I became an immortal in the Tang Dynasty

Chapter 249 Gazing at the Sea from a High Mountain, Composing Poetry Under the Moon

Sima Chengzhen said this simply because he thought the person in front of him had profound Taoist skills and found it interesting.

He's in his seventies or eighties now. In another ten years, he might be dead, and who knows what might have happened a thousand years ago.

Jiang She smiled.

He sat on a high mountain, gazing at the distant East China Sea.

As the mountain breeze blew, I briefly thought about the scene a thousand years ago when the Qin Emperor sent Xu Fu to seek medicine.

It was as if one could already see the vast ocean—servants as numerous as clouds, thousands of children, sailing on large ships, dozens of large ships drifting with the wind and waves, seeking immortals at sea, spending tens of millions of taels of silver, and going on for several years.

The medicine was never found.

Jiang She smiled and said, "I'm afraid it's not as carefree as it is for you and me today."

"Too!"

Sima Chengzhen laughed.

He made no mention of the sudden storm that had swept away the paper donkey presented by Prince Qi. Instead, he picked up his wine cup and drank it in large gulps.

Today we will not discuss human affairs, but only gods, ghosts, immortals, and the Tao.

Sima Chengzhen then recounted a legend he had heard.

Not only did Liu and Ruan encounter immortals during the Jin Dynasty, but there were also spirits in nearby Taihu Lake, with long and narrow bodies that resembled dragons in the water.

It is said that there are fairy mountains in the East China Sea.

They say Penglai is nowhere to be found, that mortals can hardly see immortals.

As they talked, the elderly Shangqing master got very drunk and became disoriented. He couldn't hold his wine cup and it broke on the rocks. In his drunken state, he didn't even think to pick it up.

He looked back at the man in blue, his vision blurred. A bright moon shone on him, casting its gentle light.

A sudden wave of sadness washed over me.

Sima Chengzhen opened his mouth, but only mumbled some drunken words.

Jiang She let out a soft sigh.

As the moonlight shifted, he simply lay down on the ground, gazing at the empty sky and the bright moon, and gradually drifted off to sleep. The mountain breeze was cool, and he could occasionally hear snippets of conversation and sighs from inside the Taoist temple.

……

……

Under the same bright moon.

Inside the temple, several Taoist priests were talking together.

"Uncle-Master, where has our Master been these past few days? Why has he suddenly disappeared?" a young Taoist asked Sima Chengzhen's disciple.

The disciple said, "I don't know either; Master never said."

The young Taoist priest was surprised.

"You didn't even tell your martial uncle?"

Although they practiced Taoist rituals in the Taoist temple, they were not actually disciples or grand-disciples of Sima Chengzhen. Instead, they were Taoists who practiced together in the temple, and they addressed Sima Chengzhen as their master and his disciples as their senior uncles to show their respect.

The disciple sighed deeply.

“Master didn’t mention it. He only said that he had benefited greatly from these past few days. He said that what he had gained from cultivating on the mountain for three years was not as much as what he had gained in half a month.”

The young Taoist priest looked around.

Only after confirming that the guest was not nearby did he ask the question that had been bothering him.

“We saw with our own eyes a few days ago that many figures appeared out of thin air on the mural… Although there was no master, the two children, Jiang Langjun and Sanshui Chuyi, were clearly in the painting.”

"That painting can move; it's definitely not an ordinary work of art."

"Could it be..."

The young Taoist priest paused, then said nothing more.

The others immediately recalled the man's terrified appearance that day and burst into laughter. "I remember, you were terrified those few days."

The young Taoist priest was both ashamed and angry.

"If my senior brothers were to see it with their own eyes, the painting would be so lifelike that it might not even be as good as mine!"

"It was terrifying!"

Everyone burst into laughter, laughing so hard that tears were streaming down their faces. No one paid him any attention, except for the young Taoist priest who muttered a few words in annoyance.

After someone had finished laughing, they finally offered a word of comfort to him.

"There must be a reason why the master didn't tell us. Let's just pretend we don't know. Maybe Chen Daizhao changed the painting later."

“It really moved!” the young Taoist priest emphasized.

"Yes Yes Yes……"

The man wiped away the tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes and finally became a little serious.

Ask him:

"Even if this mural truly contains something mysterious and unpredictable, what are you going to do?"

