Owl Moon and the Demon Master Descend Mount Zhongnan (Two-in-One)

Mount Zhongnan had originally been part of Great Qing's Yu Prefecture.

Seven years earlier, Grand Preceptor Xie Chun'an had submitted a memorial proposing that it be assigned to Yan Territory. The court and countryside erupted in uproar. After many who tried to dissuade him lost their heads,

Empress Dowager Zhou Jinyu took the ten-year-old emperor by the hand and approved the proposal.

Yu Prefecture!

Its mountains and rivers were imposing, its plains scarce. Most people worked as hunters and lived off taxes collected from the mountains. Among Great Qing's prefectures, it had always been known for its poverty and backwardness.

Once the Prince of Yan began cultivating the Dao on Mount Zhongnan, three military garrisons were established to guard Yu Prefecture.

Supporting the Northern Yan Army's more than eighty thousand soldiers cost a great deal. During the armistice, the army had also adopted the Equal-Field System and Fubing System, as Qianyuan had. Most soldiers settled locally, married, and raised families.

With people moving in, official roads widening, and cities expanding, Yu Prefecture, which had only ever been able to live off its mountains, gained a little vitality.

At the turn of each year, pilgrims from Yan Territory streamed endlessly toward Mount Zhongnan. At the towns beneath the mountain, lights blazed until night looked like day. Inn rooms were almost impossible to find, and prices soared toward the heavens!

Everything those pilgrims spent on food, clothing, and supplies along the way became wealth for Yu Prefecture.

Over these ten years!

Life had begun to flourish for the people of Yu Prefecture, and their reverence for Mount Zhongnan, perpetually wreathed in incense smoke, only deepened.

Mount Zhongnan had once been no more than an obscure mountain.

A mountain need not be tall; if an immortal dwelled there, it became sacred!

Beyond Yu