Benefiting the World
There are immortals in the human world—sometimes a mountain, sometimes a dish, a line of poetry, a gleaming sword, or perhaps the silhouette of a slender figure. The mortal realm itself is immortal, on plateaus and islands, hidden in the present, revealed in the past. Gu Yi’s heart lies in the world of men, and Gu Yi himself walks among them. This is the tale that begins with an external aid gone astray. The book is also known as: The Drifting Chronicle of Gu Yi, Abandoned by His Cheat.
Benefiting the World
In the fourth year of Great Xu's Peaceful Reign, after a gentle spring rain, the tender buds on Xiaoyuan Mountain unfurled a vibrant green, and the woodland began to flourish. Mist lingered around the mountaintop, sunlight failing to penetrate fully, while four colossal conical stones hung suspended in the air. At the highest point, a three-story ancient tower nestled among verdant pines and cypresses, ethereal and elusive, seeming both real and illusory.
Those seeking immortality along the mountain path all knew that was the immortal’s residence atop Xiaoyuan Mountain.
“There is a mountain in Xu called Xiaoyuan, where an immortal cultivates atop its peak. Uncle Chen, we’ve finally entered Xiaoyuan Mountain! Who would’ve thought the path here would be so easy to traverse!”
This was a carriage traveling along the official road, carrying a young girl disguised as a boy, though she made no attempt to hide her feminine voice. The lines she sang were from a folk song that had swept the nation in the second year of Peaceful Reign.
She addressed Uncle Chen, a man in his forties clad in coarse robes with a scruffy beard, presently seated on the left in the driver’s spot.
On the right sat a young man, disheveled and distracted, curled up and leaning against the carriage, his expression despondent as though struck by great misfortune—worn yet still handsome.
Uncle Chen replied, “Indeed. When I first came to Xiaoyuan Mountain in the third year of Peaceful Reign, the road wasn’t nearly as easy. I wonder why it’s changed.”
The youth shi
