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A Temple in the Mountains A Temple in the Mountains

In a time long ago, so long that his kin still lived on the frontier, human cities had yet to appear in the central plains, and powerful humans and arcanists still walked the world, not yet reduced to legend.
The Getians—the Miemeng clan—created The First Song and Dance.
From that point on, countless Miemengs bore the gift of music.
Among them, there was one who was especially intoxicated by rhythm.
Getian: "He lost himself in the music, rarely associating with his kin."
Getian: "Time in the mountains is long and without seasons. I could not tell when he left."

To a Miemeng, a thousand years pass in a moment.

Come to think of it, how many years have I myself spent in these mountains?

Getian: "No matter."
The Miemeng sighs softly.
Getian: "For such a lifespan as his, a thousand years and a single moment were nigh on the same."
Getian: "To me, it is the same."
Due to your decision, you've grown more confused.

Getian: "Until one day, convinced he had learned every score the mountain could offer, he ventured down alone to see whether human music held any worth."
Musician: "He must have been disappointed."
The musician says quietly.
Getian: "Yes. He was disappointed."
A human life spans barely a hundred years. Strip away the days of ignorant youth and helpless old age, and what remains is only a few fleeting decades.
Within that time, one must still endure the difficulties of worldly affairs and endless hardships. A struggle simply to survive.
Time that can truly be devoted to oneself is scarce.
Even if one pours their entire life into music, it can never be compared to the Miemengs with their incredible lifespan.
Getian: "That is what life down below is like. As the seasons press on, life only grows harder."
The Miemeng pauses, as if gathering his thoughts.
Getian: "He went to many places and saw all manner of people."
Getian: "Bustling markets ..."
Two masters of the age agreed on a musical duel on the city walls with their pipas, drawing a great crowd.
The sound was earth-shattering and sky-rending, indeed. Yet the Miemeng remained bored, believing that something was still missing.
Getian: "Banquets of princes and nobles ..."
Amid the rush of dignitaries and the drawing of curtains, the tinkling of crystal and pearls filled the air.
On a rooftop not far away, the Miemeng watched with a tilted head. A man in a tall crown rose from his seat, bowed deeply, then lifted his head and played the guqin. Less a song than a soliloquy of grievances.
When the melody properly began, an uproar broke out among the guests. Someone drew a sword. Another turned away with a weary sigh.
Before the turmoil reached him, he turned and left. This was the poise of scholars, not the devotion of a musician.
Getian: "... And households where music was passed down through both instrument and song."
The Miemeng recalled a towering courtyard tree, an arm's span thick, much like the one near his mountain dwelling.
It was a lonely courtyard filled with the scent of herbs. Its owner often sat there holding a guqin, unmoving, until the moon sank in the west.
The Miemeng heard the owner's faint sigh. What a pity. So brief, after all.
He thought, if heaven had granted her thirty more years, perhaps things would have been different.
Getian: "And at first light, he left that verdant courtyard behind."
A light breeze passes, and the candle flame suddenly wavers, bringing the musician back to his senses.
Musician: "You mean, he never altered a human's bones?"
He murmurs.
Musician: "Of course. Immortals have their own affairs. Why would they concern themselves with the lives of mortals?"
Getian: "That was not the case."
Years later, the Miemeng resolved to return to the mountains, feeling his worldly travels were finished, only to encounter a torrential downpour that covered the land in darkness and turned plains into rivers.
Getian: "So he stayed one day longer."
The next morning, beneath a parasol tree, the Miemeng met a young man in passing and heard a short tune he had never heard before.
The melody was free and wild, hardly a proper composition, yet it brought tears to his eyes.
Unable to resist, the Miemeng stepped forward to speak with him. The youth humbly said he had no talent for music and that he simply enjoyed plucking the strings for amusement during idle moments.
Getian: "He asked the young man's background and learned that he was just a local guqin maker."
Musician: "A guqin maker ... a guqin maker ..."
Musician: "..."
He repeats it twice under his breath, then suddenly stands up.
Musician: "If that's the case, how is it I've never heard of a great musician among my ancestors? If a Miemeng truly altered his fate, why have we, generation after generation, done nothing but make guqin?"
Getian: "Because it was just a simple tune, utterly unremarkable."
Utterly unremarkable—the Miemeng couldn't help but drink in the phrase himself. What moved him was, in fact, something utterly unremarkable.
Getian: "There was no earthshaking event that followed. The young man who played the guqin was destined to die young, and so the Miemeng merely wished him a good life."
Getian: "And all his desires came true. That was all."
Musician: "But ..."
He still cannot believe it. The music that drew an immortal's favor was nothing more than a casual trifle he himself could produce on a whim?
If it was that simple from the beginning, then what was the point of all his fabricated achievements?
Getian gives no immediate answer. Instead, he lifts a wing slightly, and the broken guqin—once treasured, now tossed away—floats into the air.
The dust is wiped away, and it is turned over, as if by an unseen hand, revealing the instrument's goose feet on the underside. Neither metal nor jade, they are made of some material that gleams with a soft luster in the candlelight.
Getian: "These are his bones."
The Miemeng left his remains to his friend, who fashioned them into a guqin.
Musician: "..."
In the candlelight, the musician's expression flicks and shifts. After a long moment, he speaks again.
Musician: "I understand now. You mean to say there's no need to strive for absolute perfection, so long as our hearts are sincere!"
Getian looks at him quietly, neither confirming nor denying it.
Musician: "The truth is clear to me now. The music my ancestor could play, I can play too!"
Musician: "If that's the case, then could I stay in the mountains?"
Musician: "Life below is noisy, cluttered, and distracting. I know where I went wrong now. I just want to find a quiet place to devote myself to my instrument, as I did when I was young."
Getian: "But your destiny is not here."
Getian tells him plainly.
Getian: "You came from the lands below, and in the end, that is where you belong."
Musician: "Yes. I should have known."
He takes a step back, seemingly in a daze. After a moment, he gathers the courage to speak again.
Musician: "But, after I leave the mountain, will fortune ever bring me to you again?"

Perhaps not.

I do not know.

Getian: "As you can see, the path of the Miemengs was cut off centuries ago."
Getian: "They left one after another, and now ..."
Getian shakes his head.
Getian: "I am the last of my kind, and there is nothing down below that draws my interest, perhaps."
Due to your decision, you've grown more confused.

They look at each other, silent for a time.
Only now does everything finally become clear: there was never any great musician, no score unheard by the world, and no ideal worth dying for.
The young man, who stubbornly chased such ideals to this place, is only a petty fraud, though a harmless one at that.
Dawn is about to break. The extinguished candle gives off a faint trail of bluish smoke.
Getian: "..."
Getian: "It is time for you to go."

Open your eyes to see the future that we know?

A Story Told by Candlelight

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