Venerable Muling rarely concerned himself with sect affairs. His whole heart was set on quiet cultivation. It was said that his cultivation was even higher than the sect master’s. In his later years, with white hair and a lifetime of learning behind him, he devoted himself to divination, painstakingly correcting many of the calculation or divination principles that had fallen into chaos ever since the Great Catastrophe of Heaven and Earth.

Unfortunately, heaven and earth spirit qi continued to decline. Human states began to rise, and the Grand Return Sect was no longer as glorious as it had once been.

However profound Venerable Muling’s cultivation was, in the end, he could not withstand time’s merciless blade. The phrase he said most often was, “Time waits for no one.”

At last, the day came when he would pass away beneath the Dao-Seeking Tree.

His disciples wept until they could scarcely breathe.

Venerable Muling smiled faintly and said, “I was fortunate. If I had been born in a later age, I fear I would not have had the chance to leave so peacefully.”

Everyone hurriedly asked why.

Venerable Muling said, “A sect is like a person. It rises and falls, lives and perishes. I have observed our sect’s fate. To endure for over another thousand years is already a rare longevity in this world, and many outstanding talents will still appear along the way.”

One disciple could not accept it. “Master, the immortal sect has already weakened into a Daoist school. Must it vanish along with spirit qi in the future?”

“Perhaps heaven and earth will continue to sink. Perhaps, when misfortune reaches its limit, fortune will return.” Venerable Muling stroked the trunk of the Dao-Seeking Tree. “Old friend, you know what I wish to say.”

A leaf immediately drifted down from the Dao-Seeking Tree, gold-red like the evening clouds.

Venerable Muling bit his fingertip and wrote several lines on the broad leaf:

“Upon meeting Huan, leave your dwelling.”

“One leaf blinds the eye.”

“Dongli[1] enters Kan water.”

Not only were the lines cryptic, but they also did not rhyme. The disciples stared blankly. “Master, does it not seem to be missing one line?”

Shouldn’t a prophecy have four lines? This only has three. Where’s the last one?

Leaving it hanging like that felt unbearably uncomfortable.

“I can no longer discern it.” Venerable Muling sighed. “If Dongli were here, he could help me examine and correct it; perhaps then we would see more clearly and farther.”

The disciples fell silent, not daring to respond.

“Though he has fallen onto the demonic path, one day he will wake and return. I will wait for him here.” Venerable Muling pointed forward. “Young people should be allowed to make mistakes.”

The disciples looked at one another. All of them had one retort stuck in their hearts, yet no one dared say it aloud: Dongli is hardly young anymore, is he?

Venerable Muling breathed lightly on the leaf. A disciple stepped forward at once, ready to receive it.

After their master passed, these final prophetic words would naturally have to be enshrined.

Who would have thought that Venerable Muling would draw back his hand and toss the leaf into the pool beneath the tree instead?

The gold-red leaf spun twice on the water. Before anyone could react, it sank into the depths and vanished into the darkness below.

“?” Everyone was dumbfounded.

Venerable Muling said mildly, “Why are you reaching out? It was not meant for you.”

“...” Then who was it meant for? Such an important deathbed prophecy, and he’s not leaving it to the sect?

“What, then, will become of the sect a thousand years from now?”

“If the mountains and waters are well tended, perhaps disaster may be crossed. I fear only that by then, the will shall remain, but the strength will not.” Venerable Muling’s breath had already grown faint. “Such is time, such is fate.” Then he murmured another line softly, “What a pity. I exhausted a lifetime’s effort, yet this is all I could calculate. Beyond that... beyond that, you will have to rely on yourself.”

Another disciple seized the chance to ask, “Venerable, are there still immortals in this world?”

“Does our sect still have immortal seniors? Are they still in seclusion?” The Grand Return Sect was one of the most powerful sects that have survived from the Ancient Era. If even they had no immortals left, how many could possibly remain in the world?

