Immortal Clans and Noble Scions: Fine Robes Claim the Immortal Way, White Bones Build the Lofty Halls

The man within the jade was Huang Tian.

He was encased in white jade because he had resisted the Dead Realm's pull for several seconds. That had caused an unexpected hitch in the transfer, but it was nothing serious. With a brief probe of his senses, he knew the jade would dissolve within the time it took an incense stick to burn.

Through half-lidded eyes, he studied the woman some ten feet before him. She was in her thirties or forties, with disheveled hair and a sallow face. Her rough hemp clothes were torn and scored in several places, blood seeped from her exposed skin, and mud clung to her legs as though she had sunk into wet earth.

One glance told Huang Tian this was no technologically advanced world. Recalling the mournful song he had just heard, he considered its words: Immortals and alchemists dwell in lofty halls and ride the rainbow clouds. So this world had cultivators. Yet its commoners were treated like swine and sheep, their lives worth no more than weeds. Clearly, the gulf between immortals and mortals ran deep—

As he pondered, the woman seemed to lose every last shred of strength. She dropped to the ground, half kneeling and half collapsed. Feeling the white jade's gentle glow and gazing at the sorrowful-looking immortal within it, she edged forward twice, then knocked her head heavily against the ground. Her forehead pressed into the dry grass as she murmured, "This world is too cruel. Twenty years ago, immortals took my father away. I don't know whether they used him as alchemy material or ate him. Mother wept for two months, then followed him into death—

"I had two sons and a daughter. My eldest son and my daughter both died young. When my second son, Hou