Earlier, at a gemstone shop, I sold a lesser-than-precious jade pendant in my pocket space for a scattered batch of gold and silver coins. The middle-aged shopkeeper with a gloomy face looked at me with a malicious look at first, but when he saw that I seemed to be taking things out of the air, he immediately changed to a flattering expression.

After that, I found a nearby restaurant and asked for a potato steak, along with a glass of cranberry juice, and asked where the nearby temple was. It seems that the temple of the old gods is not some unspeakable secret: like the records left by the Xuanyang Daoists, there is a rather old temple in the town of Usa on the other side of the river.

I booked a room at a nearby hotel, rested for a while, and set off again. Around three o'clock in the afternoon, I arrived in front of the majestic stone bridge that spanned the River Skye. The heavy cyan stone is stained with moss, as if telling the story of the years piled up. It is said that 1,300 years ago, when the stone bridge was built, a living person was sealed as a sacrifice in the central pier. I don't know if the rumors are true or not, but I think it's a blessing that the uncivilized wilderness is gone.

After crossing the stone bridge, the figure of the cat began to appear around me frequently. This means that I'm not far from Usa – an ancient but very important rule in that peaceful town: in Usa, no one is allowed to kill cats.

I have a positive view of this law. I like cats a lot, my childhood sweetheart, a girl named Mo Yufei has a few cats at home, and when I play with her, she often jokingly calls me a "cat Gu" who fell under her - she is the successor of Miao Jiang Gu. Cats are mysterious creatures that have a close connection with strange things that are invisible to the naked eye, and I know this very well because of my yin and yang eyes.

In a dream land free of industrial pollution, the suburbs of Usa are undoubtedly a pleasant place. Brick and timber farmhouses are arranged irregularly on both sides of the road, the roofs are paved with a pale green from the grass seeds in the excrement of birds, and the fields are enclosed by neat hedges, in which the stream that flows into the River Skye flows merrily. But even more enjoyable was the town itself, with its quaint and elegant pointed roofs, with its many floors jutting out from the small buildings that hung above the road, like the arcades in my hometown in the real world, and the countless chimney pipes and narrow mountain alleys where large groups of cats roamed and through the gaps between them, I could see the old cobblestones laid in the alleys.

The temple of the Old Gods sits on the highest hill in Usa, and from afar, the stone towers of ivy climb solemnly, as if it silently tells the history of a long time ago. According to the records of the early twentieth century, the great elder Attar in this tower, who was more than three hundred years old at the time, still had an extremely sharp mind and a clear memory, and may still be alive today, living in the temple of the old gods he believed in.

I climbed the stone staircase up the hill. Standing at the top of the hill, the peaceful and serene view of the town of Usa is unobstructed. It is said that the priest and the old records are staying in this simple and modest temple next to me, and I hope to get the answers I want here.

There were fewer clergy in the temple than I expected. After explaining my intentions, one of them took me to a shrine decorated with flowers at the top of the temple. The Grand Elder sat on an ivory-colored pulpit, which was placed in the center of the shrine.

"Hello, young sir. I really didn't expect to meet the juniors of Xuanyang Dao people to visit, and I was very happy to see you. The Grand Elder, who looked to be in his early forties, looked at me with a kind gaze, "Unfortunately, Grand Elder Atal has been dead for seven years. I am his successor, you can call me Evans. ”

In the Taoist lineage, there are five kinds of metaphysical techniques of "mountain doctor life divination", and I have a little dabbling in physiognomy. The Great Elder Evans in front of him was not handsome in the eyes of the world, and he could not be said to have obvious facial defects, how could he look like a rather inconspicuous middle-aged man, but his deep eyes gave people a sense of peace, restraint and wisdom. I decided to trust him for the time being, and I think he had no reason against me as the successor to the Great Elder of Attar.

Our conversation took place in a rather relaxed atmosphere. I've learned a lot about the gods from Evans - they are really nothing more than a bunch of earthly gods who can only rule the dream world weakly, and if they leave this place, they have neither a place to live nor any strength - compared to the Xuanyang Dao people who have cultivated as Yang Gods, they are undoubtedly more qualified to call themselves gods, but this ancestor, like other senior masters I know, never do this.

But after that, when I curiously asked about Randolph Carter and the mysterious disappearance of the Xuanyang Taoist, the atmosphere began to become solemn. Evans says there are places in the dream world — and others — where curiosity is not welcome. Randolph Carter had tried to find the abode of the Dream Gods in the icy wilderness in order to find the intricate city of the sunset, the onyx fortress that stood at the pinnacle of Kadas, but while a mortal as wise as Carter might outshine the earthly gods at some point, these gods were protected by another group of gods from beyond the universe, and mortals were better off not discussing about them.

These outer gods have burned their power into the primordial granite of the earth, and this has happened twice in history: once in antiquity, where it is assumed that there is a painting in the Codex Naquet, which is too old to be deciphered, and once on the peak of Hatigue-Kora, when Barse the Wise tried to spy on the dancing of the gods of the world in the moonlight, the gods dragged him into the sky— Speaking of which, Evans added that the Great Elder of Atal had climbed the mountain considered taboo in the gravel desert and had returned alive.

"Mr. Yun, if you just want to satisfy your curiosity, I would be happy to open the temple's book collection, but I wholeheartedly advise you not to set foot in those unspeakable forbidden places on the spur of the moment. You're too weak compared to the Xuanyang Daoists, and even if you're as powerful as a god and can single-handedly sweep away a thousand armies, you're eventually lost in the ultimate void beyond the stars—or on the way there, or somewhere else. ”

Evans's counsel was somewhat discouraging, but I am not one to act impulsively on the basis of mere passion. In any case, being able to browse the books in this ancient temple at will is definitely the most precious gift that the other party has given me. I thanked Evans sincerely, and followed another clergyman to the library.

I didn't see a light source in this spacious hall, but a soft glow filled the space, which reminded me of Su Shi's "stagnant water and empty light" – a phrase I think is a good way to describe what I see in front of me. Rows of rustic wooden bookshelves stand out, while stone tables and high-backed chairs sit in the open spaces.

The first thing I looked for was the Xuanjun Seven Chapters Secret Scripture, which is the only book written in Chinese. The excerpt from the "Xuanjun Seven Chapters of the Secret Sutra" left by the Xuanyang Daoist was incomplete, and it seems that he was in a hurry to record it all—he then disappeared, but the incomplete manuscript at least pointed me to the existence of the dream world. I spent the whole afternoon - in fact, given my ability, I should have used it for more than ten hours, I studied the sixth volume of it, and was very pleased to decipher the technique called "Illusory Realm Bu Ling Ascension"—which had an obscure and magical connection with the mysterious patterns on the jade slips, and also had a lot of strange similarities with some of the Taoist techniques of the "mountain" lineage.

When I'm done with that, I think I'll be able to freely control the process of entering the dream world in the future. I approached Evans and happily told him about it. The other party was very surprised when he heard it, and immediately replied with sincere admiration. But after more than ten hours of high-intensity mental activity, I was tired and hungry at the moment, so I didn't bother to share my interpretation and hurriedly said goodbye. Evans understood and told me to get some rest and come back tomorrow or sometime, he was always welcome.

Now there's what I've already done. Exhausted, I returned to my inn in Neal City—I regretted that I hadn't stayed at Ussa and had a sumptuous dinner cooked in the restaurant, and then leaned back in the wide, shabby, but comfortable chair in front of my desk, and wrote the words in a divine repellent.