In the south of Xiangshui City, there is an independent courtyard, which is full of all kinds of flowers and trees, full of greenery and trees.

A few years ago, after the old president retired from the university, he refused the house arranged for him by the university and moved to this small courtyard to live, planting flowers and grass every day, which is also very comfortable. But yesterday, a phone call from Director Liu of the Department of Finance at HKUST broke the tranquility of his life. After hearing Director Liu's call, the old principal stood in front of the window, looking at the distant Xiangshui, and fell into deep thought.

It was one night four years ago, just after the Spring Festival, the old principal heard a knock on the door, and when he opened the door and saw the face of thirty years ago, he felt an indescribable shock. The man he had been looking for for more than thirty years stood right in front of his eyes.

Thirty years ago, the old principal, as a reactionary academic authority and a land-rich anti-bad old Jiu, was sent to Xiangxi to receive re-education for the poor and middle peasants. The place where the old principal was sent down is called Baishi Village, there is a mountain behind the village called Tiger Mountain, and there is a cave on the mountain, called Baishi Cave. Baishizhai is named after the White Stone Cave.

Legend has it that there is a tiger-shaped strange stone in the white stone cave, after tens of millions of years, has been cultivated into immortals, often incarnated as an old man walking in the world, walking clouds and rain, saving the needy. Therefore, Baishi Cave has become a forbidden place in the hearts of Miao people near and far, and Tiger Mountain has also become a local holy mountain. Every Miao year, April 8, there will be Miao people to worship.

The Miao are an ancient and mysterious people, whose ancestors are said to have been traced back to the Chiyou tribe. Chi You led the Oriental Jiuli people and Feng Bo, Yushi and Kuafu people to fight with the Yellow Emperor tribe in Zhuolu, the Yellow Emperor has responded to the dragon, Nulu will fight with it, and finally with the help of the Nine Heavens Xuannu, with the "Yang Fu Sutra" in the "Tianyi in front, Taiyi in the back" and the evolution of the "Tianyi Dunjia Array", defeated Chi You. Chiyou was captured and killed in this battle. The Jiuli tribesmen were forced to move south, retreated to the wilderness, and became the ancestors of the Miao people.

The Miao people are mainly distributed in the provinces of Hunan, Guizhou and Yunnan in China, and call themselves "Damu" or "Daji". If it is divided according to clothing, it is called "red seedling", "flower seedling", "white seedling", etc., and according to the degree of assimilation from the outside world, it is divided into "raw seedling" and "mature seedling".

Baishizhai is a "mature seedling" residential area, the folk customs are strong but simple, and the old principal, who is knowledgeable and educated, is very respectful. When the juniors saw the old principal, they would call him "Ah Da", and the older ones would affectionately call him "Shoqiu".

The old principal in the village, except for occasionally hunting behind the young "Dena", most of the time will teach a group of children to read in the stilted building of the village, because the old principal is the highest Chinese person in the entire village and even the entire county, when the old principal was just sent to Baishi Village, Baishi Village unanimously agreed to let the old principal teach the children in the village to read. Therefore, the old principal is still relatively idle in Baishizhai, although his life is a little harder. Usually there is nothing to do, as long as there is something in the village, the old principal will be called to take a hand and talk about it.

On April 8 of this year, the old "Ada" and the old "Ada" of Baishi Village discussed, to go to Baishi Cave on April 8 to worship on this day, this year is the 10th year of Baishi Cave, before this day was lively and abnormal, people will flock to Baishi Village from all directions, set up an altar outside Baishi Cave to worship the strange stones in the cave, and at night it is a bonfire bright, people sing and dance, this day is also the most lively day in Baishi Village. But these were still feudal superstitions at that time, so a few old people in the village could only secretly go to worship, and the three animals, paper money, incense and candles for worship had to be secretly prepared, and the altar was gone, and the bonfire was naturally gone. And the worship items had to be purchased in the county seat dozens of miles away, so they had to have a competent and reliable person, who they thought the old headmaster was the most suitable candidate. First of all, the old principal is well-informed, and it should be no problem to go to the county seat to buy sacrifices, and more importantly, the old principal is a reactionary academic authority who was sent to Baishizhai to receive the re-education of poor middle peasants, and the rich and anti-bad old Jiu, and their feudal superstitious activities should be of the same mind, at least they will not buy them, so they are very relieved to hand over the matter to the old principal.

The old principal entered the county seat that day, and the efficiency of purchasing was also very high, in order not to arouse the suspicion of others, he bought a candle from the east and an incense stick from the west, bought it all, and then put it in the basket and walked back.

