My Husband’s Ascension C57
Chapter 57 Treenapping
Startled by that remark, the subordinates scattered like startled birds, no longer daring to offer a single sycophantic word.
This tree was old and deep-rooted. If it were to be dug out, who could guarantee it would remain completely intact?
Outwardly, they lowered their heads in silence. Yet as their superior stepped forward, each of them was secretly curious how this demon official, long known for his refined and restrained manner, intended to remove the tree without the slightest damage.
Mistflow Peak lay in utter stillness.
The former Sect Master’s residence now stood unoccupied. Master and disciples, yao familiars alike, had all dispersed to distant lands. Only a single thousand-year-old Tushan arctic fox remained behind, wiping tables and sweeping floors day after day, preserving the appearance of the place as it had been before Zhao Zhao’s departure.
With so few living souls upon the mountain, nightfall rendered it quiet as an uninhabited wasteland.
Xie Lanshu did not, as they had expected, employ any exquisite or arcane art to excavate the tree.
He merely gauged the depth of its roots, then used his sword to pry up the soil at the base, where earth and root were tightly bound together, confirming that it could not simply be torn free.
The tree had grown here for fifty years. Its roots coiled and intertwined, its wood knotted upon itself; it was absolutely impossible to forcefully separate it from the soil.
One subordinate ventured, “If all else fails… should we split Mistflow Peak in half, and carry away the mountain together with the tree?”
Xie Lanshu cast him a faint glance over his shoulder.
The stupidity of the demon race left him with no desire whatsoever to engage.
“…No need.”
That was all he said. Then he sheathed his Single Intent Sword.
His spotless outer robe was lifted aside, and those long, elegant fingers, hands that looked as though they had been born to caress a zither rather than wield a blade, sank into the damp soil. He extended his spiritual sense, tracing the course of the root system, then began separating root and earth with his bare hands.
Every single rootlet had been grown through her painstaking cultivation. None could be bent or damaged. Otherwise, who knew how much of her effort would be squandered, or how long her rebirth would be delayed.
His two demonic subordinates stared, slack-jawed, as those very hands that grasped a sword worked with extraordinary deftness, peeling roots away from soil.
They had always known their Master’s swordsmanship to be peerless. They had never imagined that he could perform such work with such meticulous care.
…It scarcely resembled the manner of a high-level sword cultivator at all, more like the delicacy of a young lady embroidering with a needle.
Before long, however, their expressions shifted.
“Master… your hands…”
One of them could not help but speak up, staring at his bloodied fingers.
He had to take Zhao Zhao away before dawn. Time was tight, and he could not spare the care to sift out the gravel mixed into the soil. Now and then, a sharp stone pierced beneath his fingernail, or sliced open his palm.
“Ah, no matter.” Xie Lanshu watched as the beads of blood welling from his fingertips were swallowed in an instant by the roots, and instead revealed a gentle, almost pleased smile. “When mortal gardeners raise flowers, they bury dead fish in the soil to nourish them… perhaps I should have done this long ago.”
A chill ran down the spines of his two subordinates.
When this esteemed demon official said, “I should have done this long ago,” his tone made it sound, no matter how one listened, as though what he wished to bury was not a dead fish at all, but something else entirely.
Zhao Zhao was even more frightened by those words, to the point that her roots nearly clawed into the earth.
Don’t feed her strange, messy things! She only needs the plainest water, that’s all!
Unfortunately, no matter how loudly Zhao Zhao’s soul cried out, he could not hear her. Dejected, she crouched opposite him, fixing her gaze on his mask as though she might bore a hole straight through it.
Daoist Ming Jue had said that Rong Yu had followed him into the Demon Realm after all, and that even Yao Ling had somehow been deceived into going along. No one knew by what means.
She had no idea what had truly happened after her death; what chain of events had caused a fate that had already veered off course to begin sliding back toward its original track.
Zhao Zhao’s eyes fell upon his ten fingers, slick with blood.
