In the summer of the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, the drought on Cyan Ox Ridge was abnormal. The corn in the terraced fields curled into scorched yellow paper cylinders, and the village elders squatted by the wells sighing. Only Zhang Yifan squatted on the ridge, drawing crooked geometric diagrams on the ground with a charred wooden stick, completely unaware of the grass ash on the tip of his nose.
"Brother Fan, the water has been cut off for three days now. What on earth are you drawing?" Huwa's mother asked, passing by with a bamboo basket over her arm, which held the last few withered cabbages. "If we don't find a way soon, the autumn harvest will be completely ruined."
The young boy suddenly raised his head, his eyes bright like quenched fire: "Don't worry, Auntie. I'm pondering the 'Upland Water Conservancy Method' from the *Essential Techniques for the Peasantry*. Look at this mountain contour—doesn't it look like an old yellow ox's backbone? If we dig an irrigation ditch at the ox's neck and use bamboo tubes as 'throats', we can definitely channel the mountain spring into the terraced fields!"
The villagers crossed their arms and gathered around. Hunter Li stroked his hunting knife and laughed: "Is the little brat bragging again? The day before yesterday you said 'smoking drives away insects', and ended up turning all my cured pork into charcoal blocks."
Zhang Yifan wasn't annoyed. He pulled a section of bamboo tube, roasted black to the touch, out from his tunic. The tube wall was drilled with seven or eight small holes. "This time is different! I coated the inside of the bamboo tube with pine resin and tied the opening into a trumpet shape with rattan vines. The water flow can be twice as large as a wooden trough—if you don't believe me, let's go test it at the back mountain pool!"
The old locust tree behind the mountain became a temporary laboratory. Zhang Yifan climbed barefoot up the tree, tying seven bamboo tubes in the shape of the Big Dipper to a thick branch, with their lower ends pointed toward the dug diversion ditch. Huwa held a gourd and poured water into the bamboo tubes. The clear mountain spring barely touched the pine resin coating before it shot out three feet away, splashing tiny rainbows at the bottom of the ditch. The villagers first gasped in astonishment, then burst into laughter. Hunter Li scratched his head and muttered: "Well, it's like installing a copper-pipe throat for the mountain!"
Three days later, a "bamboo dragon array" was set up across the terraced fields of Cyan Ox Village. Bowl-thick bamboo tubes wound along the mountain contours, with a fork every ten paces, looking exactly like the meridian chart drawn by the Old Daoist. Zhang Yifan squatted beside the "dragon head" at the highest point, calculating the water flow with counting rods, when he suddenly heard a "snap" behind him—Xiaoxiu was using his *Classic of Hundred Insects* as a fan, and a butterfly wing fell out from between the pages.
"Look, Brother Fan!" The young girl pointed at the joint of the bamboo tubes, where three beetles with golden spots on their backs were crawling along the slippery tube walls. "Are these the 'Spring-Guiding Insects' you talked about? Last autumn you squatted by the water for a whole night and almost got carried away by mosquitoes!"
The boy hurriedly snatched back the book, seeing what he had written next to the drawing of the beetle: *"Those with golden spots on their backs are fond of moisture and fear the light; they chirp when they encounter water, and can be used as sluice gate warnings."*
On the evening when the drought eased, the corn seedlings in the terraced fields finally straightened their backs, with water droplets hanging on their leaf tips like strings of Feicui. The village chief held a newly harvested yam and walked into the Medicine Cottage, only to find Zhang Yifan lying on the ground teasing crickets, with seven pottery bowls placed in front of him, marked at the bottom with "Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth, Sun, Moon".
"What mischief is the little immortal stirring up now?" The village chief smiled and handed over the yam, only to see the young boy gently poke a cricket's antennae with a thin grass stem, and the insect obediently hopped into the bowl marked "Water".
Without raising his head, Zhang Yifan said, "I'm distributing medicinal insects to the hunters. Look at this 'fire-backed spider'—it exclusively eats pests on Sichuan pepper leaves, so it should be given to Old Wang who grows peppers; that 'earth mole cricket' is skilled at loosening soil, which will be just right to help Uncle Li with his medicine field."
When the moon rose to the treetops, Zhang Xuanzhen sat on a millstone smoking his dry tobacco, watching his disciple squat by the stone roller recording the *Classic of Hundred Insects*. As the tip of his brush slid past *"Pine needle insects must hide by the First Frost; they can be used as winter snow warnings"*, the old man suddenly spoke: "Yifan, what is the Dao?"
The boy's brush paused as he gazed at the flickering firewood in the stove. "Master boiling medicine is the Dao, Huwa stealing peaches is the Dao, even the mountain spring in the bamboo tubes and the dew on the grass leaves are all the Dao." He suddenly turned his head, his eyes reflecting the light of the stove fire. "Zhuangzi said 'the Dao is in ants and in weeds'. The other day I saw ants moving a locust, and they actually knew how to take turns bearing the weight. Isn't this the exact same principle as 'many hands make light work'?"
The Old Daoist suddenly choked on a puff of smoke, coughing as he laughed and scolded: "Such a slick tongue! Turning *Zhuangzi* into ants moving house is quite apt, though." He looked at the bamboo tubes swaying in the wind outside the Medicine Cottage, thinking of his disciple's improved irrigation method, which unmistakably echoed the "Kan Hexagram" from the *Book of Changes*—water flows to the low places, yet can nourish the high fields, just as this child always loved to see the great Dao in the minute details.
That night, Zhang Yifan lay by the windowsill drawing the hundred insects. Xiaoxiu barged in holding a newly sewn cloth doll, and upon seeing the "Spring-Guiding Insect" in his drawing with the eyes of a Wooden Ox and Gliding Horse, she couldn't help laughing out loud: "Brother Fan is acting up again, when would an insect roll its eyes?"
The boy blinked. "That's the only way to scare away the mountain thrushes that steal water! Tomorrow you go tell Huwa to carve some ghost faces on the bamboo tubes; I guarantee it will work better than my drawing."
Outside the window, the mountain spring in the bamboo tubes chimed musically, as if responding to the tip of the boy's brush. The summer night in Cyan Ox Village was never quiet. The chirping of insects, the croaking of frogs, and the flowing water of the bamboo tubes intertwined into a melody, yet it was more reassuring than any Daoist scripture. Looking through the window paper at his disciple's swaying silhouette, Zhang Xuanzhen suddenly understood that the so-called "Dao" was never some profound discourse residing high in the clouds. Rather, it was like the mountain spring here, flowing through ravines, chiming in rock crevices, and ultimately converging into a living source of water that brought vitality to the entire village.
As the first dewdrop fell upon the title page of the *Classic of Hundred Insects*, Zhang Yifan suddenly heard Huwa's startled cry from afar: "Brother Fan! Your 'water dragon' has been bitten through by a squirrel!"
The boy dropped his brush and ran out, his robe's hem brushing away the counting rods on the table, but he turned back at the threshold to smile at his master: "Look, this is the Dao—even a squirrel knows it should help us punch an air vent in the bamboo tube!"
The Old Daoist watched his figure disappear into the morning mist, the fire in his pipe bowl glowing fitfully. Perhaps this was the "Dao" he had always been waiting for—sprouting in the dry fields, awakening in the insect songs, and gradually unfolding its own trajectory in the boy's mischievous smile.