The towering Qinling Mountains, 100,000 mountains, the dense forests and grasses are only five meters before and after, and the accompanying people cannot be seen. Although you can determine the general direction, it is not easy to find a lake in this barren and populated mountain.

The Qinling Mountains at night are dark, no matter how experienced people are, they dare not run around in the forest, this land brings people not only legends and magic, but also affects the trend of Chinese history for thousands of years.

There is another important reason why Cha Wenbin wants to come to this place: this is a sacred mountain for Chinese Taoist believers to worship. If Kunlun, the "ancestor of all mountains", opened the prelude to Chinese mythology, then this Qinling Mountains, known as the "South Mountain", is the birthplace of Taoist culture.

In the eyes of feng shui scholars, Kunlun is the ancestor of the dragon vein, and the Qinling Mountains are the north-south axis of China, which shows its importance in China's great feng shui.

Winter is coming, the Guanzhong area north of the Qinling Mountains is cold and windy, icy and snowy, and people can spend this cold season by guarding the hot kang and stove fire; The Hanzhong Basin, which is only separated by a mountain from the Guanzhong area to the south of the Qinling Mountains, is still green mountains and green waters, and the spring is harmonious. People are busy casting nets to fish, sowing seeds and harvesting, and enjoying the comfort and warmth of spring and March. A single mountain can easily change the pattern of China's natural environment, and its status is enough to be admired.

And it is still this same mountain range, the Qinling Mountains gave birth to and nourished an ancient ethnic group that will establish a great cause for thousands of years and unify the whole of China. This ancient ethnic group sheltered by the Qinling Mountains, that is, the people who were called the Qin people more than 2,000 years ago, set out from the Qinling Mountains after a long journey of more than 500 years, opened a magnificent wave on the land of China, and finally changed the curtain of the civilization process of the Chinese nation, and finally completed the unification of the fragmented land of China. The first feudal dynasty in history: Qin, was born! I am afraid that this is also an important reason for the origin of the name of Qinling.

The activities of many ancestors have left a large number of ancient ruins in this land, which are now hidden in the mountains and dense forests, or buried under mud and rocky lakes. It was the closest thing to a legend, and there were so many secrets hidden here.

Two thousand five hundred years ago, there was a doctor named Yi Xi under the King of Chukang in the Zhou Dynasty, who was well-read and knowledgeable. Later, he became a customs officer at Hangu Pass at the foot of Qinling Mountain, and was a local parent official.

At that time, an old man came here on a green ox and became acquainted with Yixi. Later, under Yixi's repeated pleas, the old man faced the Qinling Mountains, stepped on the balcony, and preached his "the root of all things, the master of the king, and the ultimate treasure of the subjects" that had influenced future generations for thousands of years.

In the face of the erratic mountain mist in the Qinling Mountains, under the dim green light, between the vast universe, heaven and earth, all things, interdependent, mutually reinforcing, endless laws of nature rose and rushed in the old man's chest.

Finally, the old man broke his own unwritten habit at the foot of Qinling Mountain, he spread out the bamboo slips, and wrote the first line of words that were enough to make future generations admire and worship: "The Tao is the Tao, the very Tao; The name is famous, and the name is not very famous. This "Tao Te Ching", which is known as the sacred text of Taoism, came out.

The old man's name is Lao Tzu. In Taoism, Lao Tzu is respected as the ancestor of Taoism, ranking in the three Qings, and he is too old man! Before his sentence "one life is two, two is three, and three is all things", no one has been able to use such concise and clear language to profoundly explain the natural relationship between all things in the universe.

The cultivation of the Tao is more often a spiritual cultivation, a perception of morality, and an understanding of nature.

2,500 years ago, Lao Tzu realized the Tao Te Ching here, what can Cha Wenbin get here today?

As a devout Taoist believer and the head of a generation of Taoist sects, as soon as Cha Wenbin entered the Qinling Mountains, he entered the world like a layman, and this land was destined to become a fateful place for him.

The three of them took turns to stand guard, and the rest rested, and in this old forest, the danger was hidden in an invisible place. The weather in April is still a little cool, and there is no insect cry in the forest, and it is exceptionally quiet. According to Yu Dayong, the number one enemy in the Qinling Mountains is poisonous insects, which are strange and extremely poisonous.

In the early morning, the fog shrouded the mountain, and it was a miracle that the little bucktooth was able to come out of the forest until about ten o'clock.

