Under a sky woven with the iridescent threads of a thousand sunsets, a quaint village nestled at the feet of Celestial Mountain. Here, the villagers lived oblivious to the cosmic tango of immortals above them, except for one man. Old Ji was a watchmaker, or as he preferred to call himself, “the celestial timekeeper,” who claimed to craft timepieces that could freeze moments and bestow immortality—at a price.
In his dim-lit workshop, terracotta bricks lined his shelves, each cradling watches whose hands spun with greedy precision. Rumor had it one of these was the 自私的 watch, a device so absorbed in its own existence it siphoned away the years from its wearer.
On a particularly cloudless night, Min, a young scholar with dreams as stark as the parchment scrolls he studied, stumbled into Old Ji’s shop. His mission was to unlock the secrets of the celestial arts and perhaps, like any ambitious youth, to cheat death a little.
“Old Ji,” Min began, “I hear you possess a watch that grants eternity. I’ve come to bargain for it.”
Old Ji gave a toothy grin, his eyes twinkling like aged stars. “A wish too grand needs a price—a lifetime of it,” he cackled.
Min, undeterred, countered with a naive arrogance. “Time is but ink, and I am the pen. I will immortalize my deeds and become unforgettable.”
Ji paused, perhaps amused. “Upon your wrist shall rest the self-centered watch,” he declared, retrieving a timepiece from the shelf, its face cluttered with endless spirals.
As Min strapped it on, Ji whispered, “Consider your words carefully, for the watch listens.”
Time unfolded as Min scaled the mountain, his heart ablaze with ambition. Yet, with each ambitious conquest, the watch’s hands spun wildly, its tick-tock transforming dreams into hollow echoes.
“What did you learn, boy?” a peach blossom swirled into life before Min, revealing an immortal, her laughter a song in the wind.
“I’ve mastered the mountain!” Min retorted, though his voice faltered, uncertain now if triumph was truly his.
The immortal’s eyes narrowed, studying Min. “Mastery is the ghost of immaturity. Do you seek true zenith or fleeting pleasure?”
Min hesitated. “I seek a truth lost in time, perhaps,” he admitted, but the watch on his wrist chimed, a reminder of its selfish appetite.
Realizing the trap he’d willingly adorned, Min cried out, “Old Ji’s trickery, this watch—it deceives!”
A voice echoed from the gala of stars above, Old Ji’s chuckle carried by the moonlit breeze, “Trickery it is not, young Min, but revelation. Ask what you learned of selfishness.”
In that moment of stark revelation, Min’s eyes fluttered upon the immensity of life beyond exploitation and the watch shattered, spiraling its hands into oblivion. “Finally,” Min breathed, feeling the warmth of dawn rather than the chill of eternity.
And thus, under the canopy of dawnlit cherry blossoms, Min found the essence of humility amidst the echoes of Old Ji’s eternal laughter—a twist not of fate, but of enlightenment. The mountains sighed, whispering stories of a young scholar whose legacy was not written in time, but in timelessness.