Near the end of summer, a tall, thin young man in glasses and a rumpled shirt appeared, with a cameraman lugging a long telephoto lens behind him. Around noon, they intercepted Dahe on the path up the mountain. He had just finished helping Third Uncle in the fields and was climbing with his carrying basket and stall frame on his back.
“Mr. Chen Dahe, is that right?” the young man asked, eagerly offering his hand.
Dahe looked utterly lost. Only after rubbing the dirt from his hand against his trousers a couple of times did he take the stranger’s hand in a firm shake. He led the two visitors up the slope, watching in bewilderment as the young man’s lips kept moving, words tumbling out in an endless rush.
Apparently, the girls who had visited the previous month really had posted photographs of Dahe, his bamboo creations, and the little shrine with its moving story on the Goupu forum. They had even given him a nickname: the Bamboo Grove Guy. Within three days, the upright, unpretentious mountain craftsman and his intricate bamboo weaving had become an online sensation, drawing hundreds of thousands of views. Officials in charge of cultural publicity in the county and provincial capital saw a chance to promote local scenery and tourism. They planned a series of television and online features, including an interview with the Bamboo Grove Guy and another with a country girl, to attract visitors to the surrounding attractions. So they sent an accomplished provincial reporter named Gao and a cameraman to take some pictures of Dahe and have a chat with him.
Dahe was a quiet, withdrawn fellow who almost never ventured beyond the mountains, even less inclined to go out than the mountain god. Tourists came and went every day, but very little news from the outside world lodged in his mind. He could not make sense of the young man’s talk of forums and publicity. In the end he boiled the entire explanation down to one thing: the visitors wanted to speak with him, and something would be written for a newspaper.
Reporter Gao was both experienced and conscientious. Though sweat poured from him in the heat, he kept the conversation going with practiced eloquence. A reporter was supposed to listen more than he spoke, but Dahe gave scarcely one reply to every ten things Gao said and seemed reluctant to revisit his past. Gao had no choice but to draw on all his skill, determined to uncover more of the silent Bamboo Grove Guy’s life and shape it into a stirring tale: a poor mountain youth’s hardships, his resilience, and his connection to the little shrine and beautiful mountain.
The mountain god drifted down like a ghost and perched on Dahe’s stall, tearing open a packet of potato chips. He watched this determined young “famous courtesan” chatter away, trying one approach after another to coax stories from Dahe. The god knew Reporter Gao meant no harm. The young man clearly sympathized with Dahe’s past and admired his strength and calm. Yet his probing was like tearing open an old wound layer by layer. Dahe grew ever quieter, and when Gao asked about his wife and child, his eyes suddenly reddened. The mountain god raised one hand and summoned a gust of wind.
The wind struck with a roar, nearly knocking the tall cameraman off his feet. The camera on his shoulder almost crashed to the ground, but Gao turned quickly enough to catch and steady it. All three men scrambled: the visitors tried to secure their equipment, while Dahe held down the bamboo butterflies the wind had set fluttering across his stall.
With both hands pinning down a line of butterflies and two rabbits, Dahe looked toward the mountain god’s shrine through the sudden gale, bewildered yet faintly as though he understood something.
What are you looking over there for? the mountain god thought, waving a potato chip between two fingers in front of Dahe. I’m right here, silly boy.
“It looks as if rain’s coming,” Reporter Gao said regretfully, glancing at the sky and then turning toward the cameraman. “We’d better get back to the county. The car’s waiting at the foot of the mountain.”
The wind eased almost as soon as he said it.
Seeing the gusts weaken, Gao decided that he had asked about everything he needed to. After a few more polite words with Dahe, he took out a large camera to capture some photographs for the report. He first photographed Dahe with his bamboo stall, then asked him to pose beside the mountain god’s shrine.
