Counting the days, Shen Gun had lingered in Hangu Pass for quite some time.

He had never been here before. After all, this place didn’t match his usual “aesthetic” preferences. In his view, only places that were haunted, supernatural, or terrifying were worth visiting and studying.

Now that he was at Hangu Pass, where should he begin?

Unable to avoid the common tourist path, he bought a ticket to the Linggu Hangu Pass Cultural Tourism Area, which cost fifty yuan. It pained his heart, as if he were watching countless fragrant KFC chicken wings fluttering away.

After wandering around, looking at buildings, inscriptions, and crowds of people, he was repeatedly mistaken for a beggar and several times was scrutinized with suspicious glances by park staff demanding to see his ticket.

He made no discoveries, gained nothing. On his way out, he carefully read the introduction at the main entrance again: “Taichu Palace renovated in 1987,” “Hangu Pass Gate Tower rebuilt in 1992.” So these were newly constructed ancient relics—where could he find traces of Laozi from over two thousand years ago?

Shen Gun was deeply frustrated.

As he sat there brooding with his chin in his hands, two tourists passed by. They too seemed disappointed with the scenic area and were chatting idly.

“These scenic spots all look the same nowadays. It’s boring.”

“In my opinion, if you want to see authentic things, you must avoid these famous attractions and big developers. You need to truly go into rural areas. The essence is in the remote places.”

This was like a wake-up call. Remote, distant, borderline, unusual—weren’t these his guiding principles all along? How could he have forgotten?

Shen Gun was excited. He took buses, then minivans, small pickups, and finally tractors, following what he imagined to be Laozi’s route out of Hangu Pass. He wasn’t afraid of encountering ill-intentioned robbers—with his appearance, as long as he hid his phone well, robbers would probably give him a couple of yuan in charity.

He passed many small establishments and villages promoting Laozi tourism culture. Usually, he would arrive full of enthusiasm, only to leave disappointed. In his frustration, he had posted a message in the group chat:

“Hangu Pass isn’t fun.”

Indeed, it wasn’t fun, but wasn’t it still the “first great fortress of all ages, where one could sense Laozi’s presence by observing the air, leaving millennia of dust in astonishment”?

One evening, after getting off a tractor he had hitched a ride on, he arrived at another village. It was small, with about ten scattered households on a small hill. On the red brick wall at the village entrance, large characters were brushed in gray lime.

“Laozi’s Resting Place, Cultural Tourism Village.”

Shen Gun guessed this was probably a uniform campaign by the county’s propaganda department, and the villagers likely had no idea who Laozi was.

Shen Gun climbed to the top of the hill and gazed into the distance.

This place must be quite far from the Hangu Pass scenic area. He couldn’t be bothered to check which province it belonged to, but he felt the village’s location was intriguing.

To be precise, the entire Hangu Pass area’s position was fascinating.

With the Qinling Mountains to the south and loess slopes to the north, with faint views of the Yellow River, looking at the broader topography, it was right at the junction of the Greater Khingan Range-Taihang Mountains and the Qilian-Qinling mountain ranges. This region might no longer be China’s political and economic center today, but in ancient times, at the beginning of Chinese civilization, it was the land of origin, a place contested by Emperor Yan, the Yellow Emperor, and the Nine Li tribe.

The now prosperous middle reaches of the Yangtze River were, at that time, merely the San Miao territories that the emperors had no time to attend to.

The loess beneath his feet had a long history. Picking it up and examining it, he found it mixed and kneaded with countless stories. What a pity that no history museum would deign to excavate and collect it.

Shen Gun dusted off his hands and headed down the hill.

Halfway down, he encountered children playing with marbles. The oldest was about ten years old, while the youngest still wore open-crotch pants, half-lying on the ground, squinting as he aimed. Their shirt fronts and pant legs were all stained with yellow mud. Seeing Shen Gun approach, they curiously looked up at him. This village probably rarely had outsiders.

Shen Gun asked: “Kids, does your village have any attractions?”

Since it was called a “Cultural Tourism Village,” there should be at least one or two noteworthy attractions. For instance, when passing through the previous village, villagers had shown him a large, square blue stone, claiming that Laozi had rested against it when leaving Hangu Pass, and ever since, the stone remained warm in winter and cool in summer—they had even enthusiastically insisted he touch it, then charged him five yuan afterward.

After asking, he felt he might have been too formal. These children probably didn’t know what “attractions” meant. Should he explain?

Unexpectedly, the older child understood and said, “Yes, our village has an Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform.”

Shen Gun was shocked.

It wasn’t “Laozi’s Resting Place,” “Laozi’s Cattle-Watering Spot,” or “Laozi’s Wrestling Ground,” but an “Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform”—such a cultured and refined name!

He couldn’t contain his excitement: “Can you take me to see it?”

The children were thrilled, crowding around him, pulling and tugging him in one direction.

The next moment, when the Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform appeared before Shen Gun, he felt as if he’d been smacked in the face with a broom, with dust still falling from his face after the broom was removed.

It was just a stone, with the lower half buried in the soil. The exposed part was about the size of a washbasin, tilted, and covered with moss. The lower sloping part was concave, filled with murky rainwater, where mosquito larvae happily swam back and forth on the surface.

This was called the Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform?

It was cramped even for one person to stand on. It was so crooked that even setting up a grounded telescope would be unstable. How could it have such a magnificent name?

Shen Gun reluctantly said goodbye to the group of children. The older boy, named Shuanzi, called after him: “You don’t have a ride back! The tractors don’t run after sunset.”

The ill-omened prediction came true.

Shen Gun waited at the main road junction until the moon was high in the sky. The only mode of transportation that passed by was a donkey, and it was free-ranging. As it passed him, it snorted, looking utterly disdainful.

