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Southern Xinjiang, Yihuan Ridge.
This ridge was one of the Seventeen Sacred Sites of Shu Mountain's southwest. Tucked away among the countless mountains of Southern Xinjiang, it stretched from east to west for several dozen miles. The entire ridge was covered in towering old cypresses, pines, and other great trees, lush and dense enough to blot out the sky. Exotic flowers and plants grew everywhere. Its ravines and valleys were secluded and enchanting, its cliffs and hollows deep and beautiful, and its rare birds and Strange Beasts showed no fear of people. It was truly a wondrous spiritual mountain, a realm unlike the mortal world.
Atop the ridge lay Huanbo Pool. A hundred years ago, a Buddhist woman had practiced her cultivation on the mountain. She had been abandoned as an infant and carried up the ridge by a spirit beast, which raised her. Later, she became an immortal after taking the spiritual herbs that grew on the mountain. Since she had been born without a name, she took the ridge's name as her religious title and was known as Saint Aunt Yihuan.
Huanbo Pool had originally been a famous Blessed Land of the Daoist school. After Saint Aunt Yihuan spent several centuries developing it, it became filled with countless treasures, making it all the more captivating.
Yet Saint Aunt Yihuan had been as renowned as Venerable Jue, the foremost Buddhist master of the Southern Song Dynasty. The cultivation world had honored her as the foremost female immortal among the unorthodox schools. She had spent centuries painstakingly arranging and fortifying her lair, Huanbo Pool, making it virtually impregnable.
In fact, Saint Aunt Yihuan had long possessed enough power to ascend to the Lingkong Immortal Realm. But no one knew what she had been thinking: she had abandoned the Dao