One Buddha anchors Sichuan, one mountain hides history, one thousand years of sight, one soul protects the common people.
In Gangu, Gansu Province, Daxiang Mountain stands majestically. The 23-meter tall Buddha with a beard in the Tang Dynasty sits quietly on a precipitous cliff, overlooking the Weishui River and watching the thousand-year-old fireworks in Longyou. Everyone in the world knows that this beard-bearing statue, unique to the Han Dynasty, saves the world with mercy, but they don't know that the Buddha's body is a cage, the Buddha's beard is a lock, and the entire famous mountain is a heavenly formation that seals the vicious energy of the Wei River for thousands of years.
Chen Yan, a young cultural relic restorer, comes from a family that keeps monuments. He is gifted with the ability to hear the whispers of mountains and rocks and feel the ups and downs of earth's veins. He was ordered to go to Daxiang Mountain to repair the ancient Buddha on the cliff. He accidentally exposed the century-old white lie of "Qing Dynasty businessmen painted beards" and uncovered the secrets of the mountains and rivers buried by the years.
During the Kaiyuan period of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Zen Master Xuankong and the master craftsman carved a mountain to build a Buddha in one night, and used gentleness to conceal and seal the secret history of suppressing dragons. Today, the flood season is approaching, tomb robbers disturb the earth's veins, archaeological obsession approaches the seal, and the thousand-year-old dragon spirit is waiting for an opportunity to break free from its cage.
The two threads of ancient and modern times are gently intertwined, and the hearts and minds of the two generations resonate across time and space. There is no fierce killing, only the compassion of mountains and rivers and the sincerity of mortals. When the rocks on the cliff cracked and the flood peak approached the ancient city, Chen Yan inherited the original intention of his ancestors and used his mortal body to recast the formation's eyes and stabilize the dragon's veins.
Mountains and rivers are silent and guard endlessly. All peace in the world is never a gift from heaven, but a thousand years of perseverance hidden in the mountains and rivers by our predecessors and passed down by future generations.
Concept: The core concept of "The Soul of the Elephant Mountain" is based on the spirituality of mountains and rivers and the perseverance of the world. It breaks away from the conventional narrative of traditional immortals and heroes defying heaven and conferring gods and seeking immortality, and builds a worldview in which all things are animistic and the earth is informed. The work uses the ancient Buddhas of Daxiang Mountain, the currents of the Weishui River and the land of Longyou as carriers to interpret the core idea that mountains and rivers hide time and earth and stone carry joy and sorrow, and points out that everything in the world has its original intention and memory. The whole book abandons the inertial setting of the strong person saving the world, focusing on the responsibilities and inheritance of ordinary mortals, explaining that the true path lies not in the nine-day transcendence, but in the sincere heart of taking root in the secular world and protecting the world. Peace was never a gift from heaven. It was the predecessors who sealed away disasters and guarded it under heavy burdens. The descendants continued their original aspirations and passed it down from generation to generation, thus achieving peace in the present world. The work combines the Zen spirit of the grottoes, the cultural context of the prosperous Tang Dynasty and the regional heritage, distinguishing the dual core of the iron-blooded suppression of tribulation in troubled times and the rich cultural context of prosperous times. It finally settles on the ordinary as perfection: all the ups and downs through the ages and perseverance for thousands of years are ultimately to protect the fireworks and ordinary peace of the world, guiding readers to respect the mountains and rivers, remember the past, and cherish the present.