Dahe was terribly shy. His eyes were still faintly red from having remembered the past, and now a blush spread over his face too. Obediently, he crouched beside the little shrine, glanced at the god’s statue half-hidden beneath its red cloth, and laid a hand on the shrine roof. It felt like a wedding photograph. With the newspaper as their witness, the two of them were together.
The mountain god floated above the shrine roof and looked down at Dahe’s hand, which was trembling slightly with excitement. He could not work out what these people were doing with that little box.
Visitors often came to his shrine with iron boxes of all sizes and colors, pointing them at him and making one click after another.
The girls who had come the month before had pointed black boxes at Dahe too, then insisted on standing so close to him.
As soon as the camera clicked, Dahe went up to Gao, painfully embarrassed, and made his first request since meeting him. “Could I have a copy of that photograph?”
“Of course!” Gao answered readily. “I’ll email it to you when I get back.”
Dahe stared blankly, plainly not understanding. Gao caught himself at once. “Oh, I’m sorry! I’ll have it printed and send it to you by post. I’ll mail it to you!”
That very evening the mountain god had Dahe pinned to the big rock. “What does that box do? What’s a ‘zhaopian’? And why are you wearing that wicked grin, you little rascal? You really have learned bad habits!”
Dahe was quite certain he was smiling as honestly and innocently as ever. He rubbed his face in embarrassment, but could not stop chuckling. “A photograph. A picture of the two of us. When it comes in the mail, I’ll show you.”
With his arms wrapped around the mountain god’s waist and back, he tried to explain what taking a photograph meant. But the god soon confused him with more questions than he could answer. Dahe himself did not know how a camera could make a perfectly faithful image with a single click. By the time he first learned what cameras and photographs were, that was simply what they did.
“Could it be a form of alchemy?” the mountain god murmured. Then he gripped Dahe’s shoulders and gave them a shake. “That little picture you gave me years ago, the one of your daughter, was that a ‘zhaopian’ too?”
“Then do you have a ‘xiangji’?” Curious about every unfamiliar thing, the immortal added, “Bring one for me to examine.”
Dahe nodded, but after thinking it over, said, “It might have to wait until next year. Would that be all right? Third Uncle isn’t well, and my younger brother hasn’t finished school. I want to give them the money I earn first.”
“Is it very expensive?” the god asked.
Dahe nodded plainly. Much dearer than cigarettes.
“Then don’t buy one.” The mountain god waved the matter aside. So many tourists seemed to have a camera of their own that he had assumed they must be scattered all over the world outside.
Dahe rolled over with the god in his arms, pressed their noses together, and said earnestly, “I’ll get you one.”
“There’s no need.” The immortal stroked Dahe’s hair, newly cut so short it pricked his fingers slightly. As Dahe kissed him softly, the god murmured indistinctly, “Having you is enough…”
Dahe cupped the god’s face in his hands and kissed him properly.
The two of them passed their days in the mountains without much thought for time. Neither seemed to know how embarrassingly sentimental they were. Words as plain as “I like you” and “You like me” would never come easily to them, yet tender little things slipped out quite naturally. They hugged and leaned against each other, trading one affectionate remark after another, until another day had passed.
As for Reporter Gao, he was so swamped with official duties after his return that he kept putting off sending the photographs, and eventually forgot about them altogether. Nor did Dahe ever manage to save enough to buy a camera. But that is a story for another time.
There was one more thing to tell before this brief account was done, and it concerned that business of “moving a little.”
The immortal was an easygoing sort of god. Ever since Dahe had pinned him down and planted a solid kiss squarely on his lips, he had promptly worked out the question that had so troubled him when he saw that black-furred little beast pinning down the wildcat.
Where the heart led, desire followed: that was the way of the mountains. And when two hearts returned each other’s affection, wanting to be physically close was also part of the way of the world.
There was, in truth, nothing wrong with the two of them being like this. Once he thought it through, the mountain god felt at peace.
Of course, just because he had reached that understanding did not mean the old fellows up in the Ninth Heaven would. Gods and mortals were supposed to walk different paths. Even the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl had to cross on the backs of birds to meet.
