Time flew by like a white colt flashing past a gap, and several more years quietly slipped away.
Leading the spirit beast that had once been the Thunder Dragon Little White, but now looked like nothing more than an ordinary big yellow dog, Yun Che leisurely traveled through countless famous mountains and great rivers within the Mystic Dragon Coalition Domain.
He had seen the dazzling, ever-changing glow of dawn by the Eastern Sea, staining half the sky red as the sun first rose; he had seen the vast, rolling stretches of yellow sand in the Western Region's desert, extending beyond the horizon and gleaming golden beneath the blazing sun; and in a misty, rain-shrouded riverside town in the Southern Region, he had sat in a tavern beside the river, slowly sipping the rich wine the proprietor had just brewed, fragrant with peach blossoms.
He had seen white-haired old men with faces etched by the years, squatting leisurely beside their field ridges, puffing on tobacco pipes as they squinted at their lush green crops; he had seen rosy-cheeked little girls with two jaunty pigtails, barefoot beside clear ponds, carefully catching hopping frogs and laughing like silver bells; he had also seen poor scholars on their way to the imperial examinations, wearing blue robes washed pale and carrying heavy book cases, walking slowly over bluestone paths worn smooth by the years while quietly reciting poetry.
These ordinary scenes, so full of life and the warmth of everyday living, were things he had never properly settled down to experience and savor during his busy years of fighting, cultivating, and saving domains.
That day, he wandered wherever his feet took him and, before he knew it, reached a secluded mountain hollow in the remotest part of the Eastern Region.
Looking up, he saw a