He walked along the stream from the courtyard gate.
He didn't know how long he had been walking before he reached the foot of the mountain.
At the mountain's base, there stood an ornately carved gate.
The mountain gate, majestic and towering, stood before him.
It instilled an involuntary sense of ethereal admiration in anyone who beheld it.
He paused for a short while before the gate, then lifted his feet to continue inward.
Tang Zelin didn't know why he felt compelled to walk into the mountains; in his dream, he was simply driven by the notion to climb and see for himself.
As for what he was meant to see, he had no consciousness of it.
From the gate, the path led up a winding stone staircase that snaked its way up the mountain, until about halfway when fog began to enshroud the surroundings.
Tang Zelin looked around and realized that standing there, obscured by the thick fog, he could no longer see the path he had come from, let alone any distant houses.
