Years passed. Ages.
The Eternal Spirit World glittered with bright light, and its 1,080,000 worlds glowed radiantly. Generations of powerful experts came and went. Archaeans. Sovereigns. As the saying goes, after the rain, the spring bamboo blossoms. These new experts became like shining stars within the eras in which they lived.
The Eternal Immortal Domains became the brightest star among all the other stars.
Eventually, Bai Xiaochun left the Eternal Immortal Domains, taking his friends and family with him. Afterward, his story became a legend, and then a myth. Even years later, people would still talk about the stories, which to some extent was the ultimate explanation of the history of the Eternal Immortal Domains.
No one knew where Bai Xiaochun went. All they could do was study the most ancient records in the Arch-Emperor Dynasty, where they found only the vaguest of clues. Apparently, whoever left the records behind wanted people to know that Bai Xiaochun, along with his friends and family, had gone to some unknown location, where they would spend their days in complete happiness.
People accepted this version of events, and it soon came to be official history in the Eternal Spirit World.
With every generation that came and went, cultivators would attempt to search for Bai Xiaochun, in the hopes of personally meeting the most powerful person to ever exist.
And yet, none of them ever succeeded.
**
Outside of the Eternal Spirit World was a vast starry sky filled with endless mist that made it difficult to see very far in any direction. And yet, it was now possible to see someone flying through that mist at top speed, an emotional expression on his face.
“I did it! I finally… escaped!!” He looked like a young man, fair and pure, dressed in a white robe. As for the expression on his face, it was one of pure delight, like a caged bird that had just been freed….
“Those women are too much! I'm the honest one! The sincere one! What gives them the right to bully me?!” He sighed. From the gleam in his eyes, it could be seen that although he wasn’t any sort of villain, he was by no means the honest type.
Of course, this young man was none other than Bai Xiaochun.
In the ancient records it said that he took his family and friends to some unknown location to live in happiness. Although that was true, after enough time passed, Bai Xiaochun simply couldn’t take it any longer. That was just his personality. It was exacerbated by the fact that Song Junwan, Zhou Zimo, Hou Xiaomei and Gongsun Wan’er were very strict with him. It eventually reached the point where he bristled with anger….
“They won't let any other women even talk to me! They don’t let me go out alone, and they even have the audacity to say that I cause disasters wherever I go! They’re worried that I’ll destroy our home?! I could deal with that, but then they actually forbid me from concocting medicine!
“What kind of a person do they think I am?!
“Can’t talk to other women? Fine. Can’t go out and have fun? Fine! Can’t concoct medicine? Whatever! The final straw is their bickering! Even after years of being married, no matter how much I console them, no matter how reasonable I am, we're always fighting. The last fight lasted a thousand years….” What was most maddening was that when he discussed something important with his Daoist partners, they would all look at him, and wait to see which of them he looked back at.
“I finally made a clean escape…. They’re all busy getting ready for New Year’s, so at least I can get out and stretch my legs.” And thus, he flew along, determined to finally have some fun.
Sighing, he proceeded along, passing through vast stretches of space with each movement. As for his final destination, he had already made his decision. He would go to the home of the little turtle, the Never-Ending Dao Domain.
Upon arriving, and just before entering, his expression flickered as he noticed something floating through the vast mist.
“That’s the aura of the fourth step…. No, wait. That’s the aura of the fifth step!” Blinking, he reached out into the mist, causing a blur of light to fly toward his hand.
It was a bottle. Or more precisely, a message in a bottle.
This bottle had floated for who-knew-how-long through the misty, starry sky, until Bai Xiaochun happened across it.
“How amusing,” he thought, blinking a few times. After looking at the bottle for a moment, he opened it and took out the contents, which consisted of a single strip of paper.
Curious, he opened the paper, and immediately laughed.
“Who wrote this? He wanted to get rich?” However, even as he chuckled, his expression flickered, as streams of karma rose up from the paper, seemingly intent on connecting to Bai Xiaochun.
Eyes widening, he quickly performed an incantation gesture with his left hand to sever the karma.
“What a villain! Who is this guy? His Dao contains karma? And whoever touches this paper will create a promissory note to him? They’ll owe him money through karma?!?!” He looked at the paper for a moment, then snorted coldly.
“He's so obsessed with money he's gone crazy!” Another moment passed, and he waved his hand, causing a new line of text to appear on the other side of the piece of paper.
What’s so good about being rich? Living forever is the most important thing! I want to live forever!
With that, he prepared to throw the bottle back out again. But then he hesitated, pulled the paper back out, and added another line.
Never get more than one Daoist partner!
Feeling very satisfied, he hoped that anyone who found the bottle in the future would listen to his advice, which was essentially the accumulation of all his life experience. Flicking his sleeve, he sent the bottle flying out into the mist, and then headed toward the Never-Ending Dao Domain!
“If I ever meet that crazy bastard, I’ll definitely talk some sense into him! I can’t believe he dared to try to make me owe him money! Maybe I should give him a Fantasy Pill. Or… an Aphrodisiac Pill!”