Chapter Two: Wherever the Heart Finds Rest, There Is Home

My words drifted out like a warm spring breeze, dispersing the clouds that had hung over my two daughters’ hearts. When they saw, through my divine sense, the magnificent Penglai Immortal Palace suspended within the token’s inner realm, both of them broke into smiles of surprise and relief at the same time.

Especially Yiyi. When she saw the chamber she had once lived in, the familiar lattice windows and gauzy curtains, her eyes even grew faintly red. Xiaobai, meanwhile, spun around excitedly inside the Artifact Refining Pavilion with her divine sense, letting out eager little howls at the glittering ore and materials, as though she could not wait to dive right in and roll about.

This unexpected joy was the strongest possible reassurance for our newly arrived family of outsiders. The predicament before us no longer seemed quite so impossible to overcome.

“Father, what do we do now?” Yiyi had steadied herself and looked up to ask.

“We find a home,” I answered briefly, my tone filled with a certainty I had never before possessed.

A proper home, one where we could lay low in peace and recover our strength, had to be chosen with the utmost care.

I sat down cross-legged once more. This time I was not healing, but carefully unfurling my divine sense, now at the peak of Nascent Soul perfection, like water spilling across the earth. Under the blessing of the Penglai secret arts, my perception became as intangible as wind and water, without form or substance. It skirted around the towering miasma of demonic aura, avoided the peaks faintly pulsing with restrictive formations, and, like the most cautious hunter, crept soundlessly through this vast mountain range, examining every inch of the terrain, the earth veins, and the distribution of spiritual energy.

The process was dull and long, and the consumption was enormous, yet I found myself delighted by it. This was not merely about finding a location; it was about building a safe fortress for my daughters.

For three days and three nights, my divine sense scoured nearly five thousand miles in every direction.

This land, known as the Eastern Region, was far more vast and abundant than I had imagined. I saw giant eagles with hundred-foot wingspans and iron-hard feathers launch themselves from nests atop thousand-foot cliffs, seizing, with effortless ease, a horned serpent as thick as a water barrel and soaring up into the clouds. I saw herds of dragon-blooded mammoths, each like a moving mountain, migrating through the forest with heavy, earthshaking steps, felling ancient trees and making the ground tremble wherever they passed. I even sensed, beneath a deep and bottomless dark pool, a slumbering presence of obscure and terrifying power; merely brushing its edge with my divine sense sent a chill through my heart.

This world was filled with opportunity, and strewn everywhere with deadly peril.

“Father, still no luck?” Yiyi leaned against me, idly toying with an unknown little blue flower.

“Soon,” I comforted her softly. “A good beginning is half the battle. Our home cannot be chosen carelessly.”

My standards were already crystal clear.

First, the location had to be absolutely secluded. It could not be any famous mountain or river marked on a map, and certainly not a blessed cave-heaven rich with spiritual energy. Such treasured ground had long since been divided up by the major sects and powerful rogue cultivators of this world; if we were to approach rashly, it would be no different from snatching food from a tiger’s mouth. What we needed was a forgotten corner of the world, a place so neglected that even low-level cultivators would not bother setting foot there.

Second, the concentration of spiritual energy had to be just right. Too barren, and it would slow our recovery and hinder the growth of spiritual plants; too rich, and it would stand out like a lighthouse in the night, drawing endless unwanted eyes. A spirit vein of moderate grade, subdued in aura yet long-lasting in supply, was the ideal choice.

Third, the terrain had to provide natural barriers. It needed to be easy to defend and hard to attack, with enough strategic depth for me to lay down the powerful formations inherited from Penglai.

On the evening of the fourth day, just as the last ray of sunlight was about to be swallowed by the western ridgeline, my divine sense finally found a perfect place amid a stretch of chaos.

It lay about three thousand miles southeast of where we had landed, within an unremarkable transitional range between two imposing main peaks. There, tucked between sheer mountain walls, was a small valley of no consequence at all. The entrance was narrow, and all year round it was shrouded in a thin natural miasma with a trace of poison. The surrounding forest was thick beyond belief, tangled with vines and almost impossible to walk through. This kind of environment was enough to drive away ordinary people entirely, and as for cultivators, it offered no special resources and only mediocre spiritual energy, so naturally no one would bother to explore it in depth.

Yet as my divine sense passed through the ground, I clearly detected that a hundred feet beneath the valley floor, there lay a subtle but extremely long earth-attribute spirit vein. Its spiritual energy was like warm jade—rich, gentle, unassuming, and yet inexhaustible, as though its pulse were linked to the entire mountain range. It was practically a place made for us to recuperate and rebuild our lives!

“Found it!” I opened my eyes abruptly, a flash of light glinting and vanishing in an instant.

“Really? Where, where?” Yiyi and Xiaobai immediately perked up.

I withdrew my heavily depleted divine sense and pointed toward the southeast. “Move out.”

The three of us immediately restrained all our auras and flew low and silent, like three light leaves brushing the dense treetops. Along the way, we skirted around three different beast territories and avoided an area that seemed to be a cultivator’s dwelling. It took us a full half day before, under the high moon, we finally reached the concealed entrance to that valley.

Parting the thick vines that hung down like a waterfall, we saw before us a secluded, tranquil little valley that looked like a paradise beyond the world, bathed in the cold moonlight. Strange blossoms and herbs carpeted the valley floor, glowing faintly. A clear stream flowed murmuring through the center, making a pleasant tinkling sound. The air was heavy with the fragrance of plants and trees, as well as pure spiritual energy; one deep breath was enough to soothe the soul.

“Wow... it’s so beautiful! Even more beautiful than anywhere on Earth!” Yiyi fell in love with it at once, stars seeming to sparkle in her eyes.

Xiaobai gave a happy howl and transformed into a white blur, dashing back and forth through the valley. Now and then she lowered her little nose to sniff a flower; now and then she used her paws to scratch at a patch of earth, inspecting our new territory with perfect seriousness and faithfully carrying out her duties as chief sentry.

Standing at the valley entrance, I watched my daughters’ joyful figures and listened to the tranquil sound of the stream. As I felt the peace and vitality of this land, an unprecedented sense of steadiness welled up in my heart.

I smiled and said softly, yet with unshakable conviction:

“Where the heart is at ease, there is home. From today on, this is our new home.”

I did not rush to carve out a cave dwelling. Instead, I took from the storage area of the Penglai Immortal Palace one hundred and eight formation flags and three core formation disks. These were spares I had forged on Earth from the finest materials, each one inscribed with exquisite array patterns.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped through the profound and enigmatic Yu Steps, my figure flashing at each crucial node in the valley. At every stop, I flicked a finger and sent one formation flag precisely into the ground, where it resonated with the earth veins below.

When the final main flag was pressed into the valley’s center, the entire ground gave a deep, resonant hum. Immediately after, an invisible wave of energy, imperceptible to the naked eye, rippled outward from the valley’s heart like water, covering every inch of the land, then merging perfectly with the natural miasma at the entrance before vanishing completely.

Thus was laid the foundation of a compound mountain-protecting array, combining concealment, spirit gathering, defense, and misdirection in one.

From this moment on, from the outside, this place remained nothing more than that ordinary miasma-shrouded forest. Even if a Nascent Soul cultivator passed by and swept it with divine sense, they would only feel that the spiritual energy here was mixed and unremarkable, not worth a second glance. They would never discover the hidden world within.

Only after completing all this did I finally let out a long breath. Fine beads of sweat had already gathered on my forehead.