The mountain breathed with quiet majesty, its slopes carved into terraces that bore a sprawling citadel of jade-roofed halls. Layer upon layer of pavilions climbed the hillside like steps to heaven, their eaves sweeping outward in elegant defiance of gravity.
Stone stairways cut a solemn path upward through gardens of pine and cypress, where whispers of wind mingled with the murmur of hidden streams. From afar, the complex resembled a living labyrinth—half fortress, half sanctuary—its crown a towering palace that gazed down upon the valleys below with the serene authority of an eternal dynasty.
Within the palace's heart, a throng of people gathered—not too many, but not too few either. They seemed, in fact, a perfect number of distinguished and venerable guests populating the vast, heavenly jade hall of the palace.
