Reverie on Qingyan Mountain
Reverie on Qingyan Mountain By Ye Meng The dark night at Huangshizhai on Qingyan Mountain is quite frightening; apart from the chilly wind and the low murmur of the pines, there is no sound at all. My companions are all asleep. My eyes are wide open, and I cannot fall asleep. Those strange peaks and rocks I saw during the day all rush at me like a film shot from a low angle, one scene after another. Those rock peaks that I had not yet had time to look at carefully have truly made my heart very tired. At first sight of this monstrous group of peaks…
Reveries on Qingyan Mountain
By Ye Meng
The night at Huangshizhai on Qingyan Mountain is eerily frightening. Apart from the chilly wind and the low murmur of the pines, there is no sound at all.
My companions have all fallen asleep. I lie wide-eyed, unable to sleep. Those strange peaks and grotesque rocks I saw during the day all rush at me like a film shot from a low angle, one frame after another. Those rock peaks I had no time to examine closely have truly worn my mind to exhaustion.
At the first sight of these monstrous peaks, I was stunned. The breath in my core could not be held back and surged up, and one “Ah” after another escaped my lips. Apart from this one “Ah,” I could not recall a single other word.
Qingyan Mountain, your steep and beautiful rock peaks caught me off guard. The information in my brain suffered a “short circuit”; the nerves of language and memory malfunctioned, and my mind was simply a blank.
I cannot forget the soul-stirring scene I saw at dusk from the viewing platform west of the village. I truly cannot put into words the instantaneous, indescribable changes at the turn of dusk and dark night.
Standing on the viewing platform, the steep rock jutting out into empty space beneath my feet seemed to sway gently, frightening me into clutching desperately at the branches of the Guest-Greeting Pine. With cold sweat filling my palms, I tremblingly poked my head out and looked down: Heavens! The rock peaks stretching straight up from the deep valley displayed themselves before me one by one in all their varied forms. Here, the power of dusk's colors is far weaker than on the plains; the orange-red setting sun only lightly touches a few bright hues on the sunlit spots at the tops of the towering peaks. The western sky at dusk, which should have been magnificent, now merely trailed a narrow streak of crimson, welcoming the slowly sinking sun. The vast canyon at my feet began to grow dim, and the dark, verdant primeval secondary forest gave off a chill, whistling air. The mystery of the dark night, like a vast army lying in ambush in the secluded valley, was ready to march out the moment the sun set. All kinds of wondrous bird calls answered one another among the peaks and valleys, their melodious warbling echoing and resounding through the mountain gullies.
The setting sun accelerated its descent, and the valley grew darker.
I felt only that the sky had grown lower, that sky and earth were welded together like two great curved basins. Above was the vast, silent heavens; below, the deep, secluded peaks and gorges. I stood between sky and earth.
I stood above the assembled peaks; the sky was no longer distant and lofty. I was held so tightly to the earth, with thousands of peak forests arrayed at my feet in ranks of mountains. It seemed that if I merely bent down and spread my arms, I could gather all those grotesque rocks into my embrace.
Huangshizhai is a flat plateau lifted up by the assembled peaks, a commanding height surrounded by a forest of sandstone peaks, with sheer cliffs on all sides and deep chasms below. Only two small paths through the front and rear gate passes lead up—it is a perilous stronghold where one man can hold the pass against ten thousand.
To walk once around Huangshizhai takes at least two hours even at the fastest pace. Every few steps, another scene of a hundred peaks vying in beauty unfolds before your eyes: each more beautiful than the last, each more perilous, each more wondrous. Peaks drawn up from deep valleys and pointing straight at the blue sky are like pagodas, like pillars, like bamboo shoots, like whips, like conch shells, like golden turtles, like maidens with high coiffures, like armored warriors. Most of the rock peaks are draped in verdant green trees. The exposed rock faces are rich enough in color too. The rock walls interwoven with blocks of ink-blue, pure gold, crimson, and misty gray are covered with crisscrossing lines of joints, forming natural, primitive patterns.
The landscape of Qingyan Mountain is truly like a cup of strong wine, leaving me more than twelve parts drunk. It was as if a rusty lock had been smashed open with a bang, and my opened heart faced the assembled peaks without any barrier.
The vastness, the timelessness, and the profundity of nature, like a suddenly rising tide, overwhelmed me head over heels and left me flustered and bewildered.
I cannot sleep. What I saw during the day is still “fast-rewinding,” scene after breathtaking scene, too many to take in.
My body lies in bed, but my mind cannot rest. What torments me is nothing but mountains, mountains, and more mountains. I wonder: could it be that I have some inextricable bond with these mountains?
Unconsciously I threw on my clothes and got up. By the faint light of dawn, I walked toward the viewing platform that had so captivated my soul at dusk.
The mountain village, which during the day had only the sounds of birds and gibbons, was now, on this moonless dark night, a thick, pitch-black dead silence. By some sixth sense, I seemed to feel the assembled peaks summoning me from the unseen depths.
Qingyan Mountain at night revealed to me another kind of charm.