But Venerable Muling’s eyes were half-closed, and he no longer answered.

Only then did everyone realize that he had already passed away in seated meditation.

* * *

Everything before He Lingchuan’s eyes gradually blurred.

When he came back to himself, he discovered that not only had his perspective changed, but the scenery had changed as well. Tianshu Peak and the Dao-Seeking Tree were gone, and he was standing in Panlong City again.

What just happened?

He stood beside the incomparably familiar South Gate Square. Before him was that juluo tree.

“Eh? Its leaf changed color?” The juluo tree now had an extra gold-red leaf, like a person with one bright streak of dyed hair at the front of their head. It was impossible to miss.

Additionally, the juluo tree had grown again. He Lingchuan had to lift his head to see its crown. He patted the trunk. “So the Dao-Seeking Tree’s leaf was eaten by you. Was it especially nutritious?”

A gust of wind passed through, and the juluo tree’s crown rustled softly. Whether that was a reply, he could not tell.

At least, He Lingchuan did not understand it.

Yet that gold-red leaf actually drifted down and landed in his hand.

“For me?”

He turned the leaf over and over. Its shape differed slightly from the original Dao-Seeking Tree leaf, but it was just as large as a palm. Even its veins were golden. There was not a single wormhole across it, not the faintest scorched edge. It was so exquisite that it looked like a handcrafted work of art.

Is this the juluo tree’s return gift?

“Thanks!” He tucked the leaf into his chest and patted the trunk again. “You really know how to behave. Not like the Generous Pot, always taking and never giving, eating well and doing nothing.”

* * *

The next morning, He Lingchuan woke in the Mount Pan Residence’s large bed and stared blankly for a long while.

He had actually had a different dream!

In nearly a year, this was the first time he had dreamed of somewhere other than Panlong City.

He almost teared up. He had thought his soul would never again be able to go anywhere else at night, never again dream any other dream!

Of course, once he calmed down, he remembered that this dream had to be connected to the gold-red leaf he had received from the Dao-Seeking Tree yesterday.

What one saw by day, one dreamed by night.

Did feeding the leaf to the divine bone amulet prompt the Generous Pot to show me the information contained within the leaf? 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

What a powerful card reader.

Wait, in the end, this dream’s still connected to the Generous Pot!

He Lingchuan closed his eyes and let out a long, heavy sigh.

There was simply no escaping its clutches.

However, when he carefully recalled the dream, what he had seen were selected moments from the Dao-Seeking Tree’s life.

He called them selected moments because the Dao-Seeking Tree had lived for far too long. It had spanned the Ancient Era, the Middle Era, and the current era, which was at least four thousand years from beginning to end.

That was simply too much time, with too many events having taken place. If every bit of information that had happened around it were shown to He Lingchuan, his soul might not have been tough enough to endure that sheer mass of memory.

After dreaming for so long, He Lingchuan had at least some understanding of his soul’s tolerance.

After all, the Generous Pot was always forcing him through brutal training.

Perhaps the Dao-Seeking Tree itself, or perhaps the Generous Pot, had filtered out only the most important nodes of information and shown them to him.

He Lingchuan still remembered the name Venerable Muling. Wasn’t he Perfected Dongli’s master?

In the cave abode beneath Immortal Spirit Lake, Perfected Dongli had left behind a final letter repenting for falling into the demonic path and betraying the teachings of his master, Venerable Muling.

Otherwise, He Lingchuan would not have followed that clue all the way to Mount Xu.

Thankfully, it had not been a completely fruitless trip.

In the memories of the Dao-Seeking Tree, he had seen the bearing of countless immortals, seen sect disciples of the era of immortals who lived beyond the smoke and dust of the mortal realm and devoted themselves entirely to cultivation. He had even shared, like the Dao-Seeking Tree itself, in the joy of surging spirit qi and all things flourishing.

Those truly were the best years for cultivators.

