(October 17) countdown day 74

After shooting the three killers who followed closely, Yao Xiaoyi continued south.

There was nothing to say all the way, and it was a starry night in the blink of an eye. Although there are fewer worries, there are more worries about food shortages. There was very little dry food left in the backpack, but it was still two days away from the standard destination on the map, which was at least one day's worth of rations.

Are there fish beneath the river? If so, how do you catch them? A new question that had never been thought about before was placed in front of Yao Xiaoyi.

"How do you identify fish in an unfamiliar river?"

Enter a few Chinese characters on your mobile phone, click "Baidu", and the answers are all there -

"One is to look at the water, according to the color of the water to identify the fertilizer water and lean water, the fat water is dark green, gray black, then there are more fish, the lean water is clear, the clearer the fish, the clearer the fish, the water is clear, there is no fish; Second, look at Mercury, that is, to see if there are bubbles spit out by fish, and judge the type of fish according to the size and number of bubbles; The third is to look at the waterfowl, the waterfowl is the signalman, where there are no waterfowl, there are not necessarily no fish, where there are waterfowl, there must be fish; Fourth, smell the water, if the fishy smell is heavy, there is fish, there is no fishy smell, basically no ......"

Reading it like this, she smiled dumbly, under the starlight, the color of the water is indistinguishable, above the rapids, where is Mercury, in the middle of the night, where are the water birds, as for the river water, she has drunk it, but whether it is fishy or not, or whether the fishy smell is heavy, it is impossible to judge at all. More importantly, even if you judge that there are fish, what do you use to catch them?

She simply didn't think about whether there were fish in the river, took one of the two bags of dry food left from her backpack, and sat on the raft to feast on it. The water in this section of the waterway is relatively gentle, and she does not have to hold on to the artemisia, allowing the raft to drift automatically along the river.

"There is treasure in the south, but the mountains are not mountains, and the water is not water", along the way, Yao Xiaoyi will accidentally think of this sentence. In the second suicide note left to her, the old man Tang Ji mentioned that a wise man had left such a riddle.

"There is a treasure in the south", it is easy to say, along the waterway all the way to the south, this "see the mountain is not the mountain, see the water is not the water" What is the meaning?

According to research, the sentence "seeing the mountain is not the mountain, and seeing the water is not the water" first came from the Song Dynasty Zen master Qingyuan Xingsi. The master put forward the threefold realm of Zen meditation: the first is to see the mountain as a mountain, to see the water as water, referring to the beginning of Zen meditation, but also refers to the beginning of the world, people are still curious and fresh about the world, everything is seen with a childlike vision, everything in our eyes are restored to the original, the mountain is the mountain, the water is the water, ignorant of many things, but stubbornly believe that what you see is the most real, believe that the world is constantly operating according to the set rules, and have a kind of believer-like worship of these rules, In the end, he hit a wall everywhere in reality, and thus became suspicious of reality and the world.

Second, looking at the mountain is not a mountain, seeing the water is not water, referring to Zen enlightenment, but also refers to people who have experienced some world events, seeing too many temptations in the red dust, hiding too many unspoken rules behind the mask of hypocrisy, what you see is not necessarily real, everything is like seeing flowers in the fog, it seems to be true and illusory, it seems to be true or false, the mountain is not a mountain, the water is not water, and people are easy to lose their way in reality, falling into confusion, hesitation, pain and struggle.

Thirdly, looking at the mountains are still mountains, and looking at the water is still water, which is a kind of enlightenment in Zen, and it is a kind of insight into the world and the truth after the fact, but not everyone can reach this state. The experience of life has accumulated to a certain extent, and I have a clear understanding of the world and the pursuit of myself, realizing that "the world is a big dream, and life is cool several times", knowing what I am pursuing and what I want to give up.

Participating in Zen, Yao Xiaoyi naturally knows a little about it, but the truth of being a human being is explained clearly enough. The result of enlightenment in Zen is, "the mountain is still the mountain, and the water is still the water", but the mountain at this time and the water at this time are no longer the mountains and water at that time, just like the river in front of you, flowing endlessly, and it is a different appearance in an instant, how can you say "still". It can be seen that the realm of meditation should be raised to another level, that is, the fourth level, "seeing the mountain is no longer a mountain, seeing the water is no longer water", time never stops, and then look at the mountain and water in front of you, it is no longer the mountain and water a few thousand seconds ago.

Thinking of this, Yao Xiaoyi had a slight epiphany, the words left by the wise man to the old man, I am afraid that there is another mystery.

Moving on, suddenly another problem was in front of her. A fork in the river was not far ahead, and the river was divided into two, one along the river and the other at an angle of 45 degrees to the southeast.

On the hand-drawn map provided by the old man Tang Ji, there is no indication that the river is diverted. Yao Xiaoyi propped up the raft to the shore and leaned against it, took out the map and looked at it again, yes, there were no forks marked on the map, from the beginning to the end, just a winding curve drawn with a red pen,

Starting from the exit of the secret passage behind, all the way south, the river never forks, and there is no possibility of taking the wrong route. So, what's the point of the fork that is prominently appearing in front of you?

Yao Xiaoyi remembered that the old man Tang Ji mentioned in his suicide note that he had gone south several times to find no results, and also wrote that "this map is also drawn by the old man from memory, I am afraid that there is a deviation", so, could it be that the old man has never reached the position in front of him at all?

Yao Xiaoyi stood on the raft and raised his chess uncertainly. If you look closely at the river that divides along the southeast direction, it is much narrower than the river that goes down the river south, less than two meters wide, close enough for two rafts to cross in a staggered manner, and the river channel is a high cliff that looks like a slash from the cliff on the left bank, the blade is sharp and the blade is extremely thin.

After pondering for a moment, Yao Xiaoyi planned to divert along the southeast direction. Since the old man has gone south many times to find treasure to no avail, she has found another way, maybe she will be bright. There are still two days left to reach the finish line on the way south, and the remaining dry food is not enough to last for two days, and there may be a new way out of the route. In addition, she also has a faint worry, the other 10 killers who were led astray by her location on the river beach are now missing, 10 companions have been killed, why didn't the remaining 10 people follow the pursuit? Where are they at this point, and what's next? If there are no answers to these questions, it is impossible for her hanging heart to really fall. It would be safer to divert to the southeast instead of heading south to the destination.

The idea was made, the artemisia shook gently, and the raft pointed straight to the southeast.