South of the Shao River

Everyone says Lincheng has three great scourges: demons running rampant, ghosts and monsters acting treacherously, and Xie Gou taking to the streets. Or, as the saying goes: demons can be subdued, ghosts can be destroyed, but no one can deal with Xie Gou. In the thirty-eighth year of Zhaoqi, this man seemed to have begun going downhill. The heir to the throne was deposed, his residence was haunted, his principal consort died, and his leg bone was dislocated... Just when everyone thought he would abandon all the male favorites and consorts in his household, he instead drew his bow, spurred his horse, and chased after a yaksha girl from the grasslands! Everyone sighed: “Miss, take care!” Have you ever heard of it? South of the Shao River lies a land of boundless longevity, the destination and paradise yearned for by all cultivators. A girl on horseback from the grasslands was heading south toward a gloomy, opulent hell, while a young master who traversed boundless mountains and rivers was crawling out of the city... “Do you know? In truth, we are all wisps of wandering souls in the vast night, blindly roaming the human world in search of light. Most of us curl up and close our eyes, shutting away our hearts. Yet some people are the first to burn themselves into tiny stars, trying to illuminate this unfathomable abyss. Later, more and more people choose to become stars. They wait, they yearn, they suffer, waiting for the first light of dawn, then they perish, and then they become eternal.”