Years ago, however, heavenly thunder had struck him. Out of selfishness and a moment’s hesitation, he had shortened the black wolf’s life and extended Dahe’s, startling both the underworld and the heavenly court. As the god of a mountain, he had presumed to change the course of fate and bent the rules for someone he favored, so naturally he had brought Heaven’s wrath upon himself. Now, though, he was merely meeting Dahe in dreams and sharing moments of intimacy with him. They were in nobody’s way and disturbed no one. With all the countless mountains and rivers under heaven, who would notice the brief secret meetings of one little god and one ordinary human in one little mountain?
With that burrowing-mole way of thinking, the immortal felt even more reassured.
Yet being at ease was one thing. When their mutual affection grew too strong to contain, fresh questions arose that he could not make sense of.
Dahe was, as people outside the mountains would put it, an old virgin.
The mountain god, in the language of earlier days, was a man with no experience of such matters. And he had several hundred years on Dahe.
Put the two together, and there was a great deal neither of them could fathom.
“C-can I?” Dahe asked. His hand was already inside the cool robe, yet his face was bright red and he was still stammering over the question.
The god’s one remaining handsome half of a face flushed even redder than Dahe’s, and he was almost angry with embarrassment. He lightly smacked Dahe on the forehead. Did Dahe expect him to say outright, Yes, go ahead, touch wherever you like?
Dahe meekly accepted the smack. Though he had received no answer in words, instinct told him the answer was yes. Following the motion of the blow, he tucked his burning face into the hollow of the god’s neck.
His lips met skin that was cool and smooth as water, as fine as silk. Only the slight trembling beneath it made the god seem alive. The skin was so pale it was nearly translucent, like unblemished snow covering the mountains in winter, too beautiful to look at for long. Without anyone teaching him, Dahe began gently kissing and sucking at the god’s neck and shoulders, while his broad, rough, warm hand ventured farther inside the robe. He really had taken the god’s silence as permission to touch as he liked.
But partway through, the immortal suddenly gave a startled cry.
“Y-you’re touching there…” When that vulnerable place was suddenly enclosed in the warmth of Dahe’s palm, even the god’s voice began to tremble.
Dahe raised his flushed face and asked with innocent curiosity, “Didn’t you ever touch yourself?”
The mountain god turned his head away and hid his face in his wide sleeve, almost too embarrassed to think back. Touch himself? Of course he had, when he was still a scholar centuries ago. He had never married, but he had certainly done that. Who could remember it clearly after hundreds of years? Since becoming an immortal, he had lived without worldly desires. Surely merely seeing a rabbit pinning down a wildcat could not have set his passions ablaze!
Then his embarrassment turned to indignation. He flung aside his sleeve and lifted his head. “Do you do that to yourself often, then?”
Dahe went scarlet and replied with his usual frankness, “Mm.”
Mm, my foot! the immortal nearly blurted out.
Still just as candid, Dahe went on explaining that “mm.” “I didn’t understand it before. Sometimes, when I thought of you, it would get hard, so I tried pressing it down. It was awfully uncomfortable, and I couldn’t sleep. Later, when I was living in a workers’ dormitory in another province, I saw a man on the lower bunk doing it himself… I saw him, and that’s how I learned.”
Th-thinking about me! Even all that time ago, you already… You, you… The mountain god’s face seemed ready to burst with heat. His trembling hand delivered another slap to Dahe’s forehead, and he could hardly find words. The silly boy really had picked up plenty of bad habits out in the world!
Dahe looked both innocent and aggrieved as he went on touching him. “It’s not bad… And you’ve gone hard too…”
With a muffled groan, the immortal turned away and hid his face in his sleeve again.
Dahe’s dark face was rosy with embarrassment as he continued. With his other hand, he persistently pulled aside the sleeve to uncover the face that kept disappearing behind it, so he could kiss it.
