A fire was thrown into the cave, burning everything clean. Although Chaozi coveted the wood inside, he wouldn't do business that cost lives.

  Back to the broken school at the foot of the mountain, only to see people wearing mourning clothes and hats everywhere, I was also stunned.

  When the host saw that it was the male owner who had returned, his sisters and sisters rushed up, crying and shouting, their voices hoarse as they told him about all the misfortunes that had occurred after he left home, completely ignoring the reason for his disappearance for several days.

  The older man, Wen Bin, also returned, looking embarrassed on his face, whispering that he had gone last night to see if this Daoist priest could do a ritual for him.

  Cha Wenbin felt a twinge of guilt when he saw the scene, although the woman wasn't really dead, but this commotion was still a waste of manpower and resources.

  Hurriedly leading Ah Fa into the house, in the main room, on that wooden board, a woman's face was being pressed down by a yellow paper, and all around were some of his younger relatives kneeling.

  The wailing people saw Ah Fa coming back, and the crying became even more intense. Ah Fa was so startled that he thought his wife had really passed away, and tears burst forth, grabbing Cao Wenbin's arm and begging him to save her.

  Inside the hall, a painter was busy applying oil paint to a new cedar coffin. The room was filled with the scent of incense paper, oil paint and wood. Zhang Wenbin bowed his head and whispered a few words to the steward who had been following him. The man helped those kneeling on the ground to get up, then called out to the onlookers, leading them all outside to rest.

  After the person's death, it is generally stopped for three days in rural areas and placed at the center of the main gate. This was an old school, and the villagers found a classroom near the middle, with the door wide open. Before the funeral procession, this door was not allowed to be closed, but Zhang Wenbin had just closed the door now. Except for A Fa, everyone else was isolated outside.

  Cha Wenbin said to A Fa, "The villagers have big mouths, after she wakes up, I will naturally make an excuse for you, saying that your wife was taken by the heavenly fairy to be a servant girl for a few days and now her merits are fulfilled, it's time for her to come back."

  A Fa nodded desperately, although this woman was fierce and unreasonable, but she was also the confidante on the kang, how could he bear to leave her like that.

  He took out the bell to ward off evil spirits, and Wen Bin shook it gently over the woman's head a few times, saying softly: "The ringing of the bell awakens the soul in dreams, the seven souls return to their rightful place, and the sun's life is prolonged."

  Another talisman was lit and held in both hands, circling the woman's face once before being discarded into a bowl of clear water.

  Zha Wenbin handed the bowl to A Fa: "You pinch her mouth and pour it in." He turned around and left, gently pushing the door open a crack. The people outside who were chattering immediately stopped and stared at this Taoist priest.

  Before long, a woman's crying voice came from inside the house, "You dead ghost, where did you go?" Then there was a man's crying voice, and then the couple hugged each other and cried loudly.

  After that, Ah Fa's wife often pretended to be a fairy maiden and did some things for others in a fake manner, but they were all basically ineffective.

  In my impression, in the three years after that, I didn't see Cha Wenbin again, nor did I hear adults mention his news. There were also people who needed to invite a Taoist priest at home and remembered this person, whether they went to invite him themselves or asked someone to find him, but there was no news of him.

  Later, when I saw him again, I was already in elementary school. At that time, Wen Bin was more aged than he is now, with a face full of vicissitudes. It was also that year that Cha Wenbin took on his first and only disciple. Originally, I had the opportunity to become his apprentice, but at that time, my understanding of Daoist priests as a profession that dealt with ghosts and spirits was limited to thinking it was just a feudal superstition.

  Many years later, when I went to follow in his footsteps for a book and visited many people who knew him, those he had saved, I finally understood that such things really do exist in this world.

  Memories of my youth are mostly vague. I think it wasn't last year when we gathered at our old home with my aunt, uncle and third aunt, they mentioned that person, talked about the Taoist priests from that era, perhaps the only impression I had was of the Taoist priest in games who could throw talismans to summon dogs.

