The years passed quietly in the mountains. Day after day, year after year, people rose to work at sunrise and rested at sunset. Seeds sown in spring yielded a harvest in autumn. In summer the hills rang with birdsong, cicadas, and insects; in winter there was only the whisper of snow and the hush of sleeping things. It was as though nothing had changed in a thousand years.
In July, gardenias bloomed all over the hillsides, spreading along both sides of the mountain paths like drifting snow. Their clear, lively fragrance filled the air, seeming to flow into one’s head with the blood and return to the forest on a breath of warm air.
A barefoot youth walked toward the shrine halfway up the mountain, treading on fallen gardenia petals. His skin was dark, and his eyes were clear and bright. Water dripped from the medium-sized watermelon in his hands, splashing onto his bronze thighs below his shorts, running down the firm muscles of his long legs to his ankles, and seeping into the soil.
The mountain god, dressed in an emerald robe, leaned before the shrine and gazed motionlessly into the depths of the forest. In his long silence and stillness, he seemed to blend with the endless green mountains and clear waters behind him, becoming a beautiful yet illusory painting hanging far away in a void no one could ever touch.
Then he heard the youth’s footsteps and turned. The stiff corners of his cool, impassive mouth lifted a little. Almost at once, the painting of mountain scenery and divinity came alive. He emerged from the unbroken green background, a gentle, peaceful smile spreading across his face.
The youth hurried over holding the watermelon, stopped before him, and simply grinned foolishly.
The mountain god smiled back, looked at the deep-red flesh of the melon, and opened his mouth. All the poetry of green mountains and running waters promptly vanished. “Did you chill it? It’s only good when it’s cold.”
“I did!” the youth answered loudly. He broke apart the watermelon, which had already been sliced but left joined at the rind, and handed a large piece to the mountain god.
It was wonderfully cold, having spent a long time submerged in the well.
Dahe sat beside the mountain god on the big rock, holding the rest of the watermelon. He did not eat. He only watched the god with a silly smile. The mountain god had eyes for nothing but the dripping, juicy fruit. With practiced hands, he split a long slice down the middle, gracefully ate its sweetest center, and flicked out his tongue to lick the juice from the corner of his lips.
He spat the seeds into the red cloth, turned to Dahe, and asked, “Silly boy, what are you grinning about?”
Dahe lowered his head in embarrassment, still smiling. He set most of the remaining watermelon aside and went back to weaving a palm-sized rabbit from bamboo leaves.
As he grew older, he spoke less and less. Unlike the little boy who had once clung to the mountain god with wide eyes and endless questions, he now usually brought something tasty up the mountain, sat quietly beside him, and wove his bamboo creations. Sometimes he would look up, see the god eating so elegantly, and smile.
After polishing off a whole slice of watermelon with great satisfaction, the mountain god asked, “What have you learned at school these past few days?”
Dahe clutched his unfinished bamboo rabbit and admitted sheepishly, “I don’t know.”
The mountain god regarded him with amusement.
“I can’t understand it.” Dahe scratched the back of his head awkwardly with one long rabbit ear. He really did try, but never seemed to improve. As the years passed, he fell further behind his clever, studious classmates.
“The teacher made me copy the lesson ten times yesterday,” he said apologetically, “so I couldn’t come last night.”
Then he added in a rush, “But I put the watermelon in the well last night!”
Raising an eyebrow, the mountain god declared with a perfectly solemn expression, “Silly boy, do you think I care about your little watermelon?” As he spoke, he drew the remaining half toward himself.
Dahe smiled without the slightest objection to this possessive treatment of the food. He lowered his head and resumed weaving his little rabbit.
“What’s that?” asked the mountain god.
“A rabbit.”
“For me?” the mountain god asked, as usual.
“For Xiuxiu,” Dahe answered honestly.
Even as a child, Dahe had often made bamboo grasshoppers, mantises, and other toys for the village children, so the mountain god was not surprised that this offering was not his. He broke off another piece of watermelon, took a bite of its red center, and watched Dahe’s thick, long fingers deftly work the leaves.
