At the border between Shuishui Kingdom and Guyu Kingdom, amid green mountains and clear waters beneath a warm, sunny sky, a man and woman walked side by side up a mountain toward a Mountain God Temple on its summit.
The man carried a sword on his back and wore a jade hairpin, a long blue-green robe, and cloth shoes. The woman carried a sword case and wore a Snow White Robe.
Both the people and the scenery belonged in a painting.
The mountain was called Jingling. A Mountain God shrine had been built there some twenty years earlier. Though its rank was modest, the deity receiving incense offerings was a Mountain God Her Majesty the local people had never heard of. A Ministry of Rites Attendant Official from Shuishui Kingdom had presided over the Conferring Orthodoxy ceremony. Scholars throughout the prefecture had initially scrambled to claim her as kin and seek an ancestor's blessing, but even after combing through the Official Histories and local County Annals, they could not discover which titled madam in history "Liu Qian" had been.
The famous Huang River flowed nearby. Every rainy season brought the sight of its spring flood. People cherished the peaceful years after the Chaotic World all the more, and their spirits were especially high now: a wedding feast was being held at the Huang River King's residence. A river god taking a bride was a celebration that came but once in a century, so everyone from local officials to ordinary townsfolk was in a festive mood, as though it were New Year. Incense offerings at the Jingling Mountain God Temple had risen above their usual level too.
The man and woman visiting the Jingling Mountain God shrine were Chen Ping'an and Ning Yao, who had traveled south together by Soaring Wind