Unintended Immortality

They circled the lake once more, passed through Xianning again, but didn’t linger. They only spent one night lodging at the Three Pagodas Monastery, then set off westward.

For the first three hundred li, the scenery remained familiar. Many locals still understood the official tongue, and although the temperature was slightly lower than in Xianning, it wasn’t drastically different. There were still quite a few travelers along the road.

But after those three hundred li, the scenery gradually began to shift into that of high plateaus and mountains. Winter grasses yellowed, forests grew sparse, lake waters turned an almost unreal shade of blue, and snowcapped peaks were reflected within them. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer people could understand official speech. Most of the locals were herders; only a few nobles or officials could converse fluently in the central tongue. The temperature dropped sharply, and the number of travelers along the way dwindled as well.

They continued until they reached the border between Yunzhou and Great Yan. This area was near the Snowy Plains and Yizhou.

Of everything seen along the journey, the most unforgettable were the lakes. Various plateau lakes and streams shone like gems or jade ribbons upon the highlands, no matter their size. Each was a different color, all either crystal-clear or incredibly deep, and they were so beautiful they seemed unreal.

At the same time, the temperatures plunged. Occasionally they encountered tea and horse traders on the road, all wrapped in layers like bears. It almost felt like retracing their previous winter trek through the Western Regions.

Once they had seen their fill of the scenery, they turned back and headed south.

Winter deepened. Yet this southern journey was completely different from the westward one.

The further west they went, the higher the altitude and the colder it got. But the further south they went, the lower the elevation and the warmer the climate.

The roadside scenery also began to change markedly.

At first, the plateau landscape shifted into more familiar mountain and water scenery. But as they continued southward, that scenery gradually gave way to tropical rainforest. The roadside vegetation visibly became richer and more unfamiliar, with many new varieties. Plants grew at all levels of height, with no clear vertical layering. This was unlike typical forests elsewhere, where you mostly saw tall trees and ground plants, but the space in between was empty.

Along the road, there were often many ferns. The large trees often had buttress roots or aerial roots.