He always seemed to do the most ill-timed things at the most ill-timed moments.
When she loved him most, he insisted on never seeing her again for all eternity. And when she had finally let go of the past, he forced her to glimpse him once more, him as he had been in that original, forsaken future.
Clearly, on the brink of death, she had pleaded with him in utter desperation, and he had not once looked back. And now, instead, he was taking an enormous risk to slip into Beaconlight Mountain, moving with painstaking care as he tried to steal her away.
Did he himself truly understand what he was doing?
What meaning did any of this hold?
Zhao Zhao no longer had the strength to think it through. As her soul returned to the tree, she cast one final glance at the silver-haired youth’s profile.
Perhaps all moonlight under heaven was much the same, for when it fell upon him, it stirred memories of a moonlit night at Yunmeng Pier.
The intent, absorbed look in his eyes overlapped with the way he had once looked while mending her clothes and embroidering flowers for her.
Yet Zhao Zhao knew she was no longer the girl she had been back then, the one who would cradle a heart full of love and stand at his side, smiling brightly as she kept him company.
Her soul dissolved into motes of pale green light and slipped back into the tree.
Unable to warn or call for help from the outside world, Zhao Zhao had no choice but to close her eyes and drift into sleep.
…And yet, she found even that simple wish impossible to fulfill.
After all, anyone trying to fall asleep would struggle if someone kept stroking their head without pause—one moment praising a particular root for being thick and well-grown, another moment praising how deeply she had been buried, how diligently she had taken root.
Zhao Zhao endured it all, hour after hour, until the pale light of dawn finally crept in.
When the first ray of sunlight fell upon Mistflow Peak, she could at last be taken away, roots and all.
The roots that had long been buried deep in the earth had never expected to see daylight again. Though nothing appeared amiss to the naked eye, if they were exposed for even a few more days, the roots would begin to lignify, withering into dry, shriveled wood.
Before that could happen, however, he swept the entire tree into a pitch-black bag.
She had thought it an ordinary spatial storage pouch, but soon discovered that it concealed an entirely different world. At its base lay a shallow pool suffused with dim green light. Her roots were submerged within it, each filament unfurling as it comfortably drew in the spiritual energy from the water.
Zhao Zhao had seen such an item before. Disciples of the Divine Farmer Sect used spirit-storing pouches to preserve rare immortal herbs discovered in the wild.
Yet no one had ever seen a spirit-storing pouch large enough to contain an entire tree, nor knew where one might be obtained.
“As expected of the spirit-storing pouch Master personally spent a month crafting. Now we can bring the spiritual tree back to the Demon Realm in one piece.”
Xie Lanshu said nothing, turning his gaze instead toward the distance.
The people of Cloudculm Abode had finally noticed.
When Zhao Zhao had first been buried on Mistflow Peak, a restriction had been placed upon her coffin. Ordinary disturbances such as wind stirring grass and birds taking flight would not trigger it. But uprooting and removing the entire tree was another matter entirely.
Zhongli Shun had only just returned to the sect. Before he could even report to Yao Ling on the gains and losses from leading the disciples into the grotto-heaven, he was struck in quick succession by grim news: Yao Ling had gone to the Demon Realm, and someone had stolen away their spiritual tree.
He immediately gathered his people and rushed to Mistflow Peak.
“Put down my Master!”
Facing the boy who had once, in his childhood, looked upon him as a god, now gripping his sword and pointing it at his throat, Xie Lanshu’s expression remained as still as calm water. He only said, “I am taking her away to help your Master revive more quickly. Yao Ling is aware of this matter. Did she not inform you?”
Zhongli Shun froze for a moment, but quickly retorted, "Nonsense! You were the one who abducted Yao Ling first, and now you mean to forcibly seize my Master as well, how utterly despicable!”
Xie Lanshu understood at once.
That little girl was indeed rather crafty.
She had agreed to accompany him in the campaign against the Ghost Realm, yet had no wish for the world to know she was entangled with him. And so she slipped away in secret, concealing the matter from the entire sect.
