Two thousand years ago.
In the deep, mysterious reaches of the Southern Ridge, a clear stream trickled with a resonant, tinkling sound, alongside which a cluster of pristine white flowers grew and quietly bloomed.
Having endured thunder, rain, droughts, and torrential downpours, after nineteen hundred years, the flower finally acquired fairy affinity. Guided then by a local immortal of the Southern Ridge, it finally took on a human form. Before leaving, the local immortal specifically bestowed upon her a name: Yuling.
A mere one hundred and thirty years passed. Rumor had it that exotic herbs grew in abundance on the overseas fairy islands, and consuming them could dramatically boost one's spiritual power, surpassing a hundred years of arduous cultivation. There were even rumors that among the many fairy islands, one was called Xingyu Island, where disciples were taught various supreme spells. Combined with the rare fairy herbs of the island, even a slight mastery of its techniques would allow a single day of practice to equal several years of bitter toil. Countless seekers of the Dao yearned for this with all their hearts, flocking to it in droves. They searched far and wide across the overseas fairy islands, but to no avail. Only an extremely select few with great affinity managed to find the fairy island and seek out its immortal arts.
Yuling heard the legend of this fairy island while eating sweets at a pastry shop nestled at the foot of a peak on the northern side of the Southern Ridge. At that time, the waiter was bustling about, taking orders and serving dishes. Clouds of steam billowed from the bamboo steamer baskets containing fresh meat buns and shrimp siu mai, filling the air with a pure and savory blend of meat and vegetable aromas. In particular, the sweet scent of the phoenix custard buns and walnut buns from the dessert section on the west side proved most alluring to Yuling. Almost the moment she stepped through the door, she headed straight for the western section, then took her selected pastries up to the second floor. This was a long-established and widely renowned pastry house. Ever since Yuling came to the mortal world and slipped into the bustling, noisy market, she had frequently visited this place to enjoy these few favorite delicacies. She walked up the ancient pear-wood staircase, traversed the long corridor, and familiarly seated herself at a sandalwood table against the eastern railing. She loved the faint, subdued fragrance of the sandalwood; sitting here made her feel as though her mind could enter a state of deep meditation. The view here was wonderful. A slight tilt of her head revealed the lakeside scenery beside the ancient building—sometimes swept by a gentle breeze, sometimes caressed by soft, enchanting winds. As the wind swept through the peach orchard, it would from time to time send over wisps of the subtle fragrance of peach stamens.
Yuling often felt that even without tasting the delicacies, simply sitting here was an immense aesthetic pleasure.
She pinched open a phoenix custard bun with a top soaked in granulated sugar and custard filling, shoved the sweet, almost cloying custard skin and filling entirely into her mouth, rolled the golden, flowing custard filling with the tip of her tongue to savor it several times, chewed it coarsely a couple of times, and hurriedly swallowed it down.
Just as she finished her third custard bun and was considering whether to order a few more peach-jam snow-skin mooncakes, the deep, rough conversation of several men drifted from the private room in the northeast corner. One after another, they excitedly recounted the rumors about that fairy island.
At first, Yuling found nothing unusual in what she heard, dismissing it as some groundless, bizarre tale. But the more she listened, the more her curiosity was hooked. On the one hand, matters relating to immortal cultivation and spell enhancement were what she cared about most. On the other hand, the Xingyu Island mentioned at the very end by the men seemed to be the exact place referenced in the local nursery rhyme circulating earlier: "Left Star Sovereign of Xingyu Island can bring the dead back to life and restore flesh to bones."
Setting down her teacup, which still held half a cup of Lapsang Souchong, she immediately set off for the coastal region in the southeast.
