I roughly understood the key points and nodded, "Tell me, what's the story of that legend?"

Zhu Ziyan said, "Legend has it that there used to be a village here. The families in the village weren't many, and life was relatively peaceful. But ever since a Daoist priest came to the village, everything changed."

That winter, the villagers brought back a Daoist priest who was sitting by the roadside and almost frozen into a snowman.

The Daoist priest stayed in the village for a winter before leaving. When he left, he said, "This village is a place where a phoenix will emerge. However, this phoenix needs flowers, without flowers, the phoenix won't rise."

The villagers didn't understand what he meant and asked him to explain it in detail.

But the Daoist priest said, "Heaven's secrets cannot be revealed. What I've said is already enough. If I say a few more words, I'm afraid I won't be able to leave this village."

The Daoist priest left, but the villagers' thoughts were different.

People at that time, although not very educated, knew that "a phoenix emerging" meant that a future Empress could come from there. This was a golden opportunity for the villagers.

Who wouldn't want generations of wealth and glory?

Moreover, there were not a few legends of commoner Empresses in ancient times!

Maybe someone's daughter would have this destiny and become the Empress.

However, they also heard the Daoist priest say "without flowers, the phoenix won't rise." What exactly did this "flower" mean? Was it a person or a flower? No one could guess.

If it was a person, there were indeed one or two women in the village whose given names contained the character "flower" before they got married, but those women were either too old or too ugly, definitely not Empress material.

At first, everyone in the village said that the "flower" must be a person's name.

The villagers either changed their daughters' names or were determined to have a daughter and name her something like "So-and-so Flower."

Later, a bachelor in the village said idly, "What's the use of just changing your daughters' names? Don't you think about what you yourselves look like?"

"The Empress looks like a celestial being. With your looks, can you give birth to a good-looking daughter?"

"In my opinion, the 'flower' the Daoist priest mentioned must be a daughter who looks like a flower."

The villagers thought, "There's some truth to that."

In today's terms, would the Emperor choose a wife who made him uncomfortable and worried?

But no matter how unsophisticated the villagers were, they knew that children's looks followed their parents!

There were some decent-looking people in the village, but no one who was truly pretty!

If they wanted to marry a beautiful wife, the villagers couldn't afford the expensive betrothal gifts, so they gave up on that idea.

Who would have thought that after a few years, there would actually be a girl in the village who grew more and more beautiful, and looked less and less like her parents?

To say that she wasn't her father's child? No one from outside the village had come except for that Daoist priest in many years. Besides, when the Daoist priest came, the girl was already one year old, so she definitely had nothing to do with the Daoist priest.

To say that she was just developing? That wasn't right either! This family had lived in the village for generations, and no handsome young men had ever come from their lineage.

Moreover, whether male or female, everyone in her family had a square face, but this girl's face shape was gradually becoming more oval. Something was definitely wrong!

The villagers didn't know who started the rumor, but they said that the family must have some way of making their daughter beautiful and that the future Empress must come from their family.

Now, the villagers were all eager to know. They ran to the family whenever they had the chance, indirectly asking how their daughter had become so beautiful.

The family wasn't stupid and wouldn't say anything no matter what they were asked!

The villagers didn't give up and secretly agreed to keep an eye on them.

Knowing that they were being watched, the family stayed at home and didn't go out. But after only a few days, their daughter wasn't as fair as she used to be, and she was getting darker and darker. The family finally couldn't sit still and sneaked out in the middle of the night when no one was around.

They thought they were being careful, but they couldn't escape the villagers' eyes.

The villagers saw the woman from the family picking flowers on the mountain in the dark. After picking a handful of flowers, she went up the mountain in the night, walked three or four *li*, and then turned into a dilapidated temple.

The villagers who were keeping watch quietly peeked in at the door and realized that the woman was offering flowers to the mountain god and kowtowing!

The mountain god in the dilapidated temple looked somewhat similar to the daughter of that family. Anyone who didn't know better would have thought that the mountain god was the girl's real mother!

Now the village was in an uproar!

The villagers rushed to pick flowers all over the mountain and offer them to the mountain god. The family that first knew about offering flowers couldn't stop them at all. After crying and making a fuss for a while, they quickly tried to offer flowers to the mountain god.

The villagers competed with each other to offer flowers to the mountain god.

If you offered one flower, I would offer ten. If you offered a handful, I would offer a bundle.

When the flowers nearby were gone, they ran elsewhere to pick flowers.

Those families with daughters found that their daughters were indeed growing more and more beautiful, and those families without daughters successively gave birth to daughters.

Everyone in the village thought that their family could produce a phoenix, and no one felt that anything was wrong!

Even when they offered flowers, and some people saw the mountain god smiling at them in a creepy way, they didn't take it to heart.

Later, something really happened.