Dahe had just turned fifteen. He ate heartily and worked hard, and had shot up so quickly that he was almost as tall as the mountain god. Only when the youth lowered his head could the god see the dark nape of his neck.
“What’s that?” the mountain god suddenly asked again.
Dahe looked up in confusion, followed his gaze, and reached back to touch his neck. Then he gave a sudden cry of recognition. A small cut there had already scabbed over.
“I fell out of a tree the day before yesterday and scraped it on a rock,” he answered honestly, unaware that a slightly larger or sharper rock might have cost him his life.
The mountain god frowned almost imperceptibly, but his expression returned to its usual serene calm in the blink of an eye. He reached out to rub the youth’s now coarse hair, as he always did. “What were you climbing trees for? Do watermelons grow on them?”
Dahe scratched his head again, embarrassed. “Xiuxiu kicked her feather shuttlecock up a tree. I climbed up to get it down for her.”
“Silly boy,” the mountain god sighed, “couldn’t you have knocked it down with a bamboo pole?”
“Ah! Of course!” Dahe exclaimed, suddenly enlightened.
The mountain god gave his foolish forehead a light tap and was about to lecture him. “Next time… What’s that on your arm now?”
There was a red, swollen patch on Dahe’s arm as well.
“I was struck while carrying books,” Dahe said.
“At school?” the mountain god asked.
“Mm.” Dahe nodded.
“Did the teacher make you carry them?”
Dahe scratched his head. “Xiuxiu asked me to. She’s the class study monitor.”
The mountain god arched an eyebrow and fell silent for a moment, torn between amusement and exasperation, as he stroked Dahe’s coarse hair. Like a young bamboo shoot after rain, the boy had shot up almost unnoticed. His thin, pointed childhood face had grown into stronger contours, with thick brows, large eyes, and regular, open features, the sort of face that made people feel at ease, safe, and able to rely on him.
“Does Xiuxiu often ask you for help?” he asked, rubbing Dahe’s head.
“Mm.”
“Do you offer to help her, or does she ask you?”
Dahe thought very hard. “Both.”
The mountain god laughed, tousled his hair, and said with extra emphasis, “Silly boy!”
Dahe tilted his head in confusion, unable to understand why the god had called him that. He was tall and sturdy, so the girls at school often asked him to help with this and that. Xiuxiu, being especially familiar with him, called on him even more often. He had never complained. It seemed only natural: the girls were all small and couldn’t do much heavy work.
The mountain god was about to explain further while rubbing his head when he suddenly looked up toward the mountain path.
Dahe followed his gaze and saw Xiuxiu coming along the path in the distance, her hair in two pigtails. She wore a faded blue cloth top and had rolled up her trouser legs, showing calves much fairer than Dahe’s. In her hand she held a gardenia she had picked along the way.
When Dahe turned back, the mountain god had vanished. Only Dahe and the watermelon remained on the big rock.
Xiuxiu stopped some distance away and looked carefully around the shrine. Everywhere was green, flecked with the white of gardenias, while cicadas and birds sang deep in the trees. It was a simple, vivid picture. The little mud-brick shrine was neat and clean, and its altar held an assortment of bamboo grasshoppers and mantises, along with a few palm-sized bamboo chickens and ducks. Lately Dahe had taken to weaving little animals.
She looked from afar and thought the place had changed very little since the day, when they were children, that Third Aunt had accused Dahe of stealing. Nor was it as lonely or frightening as she and the other children had imagined.
She was still trying to get used to the place and learn to like it when Dahe jumped down from the rock and came toward her. The tall youth looked down at the crown of her head in genuine surprise. “Xiuxiu, what are you doing here?”
“I was looking everywhere for you. You weren’t at the village entrance, so I came to find you here,” Xiuxiu said softly. Since her father’s death, she had always spoken in that quiet, gentle voice, as though worn down and fragile.
That was not quite true. She had not searched anywhere. After hesitating for a long time, she had come straight here. Everyone in the village knew where Dahe went whenever he was free from farm work. She hardly needed to look.
