In the middle of the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Zuo, a former scholar, often told his uncle about a strange encounter he had.
When Zhang Zuo was a teenager, he was living in the south of Shaanxi, and once when he was walking in the countryside, he saw an old man riding a green donkey with four hooves and white skin, carrying a deerskin bag, with a pleasant face and extraordinary appearance. He had just walked from the path to the avenue, Zhang Zuo was quite amazed at him and asked, “May I ask where you are from?” The old man smiled but did not answer. Zhang Zuo asked again and again, the old man suddenly shouted angrily: “You young boy, how dare you force me to do so! Am I a thief? Why do I need to know where I come from?” Zhang Zuo humbly saluted and said, “Only because I admire your skillful deeds, I am willing to serve you, why do you rebuke me so severely?” The old man said, “I have nothing to teach you, I am only long-lived, you are not laughing at my old age and poverty.” The old man was still asleep with his deerskin bag on his pillow, and Zhang Zuo, who was tired and wanted to drink white wine on credit, tried to invite the old man and said, “Please drink with me, sir.” The old man jumped up and said, “This is exactly what I like. How come you know my heart so well!” After drinking, Zhang Zuo saw the old man’s face full of joy and asked in a low voice, “I am ignorant and uneducated, so I would like you to give me some advice to broaden my horizons, and I dare not have any other unwarranted thoughts.” The old man said, “What I have seen is only the affairs of the Liang, Sui, Chen and Tang dynasties, of which the wise and foolish ruling and chaos have been recorded in the history books; I will only tell you my personal experience which is different from the history books.”
The old man said, “During the Northern Zhou Dynasty, I lived in Qidi, a native of Fubeng, surnamed Shen Zong, and changed my name from Zong to Guan because I admired Qi Shenwu. When I was eighteen years old, I followed Prince Zun of Yan to conquer Emperor Yuandi of Liang in Jingzhou, and after the capture of Jingzhou, the general returned in triumph, and I stayed with my troops in Jiangling. One day I had a strange dream in which two men in green said to me, “Lv go away to heaven, people to the Lord, life is not a thousand.” So I went to Jiangling City to find the dreamer, who said to me: “‘Lv go’, the word ‘back’; ‘people to the Lord’, the word The word ‘dwelling’ is also used. Does it not mean that you will live long if you go home and live?” At that time, the soldiers left behind were stationed in Jiangling, so I presented my case to the lieutenant Tuoba Lie to return to my hometown and received permission.
I went to say goodbye to the dreamer again and asked him, “I can go home to live, but what is the way to live long?” The dreamer said, “Your predecessor was Xue Junxu of Zitong. Xue Junxiu was good at taking medicinal pills made by Taoism, and he searched everywhere for strange books, reciting Huang Lao’s 100 pages every day, and moved to the bottom of Mount Heming, where he had three huts and planted exotic flowers and bamboo everywhere outdoors, and was surrounded by springs and rocks. On the 15th of August one year, he drank alone and shouted loudly, ‘Xue Junjun is so indifferent, isn’t there any foreigner coming to me? Suddenly there was the sound of carriages and horses in his ears, so he tried to sleep. Just as his head touched the seat, a cart appeared in front of him, with red wheels and green cover, driven by a red calf, the cart drove out of the ears, each two or three inches high, and did not feel any difficulty in coming out of the ears. There were two children on the cart, with green turbans and green shawls, also only two or three inches long. They called to the driver by the rail of the cart, and when they were helped out of the cart, they said to Jun Jun: ‘We have come from the country of Duxuan, and we have heard you whistling long under the moon, and your voice is very clear and radical, and we have deep admiration in our hearts, and we would like to accept your clear discourse. Jun Jun said in astonishment, ‘You have just come out of my ears. How can you say that you came from the Dou Xuan Kingdom?’ The two children said, ‘The Dukuan Kingdom is inside our ears, how can we live in your ears? Jun Jun said, ‘Your body is only two or three inches long, so how can you have a kingdom inside your ears? Even if there were, then all the people of the kingdom would probably be small worms.’ The second child said, ‘Our country is not different from yours. If you don’t believe us, please follow us and see, and possibly you will stay there, and you will be free from the suffering of life and death.’ When he looked inside his ears, he saw a different world, with flowers, tiled houses one after another, clear springs, and cliffs towering into the clouds.