***
The sea was vast and boundless. Yuling had already drifted on the ocean for dozens of days aboard a single flat-bottomed boat, having witnessed the grandeur of sunrise over the sea, as well as the ravages of rainstorms, the unbridled fury of sea winds, and towering waves with a surging momentum that seemed capable of dominating and devouring everything. But to her, this was merely the brief darkness before the dawn, a necessary struggle and sacrifice before obtaining her beloved treasure. She had always known that to drink the dew and bathe in the sun, one must first endure those heavy thunderstorms and bolts of lightning. Therefore, at this moment, she accepted her arduous circumstances of the past few weeks with great calmness and ease, tasting the hardships and trials of the mortal world much like a sightseer savoring local flavors.
It was another rare, bright sunny day. Yuling woke up leisurely on the boat. Looking at the clear blue sky and soft, white drifting clouds, she couldn't help but start regretting her choice back at the port of You County in the southeast—she shouldn't have been stingy and picked this small boat that offered no shelter from wind or rain. Renting that magnificent two-story boat with a roof and a boatman would have cost only three taels of silver, yet because she coveted her meal money for three months of phoenix custard buns, she had made a single misstep that brought everlasting regret. She opened her blue silk bundle edged with gold thread; inside remained only two nearly dried custard buns and a few pieces of dry mung bean cake that were on the point of crumbling into dust.
If she still couldn't find the fairy island, tomorrow she would have no choice but to catch fish and roast them with immortal fire. She thought to herself secretly. All living creatures possess spirits; those who practice immortal arts must not arbitrarily take lives out of greed, or else they would surely damage their store of merit and even diminish their fairy affinity. But when driven to an absolute impasse, even taking a life would not be considered an act driven by greed.
The small boat drifted across the ocean, moving leisurely and aimlessly.
Suddenly, a thick fog rose over the sea. A dense mist, coming from who knows where, instantly enveloped the lone person and boat. Only then did she notice that the fog faintly carried a hint of exotic fragrance. Hurriedly, she mobilized her immortal arts, gathering her mind and focus, yet she was unable to drive it away from her surroundings. This was a miasma infused with the refined extracts of certain poisons, cast by someone wielding supreme spiritual power. A moment later, she gradually felt a weakness all over her body and finally collapsed limply onto the boat. Before losing consciousness, she thought bitterly that since her skills were inferior to others, she had no choice but to accept her defeat.
The small boat floated onward, sailing deep into the pure white miasma as the faint, overlapping outlines of mountains gradually emerged from the fog. The light craft drifted all the way, dodging towering, steep sea ridges, avoiding stern and treacherous pitch-black reefs, twisting and turning, and following the ocean currents right into the deepest recesses of the maze of islands, as if guided and pulled by some mysterious force.
Deep within the peach orchard, fallen petals fluttered everywhere in profusion. Beside the peach orchard and the stream, a small boat was moored at the bank. A man dressed in ink-black, luxurious robes stood tall and upright by the shore, quietly examining the flushed face, exquisite features, and delightfully sleepy expression of the woman in the boat. With a soft chuckle, his long, sturdy arms scooped into the boat, and instantly his arms were full of warmth and fragrance. Her breathing was light and shallow; even in his embrace, she slept just as soundly. Though the man's somewhat heavy breathing puffed against her face, she remained completely oblivious, fast asleep as if immersed in a magical, unending dream.
The black brocaded robes vanished deep into the peach orchard amidst the swirling rain of pink falling petals, until that patch of black completely receded and disappeared without a trace.
Three days later, Zhaixing Pavilion.
Morning sunlight filtered finely through the paper windows, uninhibitedly spilling across the floor. The heavy scent of sunshine seemed to urge the sleeping person to wake up quickly.
Yuling woke with a start, sitting up straight. For a moment, she thought she was still drifting on the boundless ocean, immersed in the helplessness of seeing neither hope nor destination. Blinking to focus, she realized she was lying in a cozy and luxurious room. A brocade quilt embroidered with gold threads covered her warmly, and golden gauze bed curtains were neatly tucked to both sides of the bed. The window was half open, and the cool breeze caused the gauze curtains to flutter gently like golden butterflies restrained and eager to fly.