  I started to flip through that memory, looking for the lost three years of him. Nobody knew where he went. The people I interviewed included the prototype of Chaozi and Zhuo Xiong in the book, as well as a man named Dashan, who are now all over 60 years old. I have been trying to find out where Cha Wenbin's lost three years went and what happened during those three years.

  Later, through many people, I finally found the apprentice he had accepted that year, and vaguely restored some things through piecing together and later inference.

  After this time from A Fa's home, Cha Wenbin first went to the provincial capital to visit his son. At that time, Leng Jie was not yet married, and until many years later, she still did not get married.

  His son had already begun to integrate into city life at that time, and he was still young and didn't understand what would be different from other male classmates in the future. It wasn't until much later that Cha Wenbin appeared again, making the child gradually feel that his father became a stranger.

  Maybe only a child's intuition is the most accurate, and it was indeed during those years that Cha Wenbin began to change.

  The first thing that changed was his hand, his left hand fingers appeared longer than normal people, but were much thinner, extremely like an old cowhide with wrinkles stuck on a steel bar, the blood vessels and nerves under the skin looked thick and curved, twisted like earthworms wrapped around the entire back of the hand. His left hand had begun to change and could no longer be fully straightened, if not forced, it was curled up like an eagle's claw. More and more often, Zha Wenbin chose to put one hand in his pocket, eating, and when there were many people, he didn't even hold the bowl.

  What changed next was his personality, he began to become somewhat restless and irritable, often waking up suddenly in the middle of the night and then being unable to fall asleep again. He started having verbal conflicts with friends, before, even if Chaozi did something out of line, Zha Wenbin would just hint at it, now sometimes he would even scold loudly.

  What's more, he became less and less willing to go out, locking himself in his room all day. Even when Da Shan came into the house to deliver food to him, he would come out and tell the other two that Wen Bin's room felt chilly and uncomfortable, giving off a gloomy atmosphere.

  During that time, he no longer lit sandalwood incense as usual, but instead burned ordinary agarwood. Three sticks at a time, extinguished and continued, the room was filled with smoke all day long, normal people would not be able to stand it, but he didn't go out.

  This situation of locking himself up all day lasted for about a month. Finally, in the deep autumn of that year, Zha Wenbin left. The one who discovered it was Dashan, who delivered breakfast to him. On the table in Zha Wenbin's room, he left a letter. What disappeared with Zha Wenbin were his Qiankun bag, his Seven-Star Sword, and the little golden cicada.

  The entire letter contains only eight words: The Way is always without action yet nothing is left undone.

  This is a passage from Chapter 37 of Laozi's "Tao Te Ching", and scholars today still have different views on this sentence.

  About Zhang Wenbin's interpretation of this letter, I heard it from his apprentice later.

  He said: When the master explained this passage to him, he said: The Tao, in its aimless and unintentional way of creating and nurturing all things in the world, also allows these myriad things in the world to have a purpose and intention, following certain rules in their operation, so that it can be said that the "Tao" is actually creating and nurturing the countless things in the universe with no intention but harmony, no purpose but harmony.

  This explanation, I later understood as Cha Wenbin's view on fate. His fate was originally a segment of being unintentionally arranged by others, but it seemed to be intentionally arranged by the heavens, and seemingly purposeless events ultimately achieved the purpose that the heavens wanted to achieve.

  Later, we inferred that during those three years of disappearance, Cha Wenbin went to seek the intention and purpose of this Tianming, trying to understand the true Tianming. As for whether he knew or not, and how he explored it, it can only be started from some events that occurred at that time.

  It wasn't until three years later, in the early winter, that Chao Zi and the others saw Zha Wenbin again. When the big mountain lazily got out of bed and opened the door, he found a man standing outside with somewhat tattered clothes - it was indeed Zha Wenbin. There was someone else beside him, an eleven or twelve-year-old boy, who was holding a golden toad in his hand, about the size of a palm, but only had three legs, one of which had a red thread tied around it, and the other end of the thread was hanging from the boy's wrist.

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