Cloud and mist shrouded the summit of Sun-Watching Peak year-round. Since the Sect Master had taken up residence, banks of haze had surged like tides, their strands coiling around the mountain and screening it from prying eyes.
Deeper within, there was not a trace of halls, towers, pavilions, or viewing terraces. The entire mountain seemed to have been hollowed out, and some unknown watercourse had been diverted into it to form a vast, mist-veiled lake.
Jade-green waves rolled across the lake, yet its waters were peculiar: clear above, translucent as glazed glass; turbid below, thick as congealed fat. At times they rose like mist, at others they swirled like ribbons, revealing a lively mutability, brimming with vitality.
Countless green lotuses spread across it, their stems sprawling and roots thick, as though they would stretch to the sky.
A small black-canopied boat slowly emerged. Its wooden oars swayed gently, stirring trails through the water and sending ripples spreading.
Sect Leader Liu Huan, whose cultivation had reached the twelfth realm and who could shift a mountaintop with one hand, sat upright in the bow.
A small blackwood table stood before him. On it, a little red-clay stove was boiling tea, fine bubbles rising through the brew as curling wisps of fragrance drifted out, refreshing the heart and lungs.
The seemingly endless water vapor dispersed, no longer concealing the Sect Master's face. He looked middle-aged, with a faint dusting of frost at his temples.
Gentle as jade, elegant and graceful-he must have been a handsome young man in his youth.
Zhou Fu, who had publicly declared that she was in seclusion, stood on the lakeshore as though admiring the view.
Seeing the black-canopied boat draw near, she called respectfully:
"Greetings, Sect Master."
Seated in the boat, Liu Huan raised a hand to gesture