Shi Feiyang won over all six masters of the Purple Cloud Palace, one by one. Even Shao Dongxiu, the most calculating and selfish of them, brimmed with affection for him. She thought this youthful-looking senior in blue had wonderful looks and a wonderful disposition, and his cultivation, breadth of mind, and vision were all beyond reproach. Even she, who had never cared much for male beauty, often found herself thinking:
If I married him, joined our names in the cultivation register, and practiced dual cultivation with him, we could stay together and share the endless years of immortals. I would never want anything else... but he is a senior, and his powers are so great. I could hardly be a match for him... even being his concubine would be wonderful, as long as I could remain beside such a beautiful man... if not a concubine, even a Maidservant would do...
The six differed in innate disposition and foundations, and each harbored their own thoughts. Shi Feiyang had long since taken it all in.
He was lodged in the Coral Pavilion to the due north. Numerous clear streams ran through it, eventually converging in a lake. Coral rockeries twenty or thirty feet tall stood everywhere, their strange shapes stacked in continuous formations. In some places, winding paths led into secluded depths; in others, tier after tier rose upward. There were Bai jade pavilions and terraces, groves of coral trees, and palaces built entirely of Bai jade and Jin.
Shi Feiyang secretly observed his disciples. Deng Bagu and Yuan Hua had weathered long years of hardship, and cultivation always came first for them, whatever their surroundings. Xiong Manniang constantly kept the thought that "an immortal opportunity is hard to come by" close to her heart and ignored all external distractions. These three