Taoist

"How long have we been among these mountains?" asked the General.

"Almost three years, or one thousand days to be exact," replied the Counselor.

"How? How do you do that? You count and remember it in your mind?" The General was surprised by his answer.

The Counselor pulled out a thin stick, about half a meter long, and showed it to the General closely.

"See? I made a mark every day on it with my dagger. One mark means one day, and one stick has one hundred marks on it. I have ten sticks now."

"You made your mark today?"

"Yes. In the morning. So, today is the one-thousandth day exactly."

The two of them were taking a walk after their breakfast, relaxed and easy, who, seemingly, had already accepted and gotten used to the life among the mountains, where you could never get starved because you always found something to feed yourself: fruits on the trees, bugs underground, fishes in the rivers, or birds in the nests, plants edible everywhere, and sometimes animals like boars, hares and so on. But if you found anything strange, you should keep away from them; the further, the better. If they came to you, you ran; the faster, the better. That was what they learned and was also the key point to survival.

They were walking through a grove of pine trees, but far away from any path. Pine needles covered their feet, and the sky above was blue as if dyed there. There was no wind, and they felt warm all over. "We must celebrate this day with our people," said the General. "They should know how many days we've lived through among these hills."

'Would we go across the mountains to the coast as we planned? When would we get out of here? Was I going to die among the mountains? If so, in which way would I die?'—that was what the General thought every day before. But now, he was calm and delightful after he accepted what it was as it was: since you could not control it, you just accepted it.—as the Counselor said. He even laughed at himself sometimes when he recalled those days when he used to plan everything very carefully, making lists of things to do, planning for the future, and even having a chart on his wall in his office to show him the route. It seemed absurd now. Everything was as it was—it could only be like this, and nothing more. And he realized that he had become an ordinary man again, like anyone else. He had lost the power to rule his own life; he had let the mountain control him. If he wanted to live here, then the mountains ruled him, and if he wanted to return to the world, he had to leave the mountains, which meant returning to the world without having accomplished anything of value just like a mediocre person. His wife would think she'd married someone extraordinary, and his children might consider themselves lucky, while he would feel ashamed for being such a fool.

He stopped suddenly under the shade of some big pines and looked up into the branches overhead, and saw a bird's nest hanging there. A few leaves hung down from its sides, and the whole thing swung gently between the tree trunks. As soon as he noticed it, another one appeared nearby too. Then others joined them until several dozen tiny twigs were suspended in midair, each one carrying a single leaf. They swayed slowly back and forth but didn't fall off. He stood watching the swaying green stems, and finally decided to climb up the nearest trunk and sit upon it.

"You need help to climb up, my brother? Great view up here!" the General shouted towards the counselor, who was chewing some kind of leaves in his mouth, leaning back against the tree.

"No, I'm fine." The Counselor refused.

General laughed out loud at his cowardice, which was altogether ignored by Counselor.

All of a sudden, the General was quiet, so quiet that the Counselor looked up towards him and asked, "What's going on, General?"

The General didn't answer. He suddenly stood up on the big branch, one hand above his eyes shading sunshine, one hand grasping the twig aside, tiptoeing, stretching his neck as high as possible to dodge the leaves that blocked his sight.

"Is that...a person?" he said.

Surely it was, someone was fishing beside a river with a bamboo hat and grey robe.

Two of them ran fast toward that person and did not stop even though they were panting heavily.

Until they got close to that figure and made sure it was a person, they stopped to catch their breath while the old man fishing was so concentrating on what he was doing that he did not turn his head though he must have heard them.

For almost three years, they finally saw a person that they did not know. A stranger meant the possibility to get out here, for he who could get in might know the way to get out, and that raised their hopes.

"So, finally you arrived on time!" said the fishing man, before they opened their mouths.

"Pardon, Sir?" said the General.

"I determined to wait for you for one thousand days and I am leaving tomorrow, so you are on time."

"I don't know what you are talking about, but Sir, I need your help. Do you know the way out of the mountains?" General panted.

"You did not listen to me. I am leaving tomorrow. If I do not know the way, how would I leave?" The man didn't move a little bit.

"I still do not understand, but whatever. Can you please show me the way out?" the General asked again.

The man put his fishing rod aside, took off his bamboo hat, and stood up. His long hair and beard were snow-white, which meant he was old, but his face and skin were like the ones of a ten-year-old.

"I need you two to take a seat and calm yourselves down because you two are not in good condition to talk with." He pointed at the rock behind them with his hand.

