The ancestral hall was spacious, but offered little cover; everything inside was plainly visible.
Pei Ling first walked toward the wall on the left. The entire wall was painted with a scene resembling the Heavenly Palace of the immortals.
Amid billowing clouds and rosy mists, jade flowers and fine grasses grew everywhere, while jade halls and jeweled towers stood in rows. Immortals in flowing robes drifted about, their hair tied in twin buns. Some carried flower baskets, some played jade flutes, some presented fruit on golden trays, and others danced with pipa in their arms... Their poses were endless in variety, their brows and eyes full of feeling. All had moonlike faces and flowerlike beauty, the peerless loveliness of women in the mortal world.
As Pei Ling studied the mural, the scene before his eyes rippled faintly. In an instant, he saw himself holding a fishing rod, wrapped in a straw rain cape, sitting alone beside a frozen lake beneath a bitterly cold sky, with heavy snow blanketing the ground. He was staring blankly at the lake before him, half sealed in ice.
Suddenly, the rod tugged in his hands. A young servant beside him reminded him excitedly, "Young master, you've got a bite! Quick!"
He immediately came to his senses and hurriedly reeled in the line...
"Cough, cough, cough, cough..." Pei Ling suddenly broke into a violent fit of coughing and jolted awake.
Shadows loomed all around him. A palace lantern on the offering table beside him illuminated the room. There was no snow or lake—only the mural before his eyes, ethereal and cold, imbued with a lofty immortal air that had cast off every trace of worldly warmth.
He furrowed his brow. Xiao Zheng's memories again!
This ancestral hall seemed to be extremely unfavorable to him...
He couldn't