The island covered an extraordinarily vast expanse, magnificent and imposing, like an enormous dragon's head that had burst fiercely through the waters and risen hundreds of zhang high, displaying all its towering grandeur as it anchored the southwest!
Its many halls and palaces were all built of pure white-water jade, dazzling to behold, like vessels of clear ice and jade.
At a single glance,
one felt as though one stood within the Vast Cold Palace of Pure Void.
Just then, the sky had cleared, and the rising sun shed ten thousand rays of golden light.
Water and sky shone resplendent, gold and jade-green mingling beneath five-colored auspicious clouds that shimmered and wheeled, presenting the transcendent air of an immortal retreat beyond the mortal world.
While Chen Heng stood surveying this Mysterious Pearl Blessed Land, the island's servants had already received their instructions.
Before long, several maidservants opened the restrictions and gracefully approached, welcoming him into the Blessed Land's Main Hall and attentively serving tea and fruit.
After taking his seat, Chen Heng looked around. Though the Main Hall was lavishly decorated, there was little particularly unusual about it.
Only a portrait hanging on a screen in a corner of the hall
stirred a little curiosity within him, drawing his gaze.
The portrait depicted an ordinary-looking old man wearing a tall cap and wide sleeves, with gold and jade at his waist and a ceremonial tablet in his hand, looking much like a mortal prince or high minister.
Yet an abundant Dao aura surrounded him, forming five-colored auspicious clouds that wheeled and danced about his body.
Whatever art had been used on the portrait, it appeared remarkably lifelike.
Even the old man's vast, unending presence had been rendered without the slightest discrepancy, as though he stood there in the flesh, with