Chapter 2044: Jade Pool Immortal Mirror, Old Peach Tree
Little Taotie woke from sleep, stretched her limbs comfortably, and noticed something was off. Looking down, she found herself lying in an Ice Coffin, and she had grown long arms and legs!
"Did I grow up?"
Raising her head to look, she saw the huge phantom above the Ice Coffin, both real and illusory. For a moment it became corporeal, but as soon as it touched, it turned back to illusion, like a flickering TV screen, with images appearing and disappearing.
Little Taotie climbed out of the Ice Coffin and saw her current appearance through the ice. She had a very pale but incomparably beautiful face, with features without a single flaw, perfect to the extreme.
Little Taotie stretched out her hand, looking at her own hands.
These hands were no longer the white, tender little hands of a child, but slim and long hands.
She carefully touched her own wrist with her hand.
No pulse!
Little Taotie’s mouth dropped open, her breath quickening in surprise.
The huge phantom on the Ice Coffin suddenly lunged at her, scaring Little Taotie into turning and running, shouting back, "What do you want to do?"
The phantom missed and became even more illusory.
Fearing another attack, Little Taotie ran further away.
She didn’t know how long she ran; the scenery around her changed. One moment it was a frozen land, the next it became a dreamlike enchanted realm.
A massive peach tree with golden leaves surrounded by tiny green lights like fireflies, dancing around the fruits on the tree, though the Peaches were not yet ripe, each one small.
Little Taotie tilted her head, not understanding why she was here.
Her consciousness was clear, aware she was in a dream, but having never stepped beyond the thousand-mile icy region of the Ice Coffin, it was her first time out.
"Where is this?" she asked in a small voice.
The peach tree suddenly spoke, "Jade Pool Immortal Mirror."
Little Taotie was stunned, "You can talk?"
The peach tree laughed, "Over the long years, I’ve learned many prophecies, human speech, beast tongues, and so forth. All things have spirit, all things have sound."
"Why am I here?"
"That’s a question for you to answer."
"You don’t know why I’m here either?"
"I know, but I can’t say."
"Are you afraid of being struck by lightning?"
"Kind of, a tree like me, lightning loves to strike. Once struck, a thousand years of cultivation would be destroyed, reduced to ashes."
Little Taotie jumped with fright, "Then you better say nothing anymore."
"Just remember, everything in the world is arranged as fate decrees."
"In the past, I could only stay near the Ice Coffin, at most enter dreams within dreams. This is the first time I’ve run out of the frozen land."
"Because the time has come; everything has been arranged."
"The time has come?"
"Think carefully, what has changed recently?"
"Change?" Little Taotie muttered, tilting her head, "Good food, good drink, nothing much has changed, oh right, I seemed to have come into a fortune, then donated it, did many Merits, the Primordial Spirit’s phantom also materialized, but it’s unstable, sometimes there, sometimes not."
"You know in your heart, don’t you?"
"What do you mean?" Little Taotie blinked, "So, it’s because of the Primordial Spirit? Because the money I donated was enough? The Merits were sufficient?"
The peach tree shook, its leaves rustling, and little Peaches fell to the ground.
Little Taotie exclaimed, "They all fell off!"
The peach tree laughed, "No matter, they were bound to fall off."
"But they haven’t grown up yet."
"There are too many, it’s impossible to wait for them all to grow up, some unsteady ones will always fall, becoming fertilizer for the ground, helping the other fruits on the tree to grow bigger and better."