The young Taoist priest was about to suggest reporting it to his master, but then he realized that Master Sima Chengzhen might already know about it. He opened his mouth, unsure of what to do. Should he boast to the people down the mountain?

What could the villagers possibly know? They probably thought he was talking in his sleep!

The man then laughed and said:
"See, you don't know what to do either, do you?"

"Since that's the case, why don't you join us for a bowl of ice cream? Why bother with all that? The master and uncle will handle it."

As he spoke, he took a small amount of shaved ice from his bowl and shared it with the other person—just a tiny bit. They had been chatting and laughing for so long that the crushed ice had melted into water, making it lukewarm to eat.

Young Taoist priest: "So little?"

“That’s enough. This is all the ice I secretly dug out of the icehouse.” The man was eating when he suddenly remembered something and asked his disciple.

"Uncle-Master, are you going down the mountain tomorrow?"

The disciple nodded, “Master asked me to go down the mountain to find some scholars to write poems for the murals.”

The young Taoist priest asked in confusion, "Didn't Li Bai say that they could write poetry?"

The disciple smiled.

"We don't even know how talented this person is in poetry. If we rashly ask him to write a poem, it might ruin Chen Daizhao's fine painting. This mural is meant to be passed down in the temple for future generations, so we can't treat it lightly."

"I'd better go down the mountain and ask around."

The disciple sighed with emotion.

"It's a pity that Wang Wei left Taizhou a while ago, I heard he was going to Chang'an to see a friend. Otherwise, if he were here, there would be no need to go down the mountain to ask for help."

The young Taoist priest asked, "Was Wang Wei here for the princess?"

The disciple glared at him.

"Be careful what you say."

The young Taoist priest remained silent, then snatched some more ice cream from his senior brother's bowl. His disciple, Li Hanguang, told them to rest early and then left.

To prepare for visiting people down the mountain tomorrow.

……

……

In the guest courtyard.

"Sanshui, first day of the lunar month, help me lay out the paper."

Li Bai had just begun painting when he felt an urge to paint. He held a wine cup, and the bright moon was reflected in it, shimmering and rippling.

Sanshui exclaimed in surprise: "There's a moon in the wine cup!"

Li Bai naturally saw it too, and upon hearing the childlike words, he laughed heartily.

"The bright moon enters my cup!"

He drank it all in one gulp.

He then asked Yuan Danqiu to refill his wine cup, casually dipped his brush in ink, and licked the tip. After the two young men laid out the paper, Li Bai wrote freely.

The two children were closest to each other, and Sanshui recited along with them.

"Travelers from afar speak of Penglai Island, but its misty waves and distant shores make it hard to find..."

Mount Tiantai has several towering peaks, and the East China Sea is just a hundred miles away. The painting depicts a journey through the mountains, during which the artist descends the mountain with Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao from Shanxi, and observes the goddess in the painting discussing Taoism for several days.

Li Bai was deeply moved.

The brush and ink never stopped.

Chu Yi stood to the side, staring at the words on the paper. He saw that Li Langjun had already written a great deal, his literary talent flowing freely. He admired him and whispered to Sanshui that they had made the right decision to come down the mountain this time; they should have come down long ago.

He was reading aloud the passage Li Bai was writing.

"The rainbow is my garment, the wind my steed... The cloud lords descend in droves..."

Their eyes grew brighter and brighter.

The poem, consisting of only two or three hundred characters, does not adhere to obscure rhythms; it is magical, colorful, and captivating.

Having finished his poem and his wine, he yawned and tossed his pen onto the table. Li Bai pointed to the poem and said to Yuan Danqiu:
"Danqiu Zi, please tell my master tomorrow that the poem is finished."

Done.

He collapsed into the room and fell into a deep sleep.

Under the moonlight.

Only the calligraphy and painting remained. Yuan Danqiu examined them for a long time by the light of an oil lamp. The poetic talent was so good that he even had the idea of ​​stealing them.

After watching for a while, Yuan Danqiu shook his head.

Using the remaining ink from Li Bai's writing, he copied it. Yuan Danqiu's handwriting was also elegant and graceful, perfectly matching the content of the poem. After finishing, he blew on the ink to dry it and put it away.

The two younger disciples looked on with curiosity.

Sanshui asked curiously:
"Master Yuan, why do you need to write another copy?"

【Ask for monthly ticket】

(End of this chapter)