Chapter 312 — The Man Hidden in the Wood

This man must have used a special technique to prolong his own life, linking himself to the tree, tying his fate to the ancient tree. But the side effects were enormous: he had become part of the tree, unable to move, gradually turning into wood.

His injuries back then must have been so severe that he had reached the end of his endurance.

Chased by enemies, he had fought his way here, finally killed his opponents, and then had no choice but to use a forbidden art to make himself part of the ancient tree and prolong his existence. Shen Mu looked at him. The man's eyes turned stiffly in their sockets, like two eyeballs carved out of wood, still able to glimpse a blurry shape but not make it out clearly.

"Was it you who made the painted old man lead me here? " Shen Mu felt an inexplicable warmth toward this man, as if some marvelous bond connected them, and his heart stirred.

"Are you called Shen Fengqing? Are you from Wuyou Village? " The man in the tree seemed gradually to make out his face. He grew agitated and parted his lips with difficulty, but his tongue had already turned to wood and he could not utter a sound.

Shen Mu was dazed.

The backlash of this forbidden art was too powerful. Though the white-robed man had preserved his life, his senses and bodily functions had almost entirely vanished.

"Do you recognize this jade pendant? " Shen Mu hastily pulled the pendant from his neck and held it before the man, suppressing the storm in his heart.

"Do you recognize it?

It was in my swaddling clothes. I've worn it all my life. This 'Shen'—is it the Shen of Wuyou Village?

" All at once, the white-robed man in the tree became wildly agitated, and the ancient tree trembled slightly, as if the man inside was struggling with all his might to break free from the tree's binding and snatch the pendant. Streams of light flowed across the tree's trunk and pressed his struggle down.

He opened his mouth, seeming to have a thousand words for Shen Mu, yet he could not speak a single one. Shen Mu's expression dimmed.

As if speaking to the man in the tree, or perhaps to himself, he said softly, "I heard from Granny that a woman's corpse bearing a basket carried me through the night to Hidden Remnant Village in the Wasteland Ruins.

I never saw her. Later, beneath the river, I saw her, but I could never make out her face. All I have is this pendant, worn since I was little.

I always hoped to find out where I came from, whether my relatives still existed there. .

.

" He sat down beneath the tree, wrapped his arms around his knees, the pendant dangling from his fingertips, swaying.

"I feel my parents may still be alive, still waiting for me to come back and see them. I have never seen them. . . " "Later, a little girl who became Sun Warden told me I might be from Wuyou Village, and I tried desperately to return there. I asked after Wuyou Village, sought a road to Wuyou Village, but failed time and time again, and even implicated the village headman and the others until they nearly lost their lives because of me.

.

.

" "This time I came without telling them, afraid I would implicate them again. Shen Fengqing—you are called Shen Fengqing, aren't you? I found you, but I never expected you couldn't tell me anything. Is it really so hard to go home and know who you are?

" He buried his head in his arms and said no more. Drip. A teardrop fell.

Shen Mu raised his head, wiped the tears from his face, and looked up—tears were rolling from the eyes of the man in the tree.

Suddenly, something on the tree began to writhe, coiling down around the trunk like a great serpent, and spoke in a strange, obscure voice: "Qin Hanzhen, you have already seen Shen Fengqing.

Your heart's wish should now be fulfilled, should it not? "