Legend has it that thousands of years ago, there lived an immortal on the Nanming Islands. Mortals have never seen her immortal body, and they have never known how many years she lived. One day, huge waves arose in the Nanming Sea, surging and surging, reflecting the sun and making rainbows penetrate the sky. The Immortal Lord flew away on the wind, and mortals no longer knew his trace.
Later, a Taoist priest from the Tuoba tribe who looked despicable and ugly entered Nanming, fought against the fierce waves, and finally entered the fairy island where the immortal king once lived. However, the tribesmen did not see him return.
Decades later, it was rumored that several farmers met the Taoist priest in Fenghuang Mountain. The Taoist priest lived in seclusion in the sycamore forest. He was drunk every day. When he was drunk, he laughed wildly. When he woke up, he cried and cried, and often talked crazy. Most of the farmers thought that he was punished by the immortal magic of the Immortal Lord in Nanming, but some people said that he lived with the phoenix and must have attained enlightenment and became an immortal.
Later generations don't know what adventures he had during his decades in Beiming. They only know that he told people he had a dream, a very long dream.
Tuoba had a chronicler who visited the Taoist priest, used witchcraft to steal his memory, compiled it into a book, and hid it in the South China Sea for future generations. Only today have some books been circulated, and the world knows that the Taoist priest was called Zuodong by his single name, and that he had a long, long dream.