So he went into the ear of the villain and soon came to a metropolis and saw a magnificent city and pavilions. Jun Jun was wandering in the streets, not knowing where to go, when he found the two little children he had seen originally standing beside him. The little children said to Jun Jun Jun: ‘Which is bigger and which is smaller, this country or your country? Now that you are here, why don’t you come with us to pay your respects to Uncle Meng Xuan Zhen.’ Uncle Meng Xuanzhen lived in a large palace, the walls and steps of which were decorated with gold and gold, and the interior was hung with curtains and tents. Uncle Meng Xuan was sitting in the center of the main hall, wearing embroidered clothes with clouds, sun and moon, and a crown of heaven on his head, with a tassel that could be as long as his body. Four jade children were standing to the left and right of Uncle Zhen, one holding a white duster and the other a rhinoceros horn ruyi. After the children and juns entered the hall, they bowed their hands and did not dare to look up. A head high hat wearing a long skirt surrounded by green clothes came forward, read aloud the green paper documents: ‘Zhao divided Tai Su, the country has a billion. You fall in the lower land, lowly and lowly ten thousand goods, I have reached this, really by the meditation, in addition to your clear is sincere, leaves in the true zai, a large official thick title, so that it is appropriate to enjoy the, can be the main book.
After thanking him, Jun Xun came out of the door, and three or four people dressed in yellow capes led him to an official office. He did not know most of the papers and books in this office, and no one came to ask for or receive anything every month. But whenever he had something in mind, the attendants around him knew it in advance and offered it to him immediately before he could ask for it. One day when he had nothing to do, he climbed the building and looked far away, and suddenly he had the idea of returning to his hometown and wrote a poem: ‘The wind is soft and the scenery is warm, the fragrance is fragrant and the forest is pond. When he climbed high and looked long, he believed that the beauty was not my hometown.’ He gave the poem to two children to read, but the children said angrily: ‘I thought you were calm and quiet, so I brought you to our country, but I didn’t expect you to have your despicable attitude, which has not yet been removed. What is there to remember about your homeland?’ After saying this, he hurriedly expelled Jun Huang. Jun Huang felt as if he had fallen to the ground from somewhere, and when he looked up, he saw that he had fallen from the boy’s ear and was still back in his old place. When he looked back at the child again, he was gone.
He then asked his neighbors, and they all said that Jun had been missing for seven or eight years, and that Jun had lived there for only a few months, and that Jun had died not long after his return. Later, he was born in the Shen family, which is now known as Shen Guan. The dreamer also said, ‘My former life was the child who came out of the ear. Because your former life was good at Taoism, you were able to go to the Dukuan Kingdom, but because you have not yet finished your mundane state, you cannot live forever; however, from now on you can live a thousand years longer. After I hand you the talisman, go back immediately.” Finished speaking. He spat out a foot-long red silk from his mouth and made me swallow it, and the dreamer then regained his original form as a child and was disillusioned.
Since then I have not been sick, traveled around the world’s famous mountains, has lived for more than 200 years, seen a lot of strange things, are recorded in the deerskin bag.
With that, the old man went to open the deerskin bag, and took out the two axes of the book, which were very large, and the words were so small that Zhang Zuo could not read them, so he asked the old man to read them out himself.
That night, after listening to the old man’s story, Zhang Zuo fell asleep in a daze and woke up to see that the old man was gone. After a few days, someone saw the old man in Ashiguchu and he added, “Give my regards to Jang Zo.” When Jangjo heard about it, he rushed to look for him, but he could no longer be found.
(Source: Taeping Guangji)
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