Great Azure Mountain, Mountain Lord's Cave.
Bai Tingshan took out a wooden box and opened it to reveal a writing brush brimming with spiritual radiance. It was clearly a Spirit Artifact. Then he introduced it:
"Fellow Daoist, this Purple Sandalwood Wolf-Hair Brush was made from thousand-year-old purple sandalwood spirit timber and the tail hairs of a Saint Embryo Realm Wolf Demon. Whether writing Confucian True Script or drawing Daoist Tradition talismans, it yields twice the results for half the effort. I offer it to you now, in the hope that you will agree to one request of mine."
Surprised, Xuanming asked, "What might that be?"
Glancing at his plump daughter, who was sleeping as though heaven and earth had gone dark, Bai Tingshan continued, "My wife and I knew and loved each other for three hundred years, and each encountered our own good fortune. She obtained a mountain god's legacy, while my bloodline reverted to its ancestral form.
"I thought our fortunes had finally turned, but instead disaster came knocking. A hundred years ago, the trace of Bai Ze's bloodline within me attracted covetous eyes from every quarter. Demons, fiends, humans, and Divine beings all wanted to kill me and take my blood. Though my wife and I slew every foe who came, we were gravely wounded ourselves. She even fell from her divine station, suffered a severe depletion of her Primordial Qi, and sustained harm to her pregnancy.
"Afterward, we were hunted like dogs without a home, wandering in hardship for years before finally settling on Great Azure Mountain. In the end, she gave birth to Tiger Girl, then departed this world.
"I devoted myself to cultivation, and after attaining the Saint Embryo Realm, I left the mountain to slay our enemies with my own hands and avenge our