Shen Gun had no choice but to head back up the hill. As luck would have it, the first house he knocked on was Shuanzi’s.

Shuanzi’s parents worked in the city. Only he and his grandfather, Old Shuantou, lived at home. Rural people were straightforward. For ten yuan, they gave him a place to sleep and included meals.

Dinner was pumpkin porridge and pancakes rolled with green peppers. It was quite tasty. Shen Gun rolled up a pancake and leaned against the door to enjoy the cool evening breeze.

A dark figure walked along the small path outside the fence, hunched over. Up close, it was an old man with graying hair, holding a brass pipe behind his back.

Old Shuantou came out to fetch water and greeted the man: “Yin Erma, going to sleep at the Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform again?”

There was a hint of mockery in his tone.

Yin Erma seemed oblivious, calmly answering: “Yes.”

Then he unhurriedly walked away.

Shen Gun felt a stirring in his heart: this Yin Erma didn’t give the impression of an unsophisticated rural farmer.

Old Shuantou turned back and explained to Shen Gun: “That man has a problem. He’s normal in his speech and actions during the day, but at night he gets troubled.”

Shen Gun grew excited. Troubled behavior indicated something strange and abnormal, exactly to his taste.

“How does his trouble manifest?”

Old Shuantou explained, chuckling: “Every night, around this time, he goes to that so-called Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform, claiming to watch stars. But many people have caught him just sleeping there. He just lies down on the ground, stays for a while, then gets up, dusts off his backside, and goes home. Rain or snow, he never misses a night.”

He sought agreement from Shen Gun: “Wouldn’t you say that’s a problem?”

This might not necessarily be a problem. A more scientific term would be obsessive-compulsive disorder, a more artistic description would be a personal hobby, and a more casual explanation would be willfulness.

Shen Gun’s curiosity was piqued. He said, “I’ll follow and take a look.”

He tiptoed after Yin Erma.

Lighting wasn’t an issue. The moonlight in the mountains seemed brighter than elsewhere, shining on the ground like gleaming silver.

They soon reached the so-called Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform.

Just as Old Shuantou had described, Yin Erma tucked his pipe into the white cloth waistband of his clothes and lay down. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t lying flat but reclining on his side, motionless, just like someone going to bed.

Was this watching the stars?

Shen Gun, puzzled from a distance, tried to mimic his posture and twisted his head: from this angle, it was impossible to see stars. The view was completely blocked by that half-buried stone…

Wait a minute…

Shen Gun realized that Yin Erma was looking at the stone.

As he was pondering this, Yin Erma had finished his ritual. He got up, dusted off the dirt from his backside, put his hands behind his back, and unhurriedly returned the way he came.

Watching him walk away, Shen Gun quickly ran to the Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform. He flopped down and, based on his memory of Yin Erma’s position, adjusted himself to lie on his side.

The stone was pitch black, seeming to merge with the night, but one side of the stone’s surface was bright, like a tilted mirror placed at a low angle.

He remembered—this was the accumulated water in the depression of the stone.

Shen Gun squinted to look.

As he gazed, he suddenly had a strange illusion: though the water surface was small, thinking deeply, perhaps it reflected the entire sky.

With this thought, he immediately felt that Yin Erma was quite poetically at odds with his surroundings. He might indeed be watching stars—and watching stars didn’t necessarily require looking up; one could look down as well.

Unexpectedly, a luminous point appeared on the water’s surface.

It wasn’t an optical illusion or a reflection of light; it simply appeared out of nowhere. Shen Gun instinctively looked up at the sky: on this clear night with a bright moon and few stars, such a projected star couldn’t appear on the water’s surface.

Shen Gun held his breath.

A second bright point soon appeared, some distance from the first.

That brightness truly resembled stars of varying intensity hidden in the water. Perhaps Yin Erma was observing stars.

Shen Gun felt as if he had stumbled upon a secret, his heart pounding nervously.

A third point, a fourth point… a seventh point.

Arranged in a pattern, shaped like a… ladle.

The Big Dipper?

Yes, exactly the Big Dipper.

How could the water accumulated in a stone depression in this ordinary village display a miniature Big Dipper?

Shen Gun was extremely surprised, both excited and confused. He quickly took out his phone, switched to camera mode, and focused.

When taking the picture, his hand trembled with excitement, making the image a bit blurry, but the seven bright points were still barely discernible.

Just after he took the photo, the image on the water’s surface changed again. From his position, the three points at the bottom and one point near the top gradually faded, turning dark red, while the remaining three points seemed to grow brighter.

However, this scene only lasted a few seconds.

The water surface returned to its previous mirror-like calm. When the wind blew, it created barely perceptible ripples.

Shen Gun sat up from the ground, comically adorned with several blades of grass in his hair.

His excitement was indescribable. This Yin Erma was watching the stars.

It was very late now. Shen Gun returned to Old Shuantou’s house. Old Shuantou was still awake, puffing contentedly on his pipe in front of the television.

Shen Gun asked him: “What’s the history of your village’s Eight Trigrams Star-Observing Platform?”

Old Shuantou replied: “Who knows? It’s been called that since I was a child.”

He looked curiously at Shen Gun: “You outsiders probably think the name sounds elegant? The township officials also say the name is impressive, but to me, it sounds the same as White Dog Slope or South Mountain Hollow.”

Having heard it all his life, he couldn’t distinguish any difference.

“Doesn’t anyone know its history?”

“Yin Erma says there was a cultured man called Laozi, and that stone was left there by him.”

Shen Gun didn’t ask further. He felt that Old Shuantou’s knowledge was limited. More clues would likely have to come from this Yin Erma.