Revisiting Yellow Dragon Cave
Revisiting Yellow Dragon Cave Ouyang Bin People often say that when you come to Hunan, you must visit Suoxiyu; and when you come to Suoxiyu, you must visit Yellow Dragon Cave. What a mesmerizing sight it is! Its peculiar formations and intricate network of caverns spread out freely like a huge ancient tree with tangled roots, forming "floors above floors," "caves below caves," and "heavens beyond heavens," bringing people endless imagination. Yet when I first visited Yellow Dragon Cave, it was quite different...
Revisiting Yellow Dragon Cave
Ouyang Bin
People often say that when you come to Hunan, you must visit Suoxiyu; and when you come to Suoxiyu, you must visit Yellow Dragon Cave.
What a mesmerizing sight it is! Its peculiar formations and intricate network of caverns spread out freely like a huge ancient tree with tangled roots, forming "floors above floors," "caves below caves," and "heavens beyond heavens," bringing people endless imagination.
Yet when I first visited Yellow Dragon Cave, it was quite a different scene. It was a day in late autumn of 1983. More than 20 cadres from provincial departments and relevant prefecture, city, and county offices accompanied the provincial governor here, becoming the earliest group of visitors. That day, autumn rain fell steadily. We set out from Jundiping, 10 kilometers from the cave, trudged through mud, crossed the Suo River, and followed the stream to the foot of Liangjiao Mountain. At that time, the entrance of Yellow Dragon Cave was jagged and overgrown with weeds, revealing only a dark hole just big enough for a person to squeeze into. And just after squeezing in, we encountered a natural bottleneck, so people had to brace themselves with both hands and crawl in with difficulty. At that time, Yellow Dragon Cave was full of mystery. There were no stone steps and no lights. No one knew how deep the cave was or how many branch paths it had. For lighting, several farmers carried a generator and entered hand in hand, moving forward section by section. Before our eyes was pitch darkness, and around us was the sound of dripping water near and far. Only the colorful stalactites that occasionally flashed before our eyes shone with a smooth, alluring, faint light, half hidden and half revealed, like uncut jade, enchanting everyone!
Because of this unique experience, I naturally had special feelings for Yellow Dragon Cave. Whenever I heard people who had returned talking about it with great excitement, I couldn't help but long to go. I decided to go again, and finally made the trip four years later.
We passed through the thin dusk of early spring, draped in brilliant sunset, carrying with us the faint fragrance of rapeseed flowers along the way, and drove along the newly built road beside the mountain. We saw new bridges like rainbows over the Suo River, and tourist stalls scattered along the river, under red and green umbrellas like little mushrooms popping out of the ground. Visitors were as numerous as clouds, and laughter could be heard without end.
The guide led us up the steps, into "Two Gates Welcoming Guests," across "Immortal Crossing Bridge," up the "Hundred-Step Cloud Ladder," and onto "Half-Moon Tower," overlooking "Dragon Water Pool," with golden flowers everywhere, and gazing at "Stone Harp Mountain," with harp music lingering. What hung from the sky and grew from the ground were all colorful stalactites of every size, height, and color, bright and translucent, too many to count and too many to take in, taking whatever shape you could imagine. What flowed in the cave and dripped in the gullies was all clear, jade-green, snow-bright, silver-like Dragon Spring water, flowing endlessly. Yellow Dragon Cave, ah, every step is a scene—how could you not make me linger and forget to return, haunting my dreams?
I wandered in the cave, not knowing how to describe Yellow Dragon Cave, nor how to pour out my inner feelings. Yes, Yellow Dragon Cave already enjoys a great reputation. How many visitors come drawn by its fame and leave pleased; and it lures even more people who must see it for themselves. Year after year, back and forth in cycles. But who can forget your long and painful cultivation? It was the miraculous power of the universe billions of years ago. It set off mountain-building movements, and so came earth-shaking collisions, compressions, twists, and tears, the sinking of high mountains and the rising of deep valleys. In this soul-stirring transformation, you were silently born in pain. Thus nature came to have this magnificent and towering sculpture.
Imagine how long a loneliness Yellow Dragon Cave endured before being discovered by people! For hundreds of millions of years, tens of thousands of years, thousands of years, it stood there. Waiting, longing; no sunlight, no green, no understanding, no communication, only cave mist that rose and vanished on its own, a stone harp that played and sang to itself, a secluded spring that pitied itself, and limestone that consoled itself. In loneliness and solitude, you survived tenaciously, waited stubbornly, and believed that one day you would suddenly be discovered by someone, and then many, many others would come from far away with great interest to praise you and express long-delayed feelings. And you, too, smiled generously, as if in past loneliness you had cultivated yourself. With nearly ten million years of dripping water, you actually formed the 27-meter-high "Sea-Calming Divine Needle" and the "Dragon King's Throne" with a girth of 9 meters. Your inconceivable perseverance and achievements—how could they not leave those in the world who seek quick success and instant benefits, who chase fame and profit, dumbfounded, and make them shed sincere tears of shame for their own shallowness!
Gazing before "Stone Harp Mountain" gives yet another feeling. For how many years did you think that string after string of dripping water repeatedly played a lonely sonata. We came, gently striking the stone bamboo shoots like harp strings, playing an ancient, long folk tune. The lingering notes, spreading like wet mist, carried a drenched solemnity and roundness, echoing for a long time through the winding cave passages. "Stone Harp Mountain," in unbearable loneliness, you produced a sense of history beyond time and space, created an immortal language of history. Nebulae gather and scatter, seas turn to mulberry fields. Hundreds and thousands of years later, people come here, stroke the stone and play the harp, giving rise to thoughts of antiquity and reflecting on the hardships of life, and yet they can feel as familiar and close as a long-sought soulmate. How could such flavor ever be appreciated by noisy, restless shallow streams?
Night entered the cave with quiet footsteps. It was time to say goodbye. Everything Yellow Dragon Cave displayed was already enough to enchant us and satisfy us. But the sly guide added with seeming regret: what can be seen now is still less than one-tenth of the whole cave. That is to say, the remaining nine-tenths of the landscape still to be developed is worth our coming three times, five times, or even more. Yes, "viewing mountains stirs passion; touring caves stirs contemplation." Yellow Dragon Cave is the crystallization of poetry, the condensation of philosophy, the sculpture of aesthetics. Your winding paths in the cave lead us through long history and give us rich gifts and enlightenment——a tragic, beautiful, eternally immortal song!