Flying Stone of Pihu

Flying Stone of Pihu

In the Nujiang region, the "Flying Stone" is almost a household name, often becoming the subject of various magical and beautiful legends. Some say it is a divine gift bestowed upon a school as a treasure of enlightenment, promising that the school will flourish with talent and rise to fame. Others claim it is a male stone searching for its female counterpart, hence it should be called the "Mandarin Duck Stone." With opinions varying widely, it is cloaked in an intriguing veil of mystery.

The Flying Stone is located in the center of the courtyard of the stone house at the Nujiang Fugong County Nationality Middle School, 46 kilometers south of the county town. The so-called stone house refers to a tripartite courtyard formed by three bungalows built on top of a massive rock that is about seven or eight meters high and over ten meters in diameter. Seven teachers live there, and there is also a courtyard area of seven or eight square meters in the middle. On the early morning of March 19, 1983, after days of continuous heavy rain, a conical rock measuring seven meters in length, five meters in diameter, and weighing several thousand tons, heavily landed on the road. Then, leveraging its inertia, it bounced onto the center of the tripartite courtyard of the six-meter-high stone house. As if it had eyes, it neither harmed any faculty members nor damaged the buildings, as though it had been placed there by human hands. Since then, visitors have come in an endless stream to see this massive rock. The elderly call it the "Flying Stone" with trepidation, while the young gaze at it in awed silence. Countless people have marveled at it; poets have composed verses for it, writers have left their brushstrokes, travelers have taken photos as keepsakes, and locals have passed down tales of its wonder...