“A day in the cave, the world has been a thousand years” is said when the world coincidentally meet the gods, only with them to stay for a while, and then return to the human world, the earth has been more than ten years, or even a hundred years, a thousand years. The reason why the immortals are immortals is because they do not live in the space where we live, their time is naturally different from the time of our ordinary people in this space, their time passes faster than the earth. Wen Guangtong happened to meet the immortals, just drinking a cup of wine, the human world has passed twelve years of time.
Wen Guangtong was a native of Teng Village in Tengxi County. This county belongs to Tengzhou. About a hundred miles upstream from Chenzhou by boat, there is a place called Teng Village on the north bank of the river, where Guangtong’s family lives. Tengxi County was called Tengling County in the Han Dynasty.
According to the Book of Wuling, in the 26th year of Yuanjia, Emperor Wen of the Southern Dynasty (424-454 AD), Wen Guangtong saw a wild boar eating the crops on his family’s land, so he raised an arrow and shot the boar. When the boar was hit by the arrow, it bled and fled. Wen Guangtong followed the blood trail for more than ten miles and entered a cave. After walking in the cave for more than three hundred steps, he was enlightened and suddenly hundreds of houses appeared in front of him, but he didn’t know what place it was. After a while, an old man came out of his house and asked him, “Did you shoot my pig with an arrow?” Wen Guangtong replied, “I didn’t mean to shoot it, but it ate my crops, so I shot it.” The old man said, “It is not right to lead a cow and trample on the crops in someone’s field, but it is even more wrong to snatch away someone’s cow because of that.” Wen Guangtong went to the old man and bowed down to apologize. The old man said, “If you know your mistakes, you will not be at fault. Because of the sins of this pig’s life in the past, this life deserves such retribution, so you do not have to thank.”
The old man invited Wen Guangtong to sit in the hall, and saw a dozen scholars in the room, all wearing the crown of Zhangfu, wearing a single coat with wide sleeves, and a doctor sitting alone on a couch, facing south and talking about Laozi. In the west room, there were a dozen people sitting opposite each other, playing the zither with beautiful music. At that time, a child came up to pour wine and greeted Guangtong with a drink. Wen Guangtong was half-drunk and half-awake, and his body was very comfortable, so he thanked him and stopped drinking. He came out of the house and carefully observed the pedestrians and things on the road, which were no different from the outside world, but felt that this place was far away from the world, quiet and empty, a rare resort, and did not want to leave. But the old man refused to take Guangtong in, so he sent a child to lead the way for him and send him out, and instructed the child to close the door tightly to prevent outsiders from coming in again.
On the way back, Wen Guangtong asked the child what was going on, and the child said, “Those people in the house are sages, they came here to escape the tyranny of Jie, the king of the Xia Dynasty, and became immortals by learning the Way. The doctor who sat alone on his couch and talked about “Laozi” was the Duke of Heshan. I am Wang Fuji, a native of Shanyang during the Han Dynasty, who came here to ask Duke Ha Shang for advice on some doubts in Laozi. I have been his servant for ten years (twelve years is one year) before I became a doorkeeper. I have not yet learned the key to the Dao Sutra, so I can only keep the door here.” While they were talking, they had already walked to the entrance of the cave, and they said goodbye reluctantly, knowing that they would not meet again from now on.
When Wen Guangtong reached the entrance of the cave, he found that the bows and arrows used to shoot the boars were decayed and broken. He stayed in the cave for only a short while, and twelve years had passed in the world. Wen Guangtong’s family thought he had passed away long ago and had already held a funeral for him, but now that he was back, the whole village was shocked and deeply puzzled. The next day he and the village found the cave, only to see a huge stone has blocked the hole, how to burn chisel can not chisel the hole, the boulder and the mountain has become one.
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