In the third year of Zhenguan, during the winter, the snow on Cyan Ox Ridge fell with exceptional severity. Old Man Wang, a village hunter, went hunting in the mountains and discovered a swaddling bundle in a wind-sheltered rock recess, wrapping a male infant about a foot long. The child's lips were blue with cold, yet his eyes were wide open and round, staring fixedly at the swirling snow without a single blink, which startled even the hunter, who was well accustomed to life and death. Seven frozen sparrows lay horizontally in the snow, forming a semicircle to protect the bundle, clearly using their own bodies to block the wind for the child.
"Elder Brother Zhang, take a look at this..." When Old Man Wang burst into the Medicine Cottage carrying the child, the Daoist doctor Zhang Xuanzhen was just flipping through the Classic of Taisu by the light of a pine-oil lamp, his frosty white eyebrows moistened by the wind and snow. The moment the bundle was unwrapped, the bamboo slips in his hand dropped to the floor with a clatter. Half of a Taiji Jade Pendant inscribed with the characters "Taichu" slid onto the straw mat, its pattern interlocking seamlessly with the "Taisu" jade pendant that he had worn at his waist for years, as though they were a natural pair.
"His eyes are double-pupiled, and the Taiji pattern faintly appears in his palms." Zhang Xuanzhen trembled as he lifted the infant's tiny hand. Under the firelight, the palm lines emitted a pale golden sheen, remarkably resembling the "innate Daoist patterns" recorded in Daoist classics. Whispers drifted in from the villagers outside, mixed with murmurs of "a disaster star descending to the mortal world" and "destined to doom his own parents." Old Man Wang rubbed his hands and smiled apologetically, saying, "Shouldn't... shouldn't we still send him back to where he found him? To avoid offending the village's fortune."
The old Daoist suddenly burst into a loud laugh, shaking the accumulated snow on the roof beams down in a rustling shower. "Offending? This child is clearly bringing good fortune to our Cyan Ox Village! Back then, Laozi rode a cyan ox through Hangu Pass and left behind the five thousand words of the Tao Te Ching. Now this child appears in the world bearing the Taiji Jade Pendant, which perfectly echoes the wondrous omen that 'In the Beginning was the Dao, and the Dao produces One.'" He turned his head and shouted toward the inner room, "Go to the kitchen and scoop a bowl of millet porridge, and heat up my aged yellow wine!"
In his arms, the infant finally let out his first cry, clear and resonant like the chime of a bell piercing the clouds. Zhang Xuanzhen gazed at the snow falling in a rustling flurry outside the window, suddenly recalling the New Year's Eve three years ago when he found an injured cyan ox calf in front of the mountain god temple. Now the calf was already strong enough to pull a plow and till the fields, and the child who arrived on this snowy night was likely another bond bestowed by the heavens. He lowered his head and rubbed the infant's cold, red cheeks; his stubble made the infant furrow his brows, and the old Daoist laughed like a mischievous child who had stolen honey. "Let's call him Yifan. All methods return to the One, casting off artifice to return to absolute simplicity. The fortune of our Cyan Ox Village starts with you."
When the news spread, Cyan Ox Village exploded with uproar. The village head brought the three village elders over to argue, claiming that the seven sparrows protecting the infant in the snow must be a malevolent star triggering the Seven Malefics formation, and if he wasn't sent away, they would likely suffer hailstorms come early spring. Zhang Xuanzhen sat cross-legged on the threshold, puffing on his dried tobacco pouch while listening to them chant. At last, he pulled out the matched jade pendants and tapped them against the stone table. "Do you all know that Taiji divides into the Two Modes, the Two Modes generate the Four Images, and the Four Images transform into the Five Phases? This child naturally carries the omens of Taichu and Taisu; he is clearly the 'living Taiji' bestowed upon our village by heaven and earth." He pointed to the cyan ox at the corner of the courtyard. "When I rescued that calf back then, you all also said that 'the beast blocked the dragon's vein.' Now the fields it plows yield thirty percent more harvest, so why is no one talking about the dragon's vein anymore?"
The three elders looked at each other in dismay, choked into silence. On the other hand, eight-year-old Xiaoxiu, hiding behind her father, cautiously poked her head out. Seeing the infant in the swaddling clothes kicking his little legs and his dark, glossy eyes rolling as they fixed on the red hair ribbon on her head, she suddenly let out a giggle. "The little brother looks like a snow dumpling!"
Zhang Xuanzhen winked at her. "When he grows up, I'll make you a wooden puppet that can spin, ten times more fun than the cloth doll in your hand."
On that snowy night, the oil lamp in the Medicine Cottage was exceptionally bright. Zhang Xuanzhen placed the infant on the heated brick bed and watched him clutch his finger without letting go, suddenly recalling a sentence from the bamboo slips: "The Dao gives birth to them, the Virtue nurtures them, physical forms shape them, and circumstances complete them." Aside from the jade pendant, the child's swaddling clothes also contained half a tattered silk painting depicting a market map of the Chang'an West Market, with Qimen Dunjia directional coordinates hidden secretly among the ink lines—clearly not something belonging to an ordinary household.
"So be it. Since it is a bond sent by heaven and earth, I shall cultivate this seedling." The old Daoist added a piece of pine firewood to the fire pit, and sparks crackled and splashed, dyeing the entire room in a warm red glow. The infant fell asleep again at some unknown point, the Taiji pattern on his palm faintly visible in the firelight like a tender shoot breaking through the earth, carrying nascent vitality and unknown possibilities.
That night, the barking of dogs in Cyan Ox Village was exceptionally sparse. After the snow stopped, the hunters went into the mountains to hunt and discovered that the medicinal plots previously covered by accumulated snow actually revealed a few clusters of tender green grass shoots, glowing faintly in the moonlight—those were resurrection herbs that only grew in the spring. The villagers gradually fell silent. Only Zhang Xuanzhen knew that the child brought back on this snowy night would eventually walk his own Yin-Yang Great Dao amidst the mortal world of this prosperous Tang dynasty, just like the Taiji pattern on his palm.
On the edge of the brick bed, the infant suddenly smacked his lips and uttered a muffled dream babble. The old Daoist smiled and shook his head, rummaging through the bottom of a chest to fish out half an angular jade pendant and tying it around the infant's neck. The jade pendants collided, producing a crisp and clear sound that startled the sparrows resting outside the window. The snowy light reflected the lamplight, casting two silhouettes onto the window paper—one large, one small, one old, one young—resembling precisely the Yin and Yang poles on the Taiji diagram, quietly drawing the first stroke of reincarnation in this thousand-year-old mountain village.