From the county seat to Baishizhai is a mountain and a small road that meets the water and crosses the water, although the old principal has long passed the age of knowing the destiny of heaven, but the body is still very good. Things are not very heavy, all the way brisk, in the evening I saw the Tiger Mountain, the old principal decided to take a short approach, over the Tiger Mountain's halfway mountain beam to the White Stone Village, the "Ada" and "Ada" in the village will pick him up behind the Tiger Mountain.

Because the white stone cave is located in the tiger-shaped mountain, so the tiger-shaped mountain is rarely walked, the thorny beings on both sides of the mountain road, just like a great writer said, there is no road in the world, because there are many people walking, it becomes the road. The Tiger Mountain originally had a road, but because there were fewer people walking, the road did not become a road.

The old principal walked halfway up the mountain along the mountain road, and the thatched shrubs on both sides of the mountain road became higher and higher, gradually blocking the sun that was about to set, and the mountain road suddenly darkened. The old principal wiped his sweat, looked at a small wooden house on the hillside not far from the roadside, and vaguely remembered that he had seen it when he walked over just now, how did he encounter it again? The old headmaster took it to heart, and used his feet to level a small piece of thatch on the side of the road, and continued on his way. When he saw the hut again under the big camphor tree on the slope of the mountain, he saw a piece of thatch that he had stepped on with his feet on the side of the road, and knew that he was back on the road he had just walked.

"Ghost hits the wall!" The old headmaster secretly screamed in his heart. But he quickly calmed down, after all, the old headmaster was an old intellectual who had experienced the old society and knew some customs and legends. He'd heard of "Ghost Hitting the Wall!" I've also heard that you can use children's urine and blood on the tip of your tongue to break the "ghost wall!" The old principal bit the tip of his tongue, wiped the blood on the tip of his tongue with his index finger, and then started on the road again.

The old principal will not be pedantic and think that "ghosts hit the wall" because people are lost, because of the difference in the length of the two feet, and people unconsciously make circles. This situation may happen in a place where there is no clear road as far as the eye can see, and it is completely impossible to use this kind of argument for the "ghost hitting the wall" that occurs on such a mountain road or a clear road, because there will be a deviation in the distance between the legs and feet, and when the deviation exceeds the road, will the person walking not know it? Could it be that the original road will also deviate in circles? Of course not, so there is a saying in the Northeast that the yellow skin is troublesome.

The old headmaster was in a hurry, and his forehead was already faintly sweating, and when he saw the small cabin on the hillside again, his heart suddenly cooled in half. The old principal put down the basket, took out the incense and candles used for worship in the basket, first lit a pillar of incense, bowed to the mountain, muttered words in his mouth, and then inserted it on the side of the road, "A pillar of incense leads the way, attracting the land to point the way." Then he lit three pillars of incense, inserted it in the middle of the road, took out paper money from the basket, burned three piles of money to buy the road, and then bit the tip of his tongue hard, smearing the blood on the tip of his tongue on the road, but he looked up and saw that the smoke of the three pillars of incense went straight to the sky, without the slightest drift. The old principal's heart sank into the ice cave, and it was cold, and this "ghost hitting the wall" was the rhythm that directly made him ascend to heaven.

The old headmaster looked at the small wooden house on the hillside, maybe this wooden house was lived in when people were guarding the mountain, if he was lucky, maybe there would be people in it, and it would be easier for someone to do it, the old headmaster thought. So, he decided to go to the cabin to have a look first, it really can't work, at least he can pause in the cabin for one night, and the "ghost hitting the wall" will naturally break on the fifth watch of the rooster. But when he took two steps forward, it was empty, the cabin suddenly disappeared, and there was only a mountain road floating in the gray fog in front of him, and the old principal felt that the fog was getting heavier and heavier, and it was slowly surging along the mountain road, and the surrounding woods were also disappearing in an instant, all gray and dense fog. The old headmaster hurriedly stepped back, out of the thick fog, and the surroundings returned to their original appearance. The old headmaster decided to go back, but when he looked back, he saw that the way he had come was gone.

The dense fog seemed to be conscious, pressed along the mountain road, and paused for a while in the place where the old principal burned incense, the three straight pillars of smoke seemed to be unable to bear the weight of the dense fog, and were bent, and the dense fog began to soak the ground of the three pillars of incense little by little, pressing towards the old principal.

The old principal saw that the three-pillar incense burned still played a little role, so he didn't care about the three-seven-twenty-one, lit all the incense candles in the basket, inserted them around, and surrounded himself in the middle, no matter whether it was useful or not, it could be dragged on as long as it could.