Xu Qing had some impression of the Fox Girl from Qingqiu.
Thirty years ago, outside Luojing City, the Celestial Heart Sect's Jinluo Protector encountered a plainly dressed Female Half-Immortal. She intended to give him guidance, but Jin Wanshan was addicted to gambling at the time, wasting the opportunity.
And the appearance of that Female Half-Immortal was exactly the same as the Fox Girl Hu Baosong met in Qingqiu two hundred years ago.
Even the faded, washed-out clothes were identical.
Hu Baosong had lived for over two hundred years; if she truly was the Fox Girl from Qingqiu, how many years had she existed?
Xu Qing thought she was likely someone who, like the White Immortal of Hundred Herbs Cave on Moonlight Mountain, had survived five hundred years of disaster tribulations, or perhaps even earlier.
Five hundred years of lightning disasters, a thousand years of fire disasters, fifteen hundred years of discernment by storms...
According to Xu Qing, once one's cultivation exceeds fifteen hundred years and they have survived three cycles of tribulations, they become a walking Immortal of the secular world. They need only wait for the arrival of the celestial officers, and when the auspicious clouds and celestial music descend, they can be ranked among the Immortals.
However, with the path to immortality now severed, even if someone endures fifteen hundred years, another fifteen hundred years await them. Cultivators might pass the first round of tribulations, but not necessarily the second.
The Fox Girl from Qingqiu called herself a Half-Immortal thirty years ago, and Xu Qing estimated her cultivation was roughly seven or eight hundred years, at most around a thousand.
As for the thousand-year Ghost King in the Ghost King Mausoleum...
Humans, demons, and ghosts cannot be generalized together.
Humans are naturally suited for cultivation. Learning the ways of the Immortal requires at least five hundred years less effort than other beings. If one is noble or wise, they need three hundred years less effort than ordinary people. Thus, people need only accumulate a thousand years to attain the Dao.
The accumulation of cultivation in these thousand years remains a fixed value of fifteen hundred years.
Demon cultivation falls behind by five hundred years. Even the intelligent among them must wait twelve hundred years to accumulate enough cultivation to become an Immortal, let alone endure multiple cultivation tribulations in between.
Ghosts are even worse off. If it takes ten years of rigorous practice for humans to achieve a century of cultivation, ghosts require a hundred years to match ten years of human cultivation.
It's commonplace for a millennial great demon or fierce ghost to be suppressed by humans who have cultivated for only a few decades.
However, the human heart is fickle, and the mortal world is full of distractions. Most people become obsessed, unable to transcend. Therefore, those who dedicate themselves to cultivation are much fewer than demons and ghosts.
After all, human life is short, while demons and ghosts have long lives. Countless brilliant individuals from ancient to modern times have their spiritual paths delayed due to a few decades of mundane affairs.
Hu Baosong, due to his youthful pride, traveled the world for decades. By the time he returned to the Jin Sect, his elderly father in the casket shop was on the verge of death.
If not for the guidance of the Fox Girl from Qingqiu, he feared he would have missed seeing his father for the last time.
After burying his father, Hu Baosong drank day and night, with his wine flask always at his side, wasting nearly a decade. Until one day, as he lay drunk under a peach tree with blossoms brushing against his face, he faintly heard a familiar voice—
"Wake up, wake up."
Half-awake, Hu Baosong saw a woman in a peach-colored dress before him, her appearance bearing some resemblance to his birth mother.
Seeing him awake, the woman said, "Your mother cultivated for hundreds of years without a day's rest, until a tribulation was near, she descended the mountain to bind her fate with your father. Although your father's life was short, he never lived in vain. If they were in the heavens now, how could they bear to see you waste away like this..."
The woman's words struck Hu Baosong like a blow to the head, waking him up completely. Following the traces of his dream, he looked around the courtyard, but saw nothing besides the peach tree and the blossoms.
A ten-year dream, awoken in a moment.
Hu Baosong buried the wine flask under the tree, quitting alcohol, and began traveling the world.
At a hundred years old, still in his prime, Hu Baosong encountered romantic entanglements, spreading his affections far and wide—Yang Yingying, Cui Miaoyin, Wei Sangu...
During this time, he occasionally returned to Linhe, always enjoying lying under the peach tree in the courtyard to take a nap, but he never again met the woman from his dream.
It was as if it had truly been an unintentional dream that day.
Several decades passed, and during his travels to the Five Elders Temple, Hu Baosong met a priestess by chance.
At that time, she stood under a tree in front of the temple, pinching a leaf to her lips to play a tune.
Sunlight filtering through the dappled tree shade illuminated her like a heavenly being.
Hu Baosong thought he had likely found his true love.
At that time, Hu Baosong in white robes wielded his sword, his century of cultivation imbuing him with an unrestrained demeanor. Having never descended the mountain before, the priestess surely couldn't counteract this fox spirit's charms.
The Temple Master of Five Elders Temple was a white-haired but youthful-looking female Taoist. Upon returning from visiting friends, she saw through Hu Baosong's origins at a glance, knowing he bore the Fox Race's bloodline. However, her disciple Zichen had already fallen deeply into a love tribulation, beyond her ability to persuade.
After thinking it over, the old Taoist eventually called Hu Baosong to her, intending to have him don a Taoist robe and join the Five Elders Temple as a disciple.
The story of a wild fox joining a temple was indeed a good tale, but Hu Baosong stubbornly succumbed to his own delusions, believing himself to be the sole direct descendant of the Hu Yang lineage and refusing to marry into the temple as a domestic fox son-in-law.
Hu Baosong's mother, after giving birth to him, had not allowed him to take his father's surname but kept his last name as Hu.
She did this to ensure that the Hu Yang lineage would not be severed.
How could he now join the Five Elders Temple and take on another family name?
That night, Hu Baosong sought out Zichen, asking her to leave the mountain with him, to live as carefree lovers who envied neither the immortals nor the lovebirds.
Zichen agreed, but when Hu Baosong arrived at the agreed-upon place, she didn't show up at the appointed time.