It is said that a rabbit with three eyes may pop out of any stone in the mountains, and a clump of wild flowers on the roadside may transform into a square dance at night. In short, ordinary monks have to walk around when passing by, for fear of being caught by some old goblin who has practiced for thousands of years and used it as a snack. But in the deepest part of the mountain, in the corners where even the evil spirits are too lazy to hover, there are three solitary thatched houses. The thatch on the roof is withered, yellow and curled, looking more weathered than the ninety-year-old longevity star in the village outside the mountain. It makes a rattling sound when the wind blows, as if it will fall apart and fly into the sky in the next second, and be reincarnated as a cloud elsewhere. Early that morning, at dawn, even the most industrious pheasants had not crowed yet. Suddenly, a burst of earth-shattering cries erupted from one of the thatched huts. The cry was not tender and soft like an ordinary baby, but had the hoarseness of a gong's throat. It was so penetrating that it frightened the sparrows that had just stood on the branches outside the house and flew away. They rolled and crawled for three miles, fearing that the magic sound would pierce their ears and turn them into minced birds. In the room, an old man wearing a patched coarse cloth jacket, with white hair and beard, but energetic, was rubbing his hands and spinning around the earthen bed. He still had an unburnt tobacco stick pinned to his ear, and the ash was falling down, so he didn't bother to take pictures.
