After Xing Yan entered Shangqing Palace on Mount Luofu and took up his idle post at Four Seas Hall, he found pleasure in studying Daoist scriptures whenever boredom struck.
Thousand Birds Cliff on Embracing Rosy Clouds Peak lay tucked away in a secluded corner, quiet and serene to begin with. Moreover, the Shangqing disciples on the peak largely disdained this boy from the streets who had entered their order by "donating a mountain," leaving Thousand Birds Cliff all the more deserted and peaceful!
Compared with the bustling streets of Raozhou, Four Seas Hall on Thousand Birds Cliff was truly as different as heaven and earth!
Fortunately, although this street-born youth whom the Daoist elite scorned might have lacked a pedigree fit for refined company, Xing Yan was quite accomplished in literary pursuits. It was thanks to this that his idle appointment on Thousand Birds Cliff had not left a hot-blooded young man stifled and climbing the walls.
Whenever he had nothing to do, Xing Yan read the scriptures stored in Four Seas Hall's stone dwelling by its former hall masters. Those predecessors, who had been only too eager to extricate themselves from the post, had left behind books on all manner of subjects, more than enough to help him pass the time.
When he was not reading, he practiced the flute. Xing Yan would never abandon the skill that had once earned him food and clothing. Only now, with no need to flatter customers for his wages, his everyday music had gained a greater measure of pure, otherworldly grace. If he was neither reading nor playing, he generally sat in Cloud-Sleeve Pavilion staring into space, pondering now and then what universal principle lay behind his "Great Splendor Dao Power," "Refining Spirit into Void," and those profoundly mysterious Daoist teachings-just what