Fingertips Touching the Millennium Smile: A Breath Record of Qingyuan Mountain

Fingertips brush the coolness of Laojun Rock, morning mist winding around the stone's wrinkles. Laozi smiles amid the moss-covered features, his kindness piercing through a thousand years and sinking into the palm. The monks’ morning wooden fish beats mixed with the noisy mountain birds strike the eardrums, making time slip away in a daze.

The aroma of Nantaiyan Tieguanyin tea drifts, the entire Jinjiang water system flowing beneath the eyes. Clouds shatter at the edge of the tea table, white waves wetting the eyes. The altimeter shows 498 meters, but the gaze falls into the bustling life of Quanzhou city. The ancient sigh, "To climb high, one must first be low," burns hot in the throat.

The Stone Statue Breathes in the Morning Light

Song dynasty stone carvers tamed a five-meter-high natural giant rock into a seated statue of Laozi with just their hands. His right hand rests on his knee, left hand supports a table, the folds of his robe hanging like a frozen waterfall. The peach-shaped nose is polished shiny by visitors’ fingerprints, the warmth of blessings soaking into the stone marrow. Before noon, sunlight tears through the clouds, and when the wide-angle lens frames the statue against the blue sky, the millennium smile ferments into honey.

Three Realms Gather at the Viewing Platform

Before dawn breaks, the wind at Nantaiyan whips up hems. The tripod bites into the bluestone, and the viewfinder captures the lights of Quanzhou Bay linked like a star river. At the moment the blue hour fades, a golden-red fireball leaps from the shoulder of the Shakyamuni statue. The cliff inscription "Number One in the Mountains" burns in the morning glow, Buddha, Taoist Patriarch, and Confucius smile at each other amid the incense smoke.

The Heavenly Lake Koi Carry the Buddha’s Shadow

A tandem bike rushes along the lakeside boardwalk. The wheels roll over the "Lotus Step" stone bridge pattern, mountain wind stirs two hundred koi fish, breaking the lake’s sky reflection. Anxi Tieguanyin tea swirls in a coarse pottery pot, the shop owner’s fingers seep tea steam: "You can come on Mid-Autumn night, thirty-three Buddha shadows float on the water dancing." Haha 😃

Tiger Breast Spring Water Brightens the Eyes

When Master Hongyi’s relic tower pierced the pine forest, he crawled hand and foot through Amitabha Rock’s narrow sky. The cliff pressed tight against chest and back squeezed air from the lungs, climbing to the bright opening at the crack’s end. The Islamic sacred tomb’s stone carving of the Quran’s patterns pricked fingertips in recitation. The cotton cloth flags of Qiyun Mountain Villa painted talismans in the wind, the ancient fleet’s prayers for wind trembled anew.

Night Climb to See the Stones Speak

Seventy tickets stuffed back into pockets. Night tours of Qingyuan Mountain are free. Entering Laojun Rock Square at Friday dusk, spotlights suddenly pierce the darkness. The granite texture reveals living veins in the light waterfall, Laozi’s pupils reflect stars falling straight into Jinjiang.

Mid-Mountain Ginger Duck Warms the Soul

Wild Dendrobium cooked in an earthen pot yields amber chicken soup, rolling down the throat with herbal sweetness. Spring roll skin wraps crispy fried seaweed, radish shreds entwine with glistening crushed peanuts. Heading down to Qingyuan farmhouse cuisine’s red clay stove, ginger duck bones have softened into cotton in the old sauce. The aroma of satay sauce rises from A Qiu’s beef offal stall, beef tendon soup bursts with gelatinous nectar between the teeth.

Tiger Breast Spring scoops up a handful of icy cold. The moment the water hits the eyes, the three characters "Immortal Mountain" from the Minshu book burn through the chest. Laozi’s smiling wrinkles, the copper bell atop Hongyi Tower, the swirling clouds of Nantaiyan gather at the tongue’s root into the salty epic of the Maritime Silk Road. West Street’s noodle soup churns in the stomach, shrimp bounce and shatter the soft oysters.