. The sound of gunsmoke echoed through the hollows, causing the old man's eyes to widen.

He saw a man fall from the top of the mountain.

It was a short, not human-like figure. The speed of gravity made it impossible for the old man to see the face of the person who fell from the cliff, and bright red blood splashed through the placket of his clothes, dripping onto the ground on the edge of the cliff.

The old man instinctively rushed forward, trying to pull the victim, but the speed of his feet was still too slow. When he stopped at the edge of the cliff, there was already a popping sound of falling water below.

The thunder faded, and a man's mournful cry sounded from above. The old man saw that the top of the mountain no longer rolled down the sand and gravel, and his grandson honestly stayed where he was, so he looked down.

Then, the old man who picked the tea once again showed a look of astonishment.

Brilliant blue light blooms from the bottom of the water, reflecting the entire river as transparent as jade. The old man saw that a pink shadow seemed to appear dimly in the river, and it had pointed ears and a long tail, like a ......

Cat?

After a few seconds, the light goes out.

The wind has dissipated, and the thunder has stopped. The eastward flow of the river has returned to its original appearance, and Qingyun Mountain is still quiet, except for the low and small chirping of insects echoing in the forest.

The faint morning light came belatedly, illuminating every corner of the deep mountains. The unfaded drops of blood on the edge of the cliff seemed to indicate that nothing was an illusory dream.

- The story of this world has come to an end, and the traveler has entered an unknown path.