The Secret Realm of Tiantai: The Wizard of the Green Wilderness, Among the Folds of the Ridge, Facing the Clouds and Mist

Some roads in the world are made specifically for bidding farewell to the noise. The Bayuang Line in Tiantai is such a road. It is not a famous thoroughfare but like a slender ink line, hidden in the folds of the map, winding through Tiantai’s verdant valleys. This journey was meant only to reach the final destination, Dalei Mountain, but accidentally wandered into this continuous expanse of greenery and cloud valleys. Once entering the Bayuang Line, the city feels like a book quickly closed, with sounds and anxieties all shut out. The world before the eyes is filled with a pure, rich green. This green has layers—the bamboo forest at the foot of the mountain is a fresh emerald, as if you could squeeze water from it; the tea gardens at mid-mountain are a calm jade, trimmed into soft curves like the breathing rise and fall of the earth; and the distant forested peaks are dark green, blending with the skyline, bottomless. The road is narrow, like a gray-white ribbon, winding and twisting among the mountains. Every turn might reveal a brand-new painting. Sometimes it is a deep ravine, with a jade pool like a mirror reflecting the mixed trees on the shore and the drifting clouds in the sky; sometimes it is an ancient stone arch bridge, entwined with vines, silently telling stories from a hundred years ago. Only now do I truly understand the ancient saying “traveling to where the water ends, sitting to watch the clouds rise.” It is not the desolation of a dead end, but a peaceful acceptance, a harmony with nature. I am no longer a mere observer of the scenery but a tiny, flowing ink dot in this vast ink painting. As the sun slants westward, the scenery behind the mountains takes on another appearance in the backlight, bathed in a warm golden hue. Moving farther and farther from those mountains. Yet, the coolness of the mountain air seems to linger in my body, the crispness of the grass and trees fills my lungs, and the profound silence echoes in my ears. This journey along the Bayuang Line is not like sightseeing but more like a spiritual cleansing. It washes away the weariness of the world, leaving a scroll of verdant landscape treasured in the heart. From then on, amid the urban gloom, just closing my eyes can bring me back to that mountain path, to converse once again with the clouds and mist of that day.