It was a moonless night, with only a hazy, dim skylight. The secluded valley whose bottom had been visible by day was now unfathomably deep. The strange peaks and grotesque rocks, once so vivid, were veiled by the gauze of night, showing only blurry, shadowy forms, and the refreshing, delightful green valley had turned bleak and somber.
All sounds were stilled. Everything in the universe had congealed, frozen in this jelly of dim skylight. History seemed to have reverted to the silence of ancient times: no birds sang, no gibbons cried, no mountain wind rose, no branches swayed. The dark, swarthy peaks stood mute, like the hush before a solemn and stirring drama, all things holding their breath, all things waiting……
At this moment, no gentle serenade is needed, no graceful lyric poem. Only a roll of urgent, swift drums, then a long silence, and at last a sudden burst of rain-like pipa music, playing the melodies of “The General's Night Hunt” and “Golden Spears and Iron Horses,” creating that mighty mood of “iron horses bursting forth, swords and spears ringing.”
Actually, none of this is necessary.
This scene, this mood, can truly make one laugh, make one weep, make one mad, make one clear-headed, make one inspired……
Only by quietly facing the peaks, casting off all the cares that tug at one's heart, filtering out every last trace of worldly dross from one's mind, and holding a philosophical dialogue with Qingyan Mountain about life with a pure, transparent heart—only this is most fitting.
But everything at Huangshizhai on a moonless dark night——the gloomy black valleys, the ghostly mountain forests—is far beyond what an ordinary lover of mist and rosy clouds can endure. Daytime visitors are merely passing travelers, so they are not so fortunate as to experience all the mystery of Huangshizhai's dusk and dark night, its dawn and sunrise.
Here, one absolutely cannot view the mountains with that usual objective, calm, detached, leisurely expression. Here, the balance between man and nature, between subject and object, has been broken. One cannot help but be surrounded, captured, disintegrated, and dissolved by the mountains. Man and mountain melt together, knead into one lump, impossible to pull apart, impossible to shake off. Thus this entanglement of human soul and mountain soul produces a powerful resonance.
Ah, this is no longer appreciating landscape! This is like casting one's mortal body into a purgatory, to receive the tempering of magnificent, colorful nature, to receive the baptism of the mountain god—that ancient, magnificent Qingyan Mountain!
Have I too been completely melted? I ask myself, whose thoughts have already shattered into fragments——
A soundless cold wind assails me from the dark valley bottom. My nerves, bewitched by the rock peaks, begin to awaken, begin to reset. Gradually I recover reason and calm. The wild waves of joy and excitement at first seeing Qingyan Mountain have subsided; what fills my breast now is only a solemn and profound emotion.
This solemn and profound emotion keeps sublimating.
Qingyan Mountain before my eyes is a vast world, ancient yet fresh, from the rare birds and beasts of the primeval secondary forest to the relict tree species of the Quaternary glacial period……
In my ears sounds the roar of ocean tides, coming from far, far away.
History seems to have reverted to the Late Paleozoic Era more than three hundred million years ago.
The crust rumbled and sank; seawater silently crept up. Here was once a sea! A vast sea.
On the turbulent seabed, sandstone was deposited, silently gathering the strength to stretch upward.
After tens of millions of years of deposition, the sandstone finally refused to remain obscure and rose above the water. Through one orogeny after another, it rose, rose, forming a sandstone plateau.
Tens of millions of years more: the scouring of flowing water, the erosion of the ages, cracks slowly widened, and the hard sandstone was finally cut open, disintegrated.
“Rumble!” Blocks of sandstone collapsed.
The supernatural craftsmanship of external forces finally shaped the sandstone plateau into such magnificent, such towering, such wondrous sandstone peak forests.
History is truly a ruthless chisel of art; the wind and rain of the years have washed and carved out Qingyan Mountain, this bright pearl of scenery renowned at home and abroad.
All the magnificence, all the wondrous beauty of Qingyan Mountain depends entirely on that ruthless chiseling and cutting. Is it not so? Look at the majestic, towering South Heaven Pillar, the sharply angular Golden Whip Rock, and the thousand-odd perilous, precipitous peaks rising straight to the sky. Their existence has not yielded to the chisel of history; having endured the test of long ages, they are all the indestructible, unerodable heroic souls of the mountains.
Every rock peak is an ancient work of art.
Every rock peak is inscribed with a distant history.
Every rock peak is a strong one among mountains.
Qingyan Mountain, your red cliffs and green valleys not only hold many of nature's secrets but also reveal the meaning of life.
Oh, Qingyan Mountain, the wind in your deep night is so cool! It has completely awakened me from my drunkenness. With great effort I broke free from the embrace of your magic, found myself again, and regained a new balance.
My expanded chest seemed infused with much fresh vitality; a strange yet entirely new emotion rose like the sea. At last I could not help but shout aloud to the assembled mountains——I do not know what exactly I wanted to shout. But I heard the lingering echo stretching through the peaks and valleys——Mama!
There was no echo; the rock peaks covered in green trees did not block my voice.
I believe my voice will not disappear.