Then her sharp eyes spotted the watermelon broken into pieces on the big rock. “So this is where you’ve been hiding to eat watermelon!”
An embarrassed look crossed Dahe’s dark face. He scratched his head awkwardly and murmured agreement, glancing around to make sure the mountain god really had disappeared.
Xiuxiu went straight to the rock. Since they knew each other so well, she simply picked up a piece of watermelon and took a bite. “You chilled it.”
Dahe had hurried after her, wanting to stop her, but he could not think of any reason to. In the blink of an eye, he could only watch helplessly as she took a bite of the mountain god’s watermelon. He cried out inwardly and cast a guilty glance into the depths of the forest.
Never before had anyone taken a bite out of food that belonged to the mountain god! This was a god so stingy with his treats that he would tuck even half a leftover sweet potato into his sleeve.
Still munching on the watermelon, Xiuxiu asked, “Have you finished my rabbit?” She had asked Dahe for a little rabbit on Monday, but he had said he had never woven one and would have to try. He had been trying all week.
Dahe looked down at the little rabbit, which he had squeezed rather out of shape, and pinched it back into place before showing her. “Half finished.”
Xiuxiu looked at it and smiled broadly, finding its long ears adorable and wonderfully lifelike. She was a pretty, fresh-faced girl, and when she smiled there was a touch of shyness and budding beauty about her. Unfortunately, a watermelon seed clung to the corner of her mouth like an unsightly matchmaker’s mole.
Her smile made Dahe’s face warm. He also felt that this was a little place belonging to him and the mountain god, and that someone else coming here was an intrusion. He did not know whether the god would be pleased. Without understanding why, he instinctively wanted to take Xiuxiu away as quickly as he could.
“Did you need something from me?” he asked.
Xiuxiu lifted her face and answered softly, “I left my pencil at school, so I can’t do my homework. Will you come with me to get it?”
“Ah!” Dahe exclaimed in genuine dismay, then offered generously, “I’ve got a pencil. You can borrow mine!”
Xiuxiu shook her head, displeased. “I want my own pencil. My mother bought it in town, and it’s prettier than yours. I won’t do my homework without it.”
Dahe’s straightforward mind could not work out why she would refuse to do homework without that particular pencil. But the class study monitor, who ranked first in their class, not doing her homework was a serious matter. And she had invited him along. So he could only agree. “All right. I’ll go get it with you.”
Xiuxiu reached for another piece of watermelon. Following behind her, Dahe felt more and more distressed on the mountain god’s behalf. Once she had taken a slice, he carefully arranged the two remaining pieces side by side on the rock.
“Why aren’t you eating any?” Xiuxiu asked.
“It’s for the mountain god,” Dahe replied.
Xiuxiu gave an unconcerned hum. She was used to his strange, god-obsessed ways, and knew his other good qualities far outweighed this eccentricity. She no longer considered it a flaw.
After a couple of steps, she reflected that she had finally found the courage to come to this place. Leaving without taking home another trophy would almost make the visit a waste. So she went back to the altar, fiddled with a bamboo mantis, and said, “Give me this one.”
Without waiting for an answer, she took away the father mantis Dahe had woven earlier that year.
Dahe hurried two steps after her, feeling worse than ever. “That belongs to the mountain god.”
“You can make another one,” Xiuxiu said. She felt quite strongly that it was her responsibility to draw Dahe away from this peculiar little shrine and help him become a little more normal.
Dahe followed her down the mountain, keeping his eyes on the father mantis in her hand. He wanted to snatch it back, but he had grown up with Xiuxiu, knew her so well, and had always cared for and helped her. He could not bring himself to grab it.
While he wavered, they had already gone a long way. He looked back. The lonely little shrine still stood in the forest, with not a glimpse of emerald robe in sight.
The next day was Sunday, so there was still no school. Dahe got up early, saved his breakfast sweet potato, and hurried to the shrine. The mountain god was waiting there as usual, but he no longer opened his sleeves to catch Dahe in his arms as he had done years earlier. Now that Dahe was as tall as the god, rushing into his embrace would bring them awkwardly face to face.
