The Milky Way shimmered, and emerald peaks clustered beneath it. In the distance, at the immortal estates on several peaks of Zhengyang Mountain, old Sword Immortals seemed to be gathering friends for private banquets. Candlelight glowed everywhere, making the mountains look like a city of fire.
Stars shifted overhead, wine cups passed below. It was a sight to gladden the heart and delight the eye.
Lamplight at the third watch, roosters at the fifth: the hours for reading books and practicing the sword.
At the Immortal Family Inn nearest Qingwu Peak, Chen Ping'an and Liu Xianyang lay in wicker chairs enjoying the cool air. Liu Xianyang was already fast asleep, while Chen Ping'an, with nothing else to do, was leafing through a book on astronomy and timekeeping. He closed it, slipped it into his sleeve, and said softly, "It's the hour of midnight."
According to Daoist teachings, there was a mysterious saying: "At midnight, kindle the yang fire—two hundred and sixteen." Dao Cultivators chose this hour to temper their bodies and nourish their Golden Cores, until yin was exhausted and Pure Yang remained, leaving their forms like lustrous jade. According to the white-haired boy, Wang Luoyuan, the Rice Thief and one of the young Ten Candidates, had once been an obscure clerk at a little Daoist temple. By chance, he found a discarded Daoist text and cultivated according to its method, refining harmony in the cauldron of mountains and rivers until he nurtured ten thousand mystic pearls. When he attained the Dao, mist dispersed before the shining sun and clouds parted around the bright moon.
Those words naturally came from a memory Wu Shuang Jiang had given his Taoist Companion Tian Ran aboard the Night Voyage Ship. For Wang Luoyuan to earn such praise from Wu Shuang Jiang, who excelled