The morning mist over Cyan Ox Village had not yet cleared, and the branches of the old locust tree were already hung with red farewell ropes. Zhang Yifan stood at the village entrance with a half-person-high bamboo basket on his back, looking at Xiaoxiu, who came running over while rubbing her eyes. A sudden ache hit the bridge of his nose—the eight-year-old girl had now grown into a sixteen-year-old maiden, her red head-rope replaced with a cyan-ox-patterned silk ribbon, yet just like when she was little, she wrapped her arms around his waist and refused to let go.
"Brother Fan is a liar!" Xiaoxiu stamped her foot, tears pattering down onto his coarse cloth tunic. "You promised you were only going for half a year, yet you stuffed seven pairs of straw sandals in the travel pack!"
The youth smiled and untied the cord of the bamboo basket. Inside, aside from the seven pairs of straw sandals embroidered with insect-repelling patterns, were twelve osmanthus sugar cakes wrapped in oil paper—these were the very ones Xiaoxiu had sneaked into his room last night, each cake stamped with a crooked cyan ox footprint.
Huwa dashed out from behind a tree brandishing a willow branch, a tattered straw hat perched on his head with the brim pulled down to cover his eyes. "Brother Fan, I put a 'secret weapon' in your bamboo basket!"
Before Zhang Yifan could check, he suddenly heard a "chirp" sound coming from the bamboo basket—it turned out to be three Spring-Guiding Insects kept in bamboo tubes, crawling along the basket wall, with Huwa's name carved right on the tubes.
"If you get lost on the road, let the insects guide you to the 'Gate of Life'!" Huwa triumphantly shook the Wooden Ox and Gliding Horse model in his hand. "I installed a new bell on it, louder than the Old Cyan Ox's bellow!"
The Old Daoist stood to the side leaning on a jujube-wood cane, his tobacco pipe glowing and dimming in the morning mist. He suddenly gave a cough, pulled an oil paper package out of his sleeve pocket, and inside lay half a corner of a jade pendant—it was none other than the "Taichu" pendant from Zhang Yifan's swaddling clothes, which, when paired with the "Taisu" pendant at his waist, had once cast the faint light of the Big Dipper on a snowy night.
"Remember," the Old Daoist's voice trembled, though he deliberately put on a stern face, "don't cause trouble when you reach Chang'an. The Sogdian merchants in the West Market love to scheme; if you get cheated out of your money, don't say you're Zhang Xuanzhen's disciple!"
Zhang Yifan suddenly flashed a mischievous grin and pulled a crumpled copy of the Classic of Hundred Insects from his bosom. "Master, don't worry. I've long since rewritten your 'Dao in Ants' into the 'Thirty-Six Strategies of Merchant Dao'—for instance, using the Granary-Guard Beetle Shell as an anti-counterfeiting mark, using Spring-Guiding Insects to lead the way and find the Gate of Life, and even Huwa's wooden ox model..." He shook the model's tail, and a chestnut coated in chili powder dropped right out. "...can even be used as a hidden weapon!"
On the flagstone path at the village entrance, villagers seeing him off gradually gathered around. Old Man Wang held a basket of newly harvested mountain walnuts, Hunter Li carried a brightly polished hunting saber, and even the Three Elders, who always called him "heterodox and rebellious," tremblingly handed over a jar of aged yellow wine.
Zhang Yifan accepted them one by one. Suddenly, he saw the Old Cyan Ox break free of its tether in the cattle shed, charging over with a loud "moo," a Beast-Startling Bell he had made last year still hanging from its neck.
"Old buddy, look after Cyan Ox Village for me!" The youth stroked the ox's moist muzzle and suddenly discovered a cloth bag tied to the saddle, filled with seven seeds coated in gold foil—the "Cyan Ox Seven" mentioned by his Master, shimmering faintly in the morning mist.
The ox suddenly tossed its head, the bell ringing out a crisp "clang," startling the sparrows on the locust tree and drawing low, muffled sobs from the crowd of well-wishers.
At the third quarter of the Chen hour, the caravan's ox-cart creaked into motion. Zhang Yifan sat at the tail of the cart, gazing at the gradually shrinking old locust tree, when he suddenly heard a "thud" behind him—Huwa had tripped and fallen into the snow while holding the wooden ox model, waving his willow branch and shouting at the top of his lungs: "Brother Fan! If the girls in Chang'an bully you, I'll bring all the dogs in the village to bite them!"
Xiaoxiu chased after him to hit him, her red head-rope fluttering in the wind like a red streak of longing tied onto the youth.
The Old Daoist stood at the village entrance, watching the caravan vanish behind the mountain bend, then suddenly pulled out half of the Chang'an Market Map from his bosom, his fingertips tracing the Big Dipper pattern beneath the "Huyu Workshop." On a snowy night ten years ago, when he found this map in the swaddling clothes, he knew that this child bearing the Taiji symbol would ultimately carry the mortal warmth of Cyan Ox Village and paint his own Yin-Yang Great Dao within the Mortal World of Chang'an City.
Grains of snow suddenly began to fall, pattering softly against the red ropes on the old locust tree. From the direction of the Medicine Cottage came the plashing sound of the bamboo-tube aqueduct, sounding remarkably like the young boy's clear, ringing voice reciting the Tao Te Ching in childhood. The Old Daoist stroked the "Taisu" pendant at his waist and suddenly let out a soft chuckle—when this child left, he had actually sneaked the copies of Discourses on Salt and Iron and the Book of Lord Shang hidden at the very bottom of the chest right into his bamboo basket, as if taking the entire scheming wit of Cyan Ox Village along to keep a date with the Mortal World.
When the sound of the caravan's bells completely faded away, Xiaoxiu suddenly noticed that the cyan ox sachet she had sewn onto Zhang Yifan's lapel had somehow come loose at the seam, revealing half a roasted sweet potato hidden inside—that was the "Dao Heart" the youth had secretly slipped to her before leaving.
On the snow, the footprints left by Huwa's wooden ox model intertwined with the cart tracks of the caravan, looking just like the two poles of Yin and Yang on the Taiji diagram, sketching the first stroke of parting in this millennium-old mountain village.
Mountain wind swept past the window lattice of the Medicine Cottage, scattering the Old Daoist's pipe tobacco scent into the morning mist. The medicine bundles hanging from the beam swayed gently, the fragrance of tangerine peel and angelica mixed with the scent of snow, feeling more reassuring than any Daoist scripture. Perhaps a true parting is never an ending, but the beginning of another kind of "Dao"—just like the Taiji pattern in Zhang Yifan's palm, at the very moment of stepping out of Cyan Ox Village, it was finally about to blossom with its own boundless majesty across a vast and wider world.