Laojun Cave

In 1995, a black cat was lifted out of a pyre in a dilapidated Taoist temple in northeastern Sichuan. His name is Mo and he grew up in Laojun Cave. The sound of wooden fish in the morning and evening classes is its lullaby, the straight smoke in the incense burner is the first light it knows, and the smell of cinnabar when the master draws the talisman has been smelled by it all its life. Later, it began to see things that others could not. Dead souls, Guansha, walking in the shadows, and calling souls. In the villages at the foot of the mountain, people come to the Taoist temple with all kinds of "unclean things". Mo lay on the threshold of the main hall, using his amber eyes to distinguish who had the aura of death on his body and who had a dark shadow on his shoulder. It can't talk, but it knows who needs the quiet company of a cat. On a full moon night, it squats on the old locust tree and opens its mouth to the moon. The moonlight flows into the body along with the breathing, and gathers into a small warm thing in the chest. A cat's spiritual practice began silently. Seventeen years. It accompanied Master on his final journey, and then guarded the Taoist temple alone until a certain spring when the locust trees had all fallen. The tweeter at the foot of the mountain has replaced the suona, and the number of old people coming to offer incense is getting smaller and smaller every year. Laojun Cave is still there, but its body has made a shallow dent on the threshold. Sophora japonica blooms every year, and it smells good every year. These are the best years.