It was June in the mortal world, and the sun blazed overhead.
On Shang Gong Island, however, the plum trees on the western side of Plum Mountain stood proudly against the wind, their blossoms blooming in profusion despite the cold.
Plum Mountain stood by the sea. Its cliffs were not high, and at the foot of the mountain, right beside the water, there was a platform barely ten feet above the surface.
A broad, elegant bamboo house had been built on the platform. The emerald bamboo house stood beside the blooming plum blossoms, both facing the wind, with the boundless blue sea as their backdrop. Living there was no different from living inside a painting.
Before the bamboo house lay a patch of flat ground. It had been made not only perfectly level but black as well.
An old man in coarse clothes, his hair disheveled, was crouching on the smooth black ground, arranging counting rods.
Some of his rods were long, others short; some were round, others square. It seemed that different shapes represented different numbers and symbols.
At first, the old man arranged them at a furious pace, but he gradually slowed.
The vast array of counting rods nearly filled the entire black patch of ground, which measured three zhang on each side.
At last, he held a white, chess-piece-shaped rod between his fingers and remained motionless for a long while.
He stood like that for a full half hour, his eyes fixed on the black ground. His gaze went from focused to vacant.
He seemed to have wandered beyond the world, his soul having left his body.
Suddenly, a white piece leaped into the air from the box of counting rods outside the black ground and landed with uncanny precision in a spot on the array.
Startled,