Little by little their clothing slipped half off, and their bodies drew closer together. Beneath the robe the immortal began to make soft sounds. He trembled all over, finally finding release in Dahe’s hand. Still shivering and panting, he waited a long moment without feeling any movement, then cautiously lifted his face from the crook of his arm.
He was immediately silenced by a fierce kiss from Dahe, almost as forceful as an animal’s sudden pounce. After kissing him for some time, Dahe took the immortal’s hand in his own warm, rough palm and guided it downward. The god touched something hot and hard, and his face flamed again.
Dahe was equally red. The pair might have been competing to see which face could glow hotter, like coals in a brazier. Brushing his lips across the wounded half of the god’s cheek, Dahe whispered hoarsely between breaths, “Touch me…”
Touch you, my foot! the immortal thought. His cheeks burning, he moved his fingers stiffly while wrapping his free arm tight around Dahe’s neck.
Dahe lowered his face into the hollow of the god’s shoulder, breathing hard.
The warm palm surrounding the immortal’s hand was still damp from the god’s earlier release. The moisture slid along their joined hands and dripped onto Dahe’s heated skin.
Heaven would strike them with lightning for this. Once Dahe had again stopped his protests with a kiss, and they both found release in each other’s hands, the utterly exhausted god stared up at the clear blue sky he had conjured overhead and thought this in despair.
Dahe had only found release once. Young, healthy and full of energy, he was still excited, kissing the god’s neck with impatient tenderness. It seemed the silly boy knew only that one place to kiss. His arousal rubbed against the place where the god’s thighs had grown warm along with his own.
And he kept on rubbing and kissing, over and over, without doing anything else.
All at once the mountain god remembered Dahe when he was very small, gazing up with wide, innocent black eyes and asking, “Mountain God, what does ‘clouds and rain’ mean?”
“It’s when one lies on top of another and moves a little,” the god had answered vaguely back then, merely to put him off.
Heaven’s ways really do come full circle. This is retribution, the immortal thought, hiding his face behind his robe.
Unable to bear Dahe’s endless excited but fruitless movements any longer, the mountain god put his hands against Dahe’s shoulders, pushed him back a little, and asked, “Do you know what you’re supposed to do next?”
Dahe looked at him blankly and shook his head. “Like this?”
The immortal immediately decided that knowing when to stop was the wiser course. “Yes, that’s right. That’s all there is. It’s finished. Get dressed and go home.”
But Dahe, newly fond of asking questions, promptly asked, “What else do you have to do?”
Before the immortal could answer, Dahe lowered his blushing face and started seriously exploring on his own. “I know there’s supposed to be a bit more moving, but it doesn’t seem like this is how you’re meant to move…”
The mountain god, crimson with embarrassment, was about to stop this suddenly clever (or instinctive) silly boy when he felt the fingers accustomed to weaving bamboo leaves pass the sensitive place and press into another little hollow.
Startled, the immortal grabbed the robe beside him and instinctively tried to cover himself.
“Is it here?” Dahe asked, his huge black eyes wide with guileless curiosity. Though already a man in his twenties, he looked more than ever like a great village dog.
The mountain god tried to evade the question. “No…”
“You don’t know either?” Dahe asked in confusion. As a child, he had believed the mountain god knew everything. As he grew up, he had discovered that there were plenty of things the god did not know, but surely this was something the immortal understood better than he did. “Haven’t you ever seen animals in the mountains do this?”
Dahe himself had seen the big dogs in the village behave that way. He had never gone so far as to pull two dogs apart to see exactly where they joined, and those had been males with females, which might make things different. But after all this searching he could find only one such place.
The god slapped Dahe’s forehead again and snapped, angry with embarrassment, “I’m an immortal! Why should I learn from beasts?”
The instant the words left his mouth, however, he realized they were not fitting for an immortal. All living beings under heaven were equal. Speaking that way made it sound as though he despised animals.
