A thoroughly satisfying revenge was a grand drinking bout from which one did not return until drunk.
Pouring wine for oneself, drinking slowly, taking pleasure alone—that was enough.
Someone wore a golden crown and a green gauze Daoist robe wreathed in purple qi, held a gleaming White Jade Lingzhi in his hands, and wore a pair of plain white cloud-treading shoes.
He looked around thirty. His features were flawless, his Dao body immaculate, though he could not exactly be called handsome.
He resembled an exiled immortal young master from some Strange Tales novel, with a home amid mountains and waters, surrounded by dense flowers and bamboo. He also seemed like a reclusive Dao Cultivator stepping from a Roaming Immortal Poem, living beneath a thatched roof, cultivating in the mountains, and only occasionally visiting the mortal world.
He strolled leisurely, every few steps revealing a new sight.
Different colors and painted scenes appeared around him: pavilions and towers rendered in meticulous linework, flower gardens expressed in freehand ink, and courtyards depicted in blue-green landscapes.
Having entered the Immortal Realm not long ago, Chen Ping'an had merely made his appearance a few years younger.
Wusha Street in Yongjia County had once been crowded with powerful clans under the former dynasty. With a new Son of Heaven came new courtiers. Apart from this former Prime Minister's mansion and the two neighboring grand estates, all of which had changed owners, the old Prince Qi's Mansion and an imperial censor's residence had long since been swallowed up by the Ma Clan. The Ma Clan adhered to an old family precept: "The family may divide without dividing the stove; divide the stove, and the family is torn apart." Thus, since settling here nearly thirty years ago, they had never divided the family or the stove, nor