Huai Shi sighed in frustration.
He stepped back, once, then again...
With each step he retreated, it was as if he was rowing against the current, swiftly forced back to the base of the mountain by an invisible pressure.
Bathed in the cold wind, he sweated profusely as if he had run a marathon. Huai Shi once again collapsed onto the ground, scrutinizing the mountain blanketed in pure white snow and the faint outline of a structure at its peak.
An insurmountable challenge.
Huai Shi took a deep breath, sat down again, and began to think.
.
.
"Old lady, aren't you being too hard on him?"
At the mountaintop, in a courtyard blanketed with snow, a lonely plum tree grew twisted, its dark branches barren of flowers, only faint clusters of buds visible.
An old woman sat in a rocking chair under the corridor, a blanket over her knees, silently gazing at the doorway. Behind her, a passing woman brought hot tea on a tray, setting it down, "Isn't this just outright rejection?"