The General and the Counselor looked at each other, then walked to that rock and seated themselves.

"Sir, you said you are leaving tomorrow, so can we follow you?" The General could not hold himself for one more second. Since he could not get an answer, he changed his question.

"No. You can not."

"Why?" The General was a little anxious.

"Because I am going to fly out of the mountains."

"What? Are you kidding me? How..."

Before the General finished his words, a big white bird landed on a big rock behind the old man from the sky, not a bird exactly but the beast with a human face they saw in the forest before.

Both the General and the Counselor stood up and stepped back behind the stone, unconsciously, in shock.

"Don't worry! He won't hurt you!" The old man waved his hand, and that "bird" flew away like he understood the old man's suggestion. "He will fly me out of here. Since he can't carry three people, you can not follow me."

Two of them stepped forward from behind the rock, with a thousand questions stirring up in their heads.

"Are you a human being, or a god, or a ghost or something?" While the Counselor kept watching and listening, the General couldn't help but ask out.

"I am a person, or you can call me Taoist."

"What is that? Is it your name?"

"No. I am about to leave here to create a religion in the mortal world, Taoism. Any believer in the religion is called a Taoist. I am the first Taoist, and that "bird", whatever you call him, is my first disciple."

"What is Taoism?" The curiosity of the General toward this man drowned out his desire to get out of the mountains.

"Tao is the nature, the way how the world goes on, the sun on the day and the moon on the night, the sky up and the ground down, the cloud floating and the rain dropping, the man as a father and the woman as a mother, the mountains steady and the rivers flowing, the body visible and the soul unseeable, the birth of a young and the death of an old, the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, the kind and the evil, the peace and the war, the Yin and the Yang."

It seemed that the man knew everything and you could get satisfied with any questions you brought up, which aroused more curiosity inside General.

This old man was calm all the time and spoke very slowly, so you had to be patient to let him finish.

"So, why do you want to create this religion?" After the General asked out another question, the Counselor pulled his sleeve slightly. He looked at the Counselor and found him winking at him, which meant "Ask the question about how to get out."

The General was like awakened from a dream, and he nodded. Since this question had been asked out, he would have to wait for the next one.

"The mortal world is going down, and people living inside it are suffering. I feel responsible for saving them." The old man walked back and forth in front of them, crossing his arms behind his back.

"Very remarkable! Very impressive! Very respectable! I mean your religion, your kindness to save the world!" The General scratched his head and seemed a little shy to ask the question. "But can you tell me how to walk out of the mountains? Again?"

"Sure! But before that, you two have to hear me out very carefully. I can and only can answer three questions of your own concerns, which means you could ask me about anything concerning yourselves like your desire, future, fate, and so on. But remember, you only have three chances."

"Anything?" asked the Counselor, looking at the General.

"Yes, anything. Everything you want me to tell, I'll know it," said the old man.

"But why three instead of two or four?" Counselor asked.

"That's the difference between your race and mine: you people speak or act following your desire, emotion, purpose, subconsciousness, unconsciousness, and more the like, while every word I speak or every action I take is based on calculation."

"What calculation." The counselor was deeply attracted by the old man's talk.

"Calculation on fatalism, nature, predestination, the mystery of heaven, the desire of God, the law of cause and effect, the law of the operation of all things in heaven and earth, and the harmony of Yin and Yang. Whether you understand, to ask three questions is your fate, and to answer your three questions is mine. Of course, you can give up the chances and find out the answers all by yourselves. You are totally free."

"No, no, no. We have questions." The General, opposite of the Counselor, was so bored with his talking for a long time. Actually, he was kind of angry at the counselor, who was wasting time asking nonsense, also he had to wait for the old man to finish his words since he talked at a very slow pace.

Before the General could open his mouth again, the Counselor pulled on his clothes and suggested the General follow him to a distance where the old man couldn't hear what they discussed about.

"Do you believe him?" the Counselor whispered.

"I don't know, but we can give it a try, I guess. Anyway, we've got nothing to lose."

"I think we can trust him. Even though I don't know who or what he is, he seems to talk sense and he knows what he is talking about, "said the Counselor.

"Let's do it then." The General turned around and walked toward the old man, and he couldn't wait another second.

The counselor dragged the General back by his arm, and whispered, "Hold on a second! Let me finish! He said we can only ask three questions of our concern."

"It is enough for me. I only need one answer--how to get out here?"

"Really? Think about it again! We've got three questions to ask, about everything! Anything!"