If he succeeded in conquering the Ghost Realm and exterminating Mount Ling, thereby washing away his own infamy, then all would be well.
If he failed, Cloudculm Abode would not bear the charge of colluding with a Demon Lord. They need only insist that all wrongdoing had been his alone, that they had merely been forced into compliance.
Xie Lanshu let out a soft laugh.
Since that was the case, he would grant them their wish and see this farce through to the end.
With words failing to align, both sides drew their swords and clashed.
Zhao Zhao had only just awakened and had no idea what was unfolding outside. Hearing Zhongli Shun’s voice, her heart filled with anxiety, fearing that something might befall him.
How could he possibly be a match for Dao Lord Tianshu!?
If that madman lost control again and forgot all bonds of kin and feeling, then this child would be courting death!
Inside the spirit-storing pouch, Zhao Zhao strained with all her might, extending a slender, pliant branch, trying to discern the state of the battle through the chaotic peal of clashing swords.
Who would have thought that the moment she reached out, a streak of sword light rushing head-on would sever the thin branch cleanly in two.
She knew it at once: that was Zhongli Shun’s Heavenheart Sword (天心剑).
“…You actually cut off your Master’s branch.” The smile that had seemed eternal finally faded by a fraction. Xie Lanshu lifted his gaze to look at him. “I dug her out for an entire night and did not harm a single root. And you dare strike her with your sword?”
Zhongli Shun stared at the severed branch in Xie Lanshu’s hand and froze in awkward silence.
“…If you’d reacted faster, my Master wouldn’t have been hurt!” Zhongli Shun snapped, face taut with anger. “You stole my Master and still failed to protect her properly, your crimes deserve death!”
The sight of Zhongli Shun cursing the other as deserving death was truly difficult to reconcile with the child who, years ago, had cupped his cheeks and praised, “Dao Lord Tianshu is the greatest under heaven.”
Yet what surprised Zhao Zhao even more was that after so many years apart, Zhongli Shun’s swordsmanship had reached such a formidable level.
In their brief exchange just now, though Dao Lord Tianshu had not gone all out, he certainly had not been merely going through the motions. Otherwise, her branch would not have been cut away.
Now, however, the spiritual power surging along his blade was vast, as though he intended to fight with everything he had.
—Don’t you dare bully my disciple just because you’re older!
Zhao Zhao had meant to tangle herself around his sword arm, to give Zhongli Shun a chance to defeat him. But after straining for a long while, she realized her strength was still far too slight. Even exerting herself to the utmost, she could only manage to hook onto his belt.
If he dared let her disciple lose even a single hair, she would tear off his belt and make him lose face before everyone!
Xie Lanshu’s sword stroke stalled for the briefest instant.
Zhongli Shun seized the opening, reversing his grip and thrusting toward his neck. Xie Lanshu withdrew at once, retreating to the side of his two demonic subordinates. Even so, a strand of hair was sheared away by the Heavenheart Sword.
Both of her disciples possessed talent in the sword that did not fall short of his own.
From this moment on, they could no longer be regarded as children.
“Master!”
Watching the spiritual tree draw its branches back and retreat in silence into the spirit-storing pouch, the two subordinates were seized by indignation. “Master, there’s something strange about this spiritual tree! Just now it clearly tried to ambush you and take your life. Only because its strength fell short did it settle for less. You must be on your guard!”
Among the demon race, strength was supreme; loyalty followed whoever was strongest.
These two might be painfully foolish, but they were indeed devoted retainers who truly had Xie Lanshu’s interests at heart.
At his neck, where sword qi had grazed him, a thin line of blood seeped out. Yet he seemed utterly unaware of any pain. He merely lowered his gaze to the spirit-storing pouch at his waist.
“It’s nothing. She’s only being coquettish with me.”
He would never believe that she wanted him dead.
He would never believe it.
Author’s Note:
Subordinates: SOS, this is a true love-struck fool.
