In a grove of peach blossoms stood Peach Blossom Village; in Peach Blossom Village, love blossomed. The peach blossoms were brewed into wine, a gift to the newlyweds for joy upon joy.
Peach Blossom Village had ten miles of peach blossoms. When they bloomed, petals fluttered down in profusion, dyeing the river that ran through the village a lovely pink. Mandarin ducks cut through the pink river, lending the mountain village a touch of poetry.
Peach Blossom Village had only a thousand or so households. Ordinarily, the slightest stir became common knowledge throughout the village within a few days.
Long ago, a mysterious person had come to Peach Blossom Village and bought a luxurious courtyard residence. Its elegant, opulent furnishings resembled those of a scholarly family's estate, entirely out of place in their rural village.
The owner had also bought quite a few fertile fields in the village. Someone always tended them, growing common fruits and vegetables and occasionally giving some to the neighbors, but the owner had never moved in.
Over meals and tea, the villagers discussed the residence, suspecting its owner might be an extremely wealthy merchant who bought houses everywhere and stayed in them in turn. Only such moneybags liked buying houses and land wherever they went.
They liked staying in different houses as they traveled on business, sparing themselves the trouble of finding inns everywhere. It sounded like a life fit for immortals.
The people of Peach Blossom Village came up with all manner of strange conjectures about the great residence whose gates remained shut day after day.
Several years passed, and they grew accustomed to no one living there.
Until-
Not long ago, two figures who looked like immortals arrived in the village. One was a refined painter who often admired flowers and paintings; the