Mountains Reddened by Pine Oil

Hidden deep in the mountains of Yunnan is a mountain soaked in pine oil. The red pine is redder than ham, and the pine oil dripping down can light up half the night sky; the hot spring at the foot of the mountain can boil eggs and swallow living people. People who have soaked in it say that there are dragon shadows in the water, but those who have not soaked in it only dare to listen to the pine waves from a distance - in the sound of the waves, it seems that countless people are humming the same tune. Across the mountain is the Bingshui River. The melted water from the snow-capped mountains is so cold that it pierces the bones. It combines with the hot springs to form a "two heavens of ice and fire." The elders say that there are twelve frozen dolls at the bottom of the river, which were used to suppress the "warm dragon" in ancient times; under the banyan tree on the shore, the caravan bell has been ringing for thousands of years, bringing salt, tea, and strange things such as "flying squirrels (vampire bats) eating pine oil" and "snake drooling to worship the dragon". From the days when red pine trees were fed with blood to pine seedlings, to the fireworks in thatched huts where caravan men chased cloth-wrapped girls naked during the Republic of China, to today's neon-lit hot spring villas - three generations soaked in the same spring, with light red pine lines floating on their palms. They thought they were seeking health and marriage, but they didn't know that the red pine roots they stepped on were entangled with bones from thousands of years ago; the rice wine they drank contained unburned contract ashes. Grandma said: "How can there be any dragons in this mountain? It's our heat that has stayed on the pine roots for thousands of years, making the stones warm." But when the last piece of pine oil dripped into the ice water river, everyone heard it, and there was a muffled sound from the heart of the mountain, like someone was sighing, or someone was smacking their lips - This is a story written in pine oil, soaked in the heat of blood, the coolness of ice, and the wildness of people. Only at the end of the book do you understand: the so-called "warm dragon" is just a tacit symbiosis between mountains and people. It has been heated for thousands of years and warmed for thousands of years.