So he fell silent. Dahe, his forehead pink from the slap, cuddled up to him like a great dog. His large, warm body covered the god’s, and every place where their skin touched seemed to burn. “Is it really here?” he asked.
The mountain god said nothing. Dahe hesitated, looked lost, then rubbed his cheek against the god’s. “Are you unhappy? Don’t you want to?”
The mountain god had never been able to resist Dahe’s closeness. This was the silly boy he had cherished and watched grow up; when Dahe cried, even the god’s worn, withered heart would ache. What request of his could he bear to refuse? Almost despairing of himself, the immortal turned his face away and pulled his robe up over his head. Every place where their bodies touched felt unbearably hot, as if heavenly fire were roasting him from every side. He could no longer feel the coolness of the rock beneath his back.
And that hopelessly slow-witted boy kept tugging earnestly at the robe, trying to uncover his burning face. “Can I? Can I?”
At last the immortal lost patience with the question. He suddenly threw back his robe, pulled Dahe’s head down, and kissed him fiercely.
“Mm! Mmph…” Dahe struggled for a moment in surprise, then wrapped his arms around the god and kissed him back. A perfectly clear answer formed in his simple, straight-running mind: Yes.
As he kissed the god, Dahe reached his large hand down once more. With no experience to guide him, he proceeded by instinct, unless the two great dogs in the village counted as his teachers. He pressed at the little hollow, took hold of his own already rigid arousal, and pushed straight forward, as boldly and directly as if opening up new territory.
“Wu… Aaaaah!” A scream pierced his ears like an arrow.
Bang!!
His head struck hard earth. Dahe raised it dizzily and discovered he had fallen from the big rock. Night had already come. Under a streetlamp not far away, Auntie Zou, who cleaned the grounds, was staring at him in astonishment.
“Dahe! Didn’t I tell you not to sleep on that rock? Look at you, you’ve fallen off!” she said, scolding him sternly.
Dahe was utterly bewildered. He braced himself on one elbow to get up, then froze: he was still aroused, his trousers bulging uncomfortably.
Fortunately, it was dark enough that Auntie Zou failed to notice. Seeing that he could still move about, she decided he was fine and went back to sweeping with a sigh.
Dahe stood there in a daze. It took his slow-moving thoughts a long while to grasp what had just happened: the mountain god had screamed and kicked him right out of the dream. He scrambled up, paying no attention to his physical discomfort, and hobbled around looking in every direction.
The bamboo grove was quiet. Only the swish of Auntie Zou’s broom could be heard, and there was naturally no trace of the mountain god.
He cried out so terribly. What happened to him? Dahe wondered in alarm.
He waited until midnight. Even after Auntie Zou had left, the god never appeared. He lay down on the big rock to try sleeping again, but could not fall asleep no matter how hard he tried.
The deeper the night grew, the more fiercely his injured leg ached. He watched a strong wind wrench a bamboo leaf from beside the shrine, whirl it savagely through the air, and dash it against the ground. In his heart, he understood: the mountain god did not wish to see him.
There was nothing for it but to shoulder his stall and limp down the mountain, both anxious and hurt.
And the mountain was utterly silent. After his figure vanished beside the mountain path, the black-furred little beast that had been lying in wait inside the cave for a long time once again dragged out its mottled little paramour. It took up its old spot beside the big rock, scratched a shallow pit with its hind legs and stepped into it, then made the wildcat squat on top with its rear raised. Once the position was set, it went slap-slap-slap-slap.
The mountain god wore an expression of weary, unbearable distaste. Cigarette dangling from his mouth after the fact, he lay on the rock, frowning as he earnestly studied the process of their slap-slap-slap-slap. He always felt there was nothing particularly special about it—wasn’t it just raising the gun and charging in, seeing a hole and plunging through?
The mountain god sighed out a weary mouthful of smoke. Watching the little wildcat below whimper and scrabble at the mud and fallen leaves, he thought resentfully, It doesn’t look as though it hurts that much!