(Minghui.org) Across cultures, there are many legends on the existence of time and space beyond what we are living in. Below is one story from ancient China that may give us some insight on this topic.
This story is about Wang Zhi as described in Shuyiji (Tales of Strange Matters) by Ren Fang in the Southern Dynasty. Wang lived in the Jin Dynasty (266 AD – 420 AD). While collecting firewood one day, he walked deep into the Shishi Mountain (in today’s Qu County of Zhejiang Province). That place was like a fairyland—quiet, with fresh air and clear running streams.
As he continued walking, Wang saw an old man and a child playing a game of Go (weiqi, an ancient Chinese form of chess) on a giant rock by the river. Wang loved Go, and he stopped to watch, laying his ax on the ground.
Wang was so absorbed in the game that he did not pay attention to the time. All of a sudden, the child looked up at him and said, “It is time for you to go home.”
That reminded Wang that he'd come for firewood. Bending down to pick up the ax, he saw that the blade had rusted and the wooden handle rotted.
Wang was confused: “How could this ax have gone rusty and rotten in the time that it took to play one game?” After returning to his village, he was even more perplexed – the village had changed dramatically and nobody recognized him.
Wang mentioned a few things about the village, and some elders said that those things had happened about a hundred years ago.
It dawned on Wang that he must have been to a fairyland and watched a game there. A day in the fairyland could correspond to a thousand years in the human world. While Wang only stayed there for a short time, one hundred years had passed in the human world.
Since then Shishi Mountain was often referred to as Lanke Mountain (Mountain of Rotten Ax Shaft).
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Category: Traditional Culture