Since the target was determined to be the sacred lake, the general direction could be chosen, and the next step was a boring and dangerous crossing. The karst landscape made the area full of traps, and their movements were not very fast, and they only advanced twenty miles in a day.

For dinner, I ate roast venison, which was beaten by Chaozi. This black muntjac meat tastes very delicious, and it is very good for thieves, and the camp for tonight is by a waterhole under a small waterfall.

With a ready-made stone platform on the edge of this waterhole and a wet grass at night, it's perfect for camping in the open field.

The deer is very large, and the six people have not finished eating, and Chaozi specially left a leg to prepare for making snacks on the road tomorrow when roasting, this kind of black muntjac is not something that can be obtained casually.

The first shift to stand guard was Chaozi, who guarded the fire and concentrated on the "squeak" of the oily deer legs, which is also called bacon with pine branches, and its characteristic is that it is fragrant, and the fragrance can be smelled far away.

The second group was Zhuo Xiong, who guarded the middle guard, and with his and Chaozi's abilities, he could detect any slight noise within a kilometer, and with the fire and guns, the camp was safe enough.

In the dead of night, Zhuo Xiong did not let his guard down at all, which was his professional habit. The snoring of the mountains in the tent shook the sky, and Zhuo Xiong shook his head, holding his gun and preparing to add some firewood to the fire.

Just as he turned to get the firewood, he suddenly "poofed" and turned his head to see that the fire was extinguished. As if he saw a black shadow flashing in front of him, Zhuo Xiong raised his gun and shot with his good experience. A crisp sound resounded in the originally quiet Qinling Mountains, and for a while, countless birds were frightened and rose into the air, and the sound of birds made Zhuo Xiong lose the direction of his target all of a sudden. It was too dark, and he couldn't see his five fingers, so he didn't dare to attack rashly.

"What's going on?" The people in the tent were awakened by the gun.

Zhuo Xiong lowered his voice and said, "Something is coming, and the fire has been extinguished, so be careful." ”

The tense atmosphere spread instantly, and now they had a total of four guns in their hands, surrounding Cha Wenbin in the middle, and after a long time of no movement, they turned on the flashlight.

The fire was wet with water, so it had to be re-lit. After inspection, it was found that the rocks by the river had left a series of human footprints, and the footprints were still wet, and the direction was to flee to the mountains. After the inventory, it was found that only Chaozi's deer legs were missing.

Cha Wenbin said with some dissatisfaction: "The barbecue in the mountains is the easiest to cause trouble, why are you so careless?" ”

Indeed, this time it was Chaozi who was too big, and the deep mountain barbecue was a taboo, and it was easiest to attract the attacks of carnivores, and he was blinded by the silence of the past few days.

Zhuo Xiong carefully examined it and said: "This seems to be a person's footprints, I saw that thing very fast, it disappeared in a flash, and the gun was empty, is there still someone here?" ”

Yu Dayong, who was familiar with this place, said: "Impossible, even the most experienced herb pickers in the generation of Daba Mountain in Qinling do not dare to spend the night in a row, where will there be people." Look, the footprints look like a man, but this generation does have a saying of savages. ”

"Savages?"

"Yes, savages. It is said that some people have seen it, I don't know if it's true or not, so be careful at night in the future, this place is very restless. ”

I couldn't sleep at all because of such a fuss this night, so I simply waited until dawn.

When he was on the road during the day, Zhuo Xiong always felt that there was a pair of eyes staring at them not far away, and there was also Chaozi in this feeling.

"Blind, put the hood on the spot, there's a problem here."

Zhuo Xiong made a vigilant gesture, and the two of them kept the team moving forward one after the other. At noon, Chaozi hunted two pheasants and a rabbit. This is the good thing in the mountains and forests, there is plenty of game, and the little bucktooth eats it called a huan, and he talks vigorously about how he gnawed the bark back then.

Perhaps he had eaten too much, and before he set out, he had a stomach upset, and the boy went around to a big tree less than ten meters away from them, and a stone the size of a brick fell from the sky, and the little bucktooth fell to the ground after a terrible scream.

Chaozi heard the movement, picked up the 38 big cover and rushed over to take a look, the little bucktooth fell to the ground in a coma with his bare buttocks, and a black shadow flashed not far away from him only twenty steps away, he raised his gun and wanted to fight, but was stopped by the trees. Chaozi shot out with an arrow, and chased in the direction of the black shadow's escape, and someone kept shouting behind him: "Don't chase, don't chase!" ”

Maybe he didn't hear it, maybe he was the kind of character who had to chase down his prey when he found it. This kind of personality is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing.