Random Tales by Autumn Lamp
A man from Laizhou returned from Shaanxi. Passing beneath the Taihang Ridge, he flocks of birds flying overhead, only to flutter and drop the moment they reached the mountainside. Struck by this strange sight, he rode his horse uphill to investigate. There lay a toad over ten feet wide, craning its head upward to suck in the birds, which all fell straight into its maw. Terrified, the man’s horse reeled back in fright. He gripped the reins and urged the steed hard, barely managing to retreat down the slope.
Random Tales by Autumn Lamp
In my hometown, there once was a young boy. One summer day, while bathing in a mountain stream, he suddenly felt his body lightly floating an inch above the water’s surface. With each subsequent swim, he rose higher and higher. Secretly delighted, he took this as an omen of ascending to immortality and went to the stream every day without fail. His parents grew suspicious and questioned him, yet he told them nothing.
One day when he bathed again, he floated nearly ten feet into the air, filled with growing wonder. He chanced to glance upward and spotted a colossal toad the size of a large grain bucket in a huge cliff cave, lowering its head to draw him in with a powerful suction. The boy let out a desperate scream, plunged into the water, and fled home in haste. Never again did he dream of soaring high above the clouds.