The next morning, thick fog spread everywhere. Nine Luminaries Mountain, which usually seemed close enough to touch, lay wreathed in cloud and mist, as though suspended in an ethereal void. Viewed from below, the drifting mist took on the emerald hues of the wooded slopes. Verdant haze billowed and shifted unpredictably, lending the mountain an added measure of secluded beauty and mystery.
Zhu Yingtai exclaimed, "It really does look like an immortal realm. I'm almost afraid to walk into it."
Chen Caozhi smiled. "Brother Yingtai, are you afraid you'll go up with raven hair and a rosy face, only to come down with wrinkled skin and crane-white hair?"
"Raven hair and a rosy face?" Something stirred in Zhu Yingtai's heart, and she cast Chen Caozhi a sidelong glance. His expression was unchanged, so she said, "Brother Zizhong, as Master Ge Zhichuan's disciple, you must know many arts of gods and immortals. Please tell me one or two."
Chen Caozhi said, "Master Ge doesn't lump gods and immortals together. Gods are gods, and immortals are immortals. It is gods that people worship, and mortals can never become gods, no matter what they do. But immortality can be pursued. Through arduous cultivation of body and mind, one can attain the pure state of an immortal."
Zhu Yingtai asked with a smile, "Why didn't you study the cultivation of immortality under Master Zhichuan, Brother Zizhong?"
Watching his nephew and niece come skipping toward them, Chen Caozhi said, "I have no bones for the Dao. I love only the mortal world."
Seven-year-old Run'er wore a little blue-flowered ruqun, her front hair level with her brows and her back hair falling over her shoulders. Her brows looked painted, her eyes were clear as water, and her skin seemed carved from pink jade. As beautiful as