Dahe presented his piping-hot sweet potato like a treasured gift. The mountain god felt its warmth, nodded in evident approval, leaned lazily against the shrine roof, and began peeling it with slow, practiced elegance.
Dahe squatted beside him and continued weaving bamboo leaves, but he was not making yesterday’s rabbit.
The mountain god glanced at it absentmindedly. “What’s that?”
“The father mantis.”
“Don’t I already have one?”
“Xiuxiu took it.” Dahe scratched his head apologetically.
The mountain god smiled and rubbed his head. “Silly boy, it existed once. That’s enough.”
Dahe couldn’t understand that reasoning, just as he couldn’t understand so many of the mountain’s rules that the god had explained before. But he always listened to the mountain god, so he reluctantly gave up making the father mantis and went back to his little rabbit.
The mountain god toyed with the remaining mother and baby mantises, then resumed the hints he had been dropping the day before. “Is Xiuxiu nice?” he asked teasingly.
Dahe didn’t understand what he was getting at. “Of course,” he said bluntly.
“What did the two of you do yesterday?”
“Fetched a pencil,” Dahe answered.
“And then?”
“Then we went home,” Dahe said simply.
He lowered his head in embarrassment. “I wanted to hide another watermelon in the well for you, but Third Aunt made me grind soybeans. A whole sack. I didn’t finish until very late.”
“Silly boy, do you think I care about your little watermelon?” the mountain god declared righteously. “You should have put two in the well the night before last.”
“Ah! Of course!” Dahe was suddenly enlightened.
Seeing the conversation veering off course, the mountain god calmly steered it back. “Didn’t she say anything to you?”
“Huh? Say what?” Dahe still looked blank. He thought for a moment. Of course Xiuxiu had said plenty of things while they walked yesterday, but he couldn’t see how to repeat all of them to the mountain god.
So he could only begin honestly at the beginning. “She said her mother bought that pencil in town. She had three to start with, but she used up two, and now there’s only one left…”
The mountain god sighed. Looking at this slow, guileless child, he knew Dahe would never guess what might be on the girl’s mind. So he asked him outright, “Do you like her?”
Dahe was more bewildered than ever. “Huh?”
“Do you like her?” The mountain god tugged at his cheek.
“What kind of like?” Dahe asked blankly.
“Goodness…” The god of the mountains had rarely felt inclined to meddle in the affairs of the mortal world, and on this occasion he had landed himself with an utterly clueless boy. Out in the forest, a buck rabbit met a doe, a male wolf met a female wolf, a father mantis met a mother mantis, and it was simply a matter of taking a fancy to each other. Why, when it came to this silly boy, did everything have to be explained in even simpler terms?
“Well… are you happy when you see her?”
Dahe thought about it and nodded. He and Xiuxiu had played together since childhood and were such familiar friends. Of course he was happy to see her.
“Is she good to you? Do you want to be good to her?”
Dahe thought again. Xiuxiu had often shared sweets with him when they were little, letting him bring them to the mountain god, so she was certainly very good to him. And he had cared about Xiuxiu since they were children, so he had always treated her well, too. He nodded again.
“Do you think she’s pretty?”
Dahe thought hard for another moment. Holding the mother mantis, the mountain god looked pleased with himself, ready to declare decisively, the moment the boy nodded, See? That means you like her.
Instead Dahe answered with perfect honesty, “I think you’re pretty.”
This time it was the mountain god who froze.
Dahe waited a long while without hearing another word. He looked up and saw the god’s smile had vanished, leaving a cool expression. Suddenly flustered and unable to explain himself, he hurried to insist, “It’s true. Really. I’m not lying…”
The mountain god smiled gently, as though that momentary coldness had been nothing but a mask. He tugged Dahe’s cheek as usual and declared with great pride and not a hint of modesty, “Silly boy, I’m a god. Of course I’m better-looking than you mortals.”