#wudang

Weather in the mountains of central China can be treacherous and prone to abrupt change. Dusk came quicker than we expected, it got cold and we realized we chose the wrong stairway and got lost somewhere in the forest on our way down. It was getting BAD. Mom was scared, I was upset, and we both got extremely tired.

When we stopped to fix the gear and stick some patches on our burning feet, we heard some rustling among the trees and fluffy white dog stepped out on the path, wagging its tail. He looked surprisingly clean and well-kempt for a stray forest dog and acted extremely friendly. For the next several hours he was patiently leading the way, looking back at us from time to time, waiting for us on the road splits and steep slopes. As if he knew what he was doing very well, because eventually we saw the lights of village down at the distance.

We thanked our furry hero endlessly. He refused to eat the sausage I had in the backpack, but let us pet him. I also took some pics of him with my DSLR cam. When we quickly stopped by the little roadside store to get a him a real treat and then returned, the dog disappeared.

Noone of the locals knew who the dog belonged to, and stray dogs were actually not allowed in the park because of its natural reserve status. But next day one grandma showed me an old little shrine of local deity, Erlang. Guess who I saw there?

All the pictures I took of him that night turned out to be overexposed, just a blurry ball of white fur 😊 and I never had blurry pictures before that.

His name is XiaoTian, 哮天犬, Celestial Dog. You can google him, there actually a lot of funny legends.

Thanks for reading! Man, do I have a lot of stories to tell.