The Middle Era had not been bad either. Heaven and earth spirit qi rose and fell, and imperial nectar descended from time to time. Though cultivators had to adapt, powerful figures like Venerable Muling still lived for over eight hundred years.

His disciple, Perfected Dongli, had only lived for six hundred.

After that, the lifespans of both monsters and humans were increasingly discounted.

Of course, what He Lingchuan truly cared about was the three prophetic lines Venerable Muling had written on the gold-red leaf.

He had not left them to the sect. Instead, he had returned them to the Dao-Seeking Tree, letting the fallen leaf return to its roots.

The elders earlier had said that human bodies decayed, while the Dao-Seeking Tree endured. In that case, were those lines meant for someone in the future?

After all, only the tree could survive across several thousand years of time until the present day.

That said, whether it was Venerable Muling or the old turtle monster who had ended up with Perfected Dongli’s Flowing Water Anthology, the prophecies they both left behind were three lines long!

Always missing the final line.

They really are from the same lineage, eh?

He Lingchuan grabbed the divine bone amulet and said, “How about it? Want to explain this to me?”

The amulet naturally ignored him.

As he touched the amulet, he felt something strange in his chest. He reached inside and rummaged around.

Huh?

He pulled out a gold-red leaf.

He Lingchuan froze on the spot for a long while.

The juluo tree’s leaf actually followed him into reality?

Right! The juluo tree itself has the ability to pass through the firmament. He Lingchuan had even used one of its branches to bring the nightmare out for some fun. But for the little tree to be this proactive seemed to be a first.

Hmm, a leaf...

He Lingchuan rubbed the leaf between his fingers and remembered one line from Venerable Muling’s prophecy: “One leaf blinds the eye.”

He lifted the leaf before his eye.

Is this how it’s supposed to be used?

Aside from blocking light, it did not seem to block anything else.

Even though it was a leaf from the juluo tree, it carried no fluctuation of divine technique whatsoever. Other than its beautiful appearance, it seemed no different from an ordinary leaf.

It was hard to imagine that the great figures of the Grand Return Sect had once used leaves from the Dao-Seeking Tree to block the greater monster Mulian’s divine technique.

Forget it, maybe it’ll prove useful one day.

He casually tried to put it into his storage ring, but he failed.

Hm? It’s not going in?

Just then, a servant came to report that a guest had arrived.

He Lingchuan tucked the leaf back into his chest. “Invite him in.”

The visitor was not yet forty. He had a long face and a goatee, which made him look a little older than he truly was. In short, he was an ordinary man with an ordinary face and ordinary clothes. Throw him into a crowd, and he would disappear at once.

He introduced himself as Shan Qixiang, sent by the master of Songyang Mansion.

He Lingchuan met him in his own courtyard. “Are you one of Songyang Mansion’s managers or stewards?”

“Oh, not quite. When Songyang Mansion’s branch opened, I helped out, but I don’t work at the branch, and I don’t have much formal connection to Songyang Mansion.” Shan Qixiang smiled, and his eyes narrowed into lines. “Her Lordship once saved my family, and we kept in touch afterward. She said you were short of people to use, so I came. Just call me Old Shan.”

Li Qingge had indeed said she would send him someone, but he had not expected the man to arrive so quickly.

Before He Lingchuan could ask anything, Old Shan offered over a set of grappling hook gear with both hands.

“This is yours. The hook has been repaired. Her Lordship asked me to bring it to you.”

This grappling hook had been damaged when He Lingchuan captured the snail toad in Zhitian Township. The hook, forged from refined gold by Li Fubo, had been caught between the snail toad and an explosion, and had broken despite itself. Though he still had a backup, that spare was nowhere near as smooth to use as this set.

He Lingchuan took it and smiled.

This object was also a token. It subtly proved that Old Shan had indeed been sent by Li Qingge, so He Lingchuan could use him without worry.

1. This is also Perfected Dongli’s name. ☜