Beyond the Realm of Impermanence lay the Fresh Flower Country.
-Anonymous
Xing Yan had just left the perilous volcanic peaks and abyss and arrived in this splendid realm of Kunlun, yet he felt no relief whatsoever. After resting briefly beside the mist-shrouded road, he called Qiong Rong over, and together they stepped cautiously into the unfathomable clouds.
To Xing Yan's surprise, the gray mist that had seemed to fill heaven and earth without end cleared after they had walked less than a mile. Somehow, they emerged from the clouds; mist still dampened their clothes, but before their eyes lay a dazzling profusion of flowers, a world brimming with fragrant beauty!
They seemed to have reached a mountain hollow, carpeted with flowers and green grass like the mortal world in its loveliest spring. Beneath the brilliant sun, vast stretches of flowering trees grew thickly on the slopes to either side, their luxuriant blossoms spreading like clouds. Pale purple nestled beside tender blue-green, snowy white mingled with glowing red, as though lengths of sunset brocade had drifted gently down from the horizon. Yet each continuous grove had a pure, distinct color: where the blossoms were white as snow, they formed a sea of clouds and waves of snow without a single other hue mixed in. In Xing Yan's memory, this was the first time he had ever seen flowering mountain woods as magnificent and vast as an ocean.
The brilliant colors dazzled Xing Yan and his little sister for a while. After standing there until his eyes grew accustomed to the radiant blossoms, Xing Yan spotted a path through the woods. In the pink-flowering peach grove nearest them, a narrow trail intertwined with a clear brook, emerging from behind slanting clouds, winding past an old peach tree coiled like a horned dragon,