She jumped out of the warm bed, stepped onto the cold wooden floor, pushed open the pear-wood door, and ran out along the corridor.
After running some distance and looking back, she saw a plaque hanging on the pavilion's carved balustrades and jade railings, with several large gold-inlaid characters engraved upon it: Zhaixing Pavilion.
The massive courtyard was like a labyrinth. She wandered around in circles for a while, utterly failing to find the exit. Just as she was growing anxious, the sound of several charming women chatting drifted from the lakeside not far away. Yuling concealed herself by hiding in the shrubbery. Being a flower spirit by nature, she cast an invisibility spell and vanished among the flora; to others, she would appear merely as a cluster of delicate, pristine white lilies of the valley swaying in the wind.
"This Lanyue Lake is truly so beautiful! The Lord Sovereign is indeed a poet at heart. At night, the scenery by the lake is such that you can pluck the stars by stretching out your hand and embrace the moon with open arms. I wonder who will eventually become the Lord Sovereign's wife, standing by his side to share this fine scenery and wonderful time. Just thinking about it makes one the envy of everyone!"
"Liucai, stop talking nonsense! The Lord Sovereign bears the glory of the entire island and is destined to save the common people from peril three years from now. How can he allow himself to be trapped by mortal romance and forget his mission? Such talk of yours is fine when spoken before me; fortunately, there is no one else around. If others were to overhear you, they would surely send you to the tongue-ripping hell to properly cultivate and reflect upon yourself!"
"I know, Sister Qinghui!" The girl called Liucai lowered her head, twisting a silk handkerchief until it was almost wrung into a twist. Suddenly remembering something, she added, "That daughter of the Chimei Island Lord, the one named Hongling—doesn't she admire our Lord Sovereign? She comes to pester the Lord Sovereign every other day, driving him to the point where he has no way to avoid her. Yet since he cannot neglect the etiquette between neighboring islands, he can only flee outside the island every few days, claiming to travel for experience. Who knows if he's actually going off to flirt with other romantic interests?"
Qinghui understood her thoughts and simply lowered her voice to soothe her: "The Lord Sovereign has a predestined fate written in the stars. Once he fulfills his mission, his destined partner will naturally appear upon the Three-Life Stone on West Mountain, and the two of them will be united in a bond lasting ten thousand generations. This was personally divined thirty years ago by the late Lord Sovereign, who exhausted his very last breath of spiritual energy for the sake of the safety of all under heaven. This divination penetrated the heavenly secrets: it not only foresaw that three years from now, a supremely wicked demon would emerge into the world, throwing the realm into terrifying upheaval, but also calculated that the sole chance to reverse this desperate crisis would lie in the Lord Sovereign, who would be born precisely at that time. Over these past thirty years, I have watched with my own eyes how the Lord Sovereign has carried high expectations from the moment of his birth, and I have also witnessed his grueling cultivation day in and day out over the years—not for himself to unify the realm, but solely for the sake of the common people, for that single reason alone." When she reached this point, her eyes became tinged with a trace of sorrow and pity.
"Though we maidservants who only arrived in the past few years have heard rumors of these secret matters, after all, we cannot understand them as deeply as you do, Sister. You are the most senior matron on the island. If this entire Xingyu Island weren't managed by you, relying merely on the Lord Sovereign's casual and romantic temperament, I'm afraid this island would have fallen apart into scattered sand long ago. There's no comparing it to how it is now, kept in such good order by your governance; this island simply cannot do without you for even a single day."
Qinghui smiled, allowing the young woman to affectionately support her as she walked toward the west side of the courtyard: "You, girl, you just have a glib tongue, sweet as honey."
Every bit of this scene fell unimpeded into Yuling's eyes. Pondering for a moment, she formed a hand seal to reveal her true form, wondering whether she should closely follow the two women out of this maze, when she turned around and bumped squarely into a solid chest.