Chapter 491: Beneath the Tree
As soon as this thought crossed Su Ming's mind, he frowned first.
Something wasn't right.
He couldn't just sit down anywhere.
What if sitting down triggered some prohibitive rune that pinned him in place and wouldn't let him get up? That would be truly unjust.
So instead of sitting, he first walked a full circle around the tree roots. He walked and looked, looked and listened. The soil beneath his feet was damp, with no signs of triggered mechanisms. The surrounding woods were silent, with no traces of lurking beasts. The formation lines on the tree trunk flowed steadily, not like a precursor to attack.
He even casually took out a small spiritual resonance array disk and quietly pressed it into a stone crevice a few zhang away.
If anything really came charging at him, at least he'd get a warning sound first.
Lin Yu watched all of this unfold. His mood, which had been somewhat heavy, nearly coaxed a trace of a smile out of him.
Well, well.
This kid had to leave himself an escape route even for "wanting to sit for a while."
But precisely because of this, Lin Yu felt even more reassured.
After Su Ming finished all this, he found a relatively flat spot beneath the tree and slowly sat down.
"Don't run off either."
He waved at Shadow.
Shadow fluttered twice, hopped onto his lap, curled up, and compressed herself into a small black ball. Perhaps the aura beneath this tree was truly too still—the little creature even lost some of its usual defiance. Tilting her head, she stared at the tree's patterns for a moment before gradually settling down.
It was very cool under the tree.
Not a cold, chilling coolness.
More like the kind of fresh, moisture-laden coolness found beside deep waters or within great mountains, carrying the scent of grass and wood. After Su Ming settled into a cross-legged position, he leaned his back against the rough, aged roots and looked up at the few rays of light filtering down through the canopy above.
Sunlight, passing through layer upon layer of leaves and branches, fell upon his face and also upon the formation lines on the tree's bark.
A breeze rustled through the high branches, leaves gently rubbing together, producing an extremely faint rustling sound. Somewhere in the distance, a drop of water that had accumulated on a leaf tip fell, landing with a *pat* on the moss beside the roots.
The entire forest suddenly fell into an extreme stillness.
Su Ming had initially been thinking: Can't sleep, can't let my guard down too much, can't let my mind scatter.
But those thoughts soon slowed down as well.
Not disappearing.
Rather, it was as if they had been stretched out, sinking into his own breathing.
He suddenly noticed that the "breath" of this tree was connected to the faint spiritual energy fluctuations emanating from the stone path beneath his feet. It was very faint, very long, very slow. As if this path extended underground, met the tree roots, and thus the path's spiritual mechanism became a part of the tree, while the tree's stillness, in turn, suppressed the path's restlessness.
Su Ming didn't rush to comprehend anything.
Nor did he try to grasp at that thread.
He simply sat.
Sat and listened.
Listened to the wind, listened to the leaves, listened to the extremely faint sound of water flowing beneath the roots, listened to the barely perceptible pulse deep within the stone slab. As he listened for a long time, even his own breathing gradually subsided, merging with the things around him.
He couldn't even tell if he was resting or cultivating at this moment.
Lin Yu also slowly descended.
He had no physical form, so naturally, he couldn't truly "sit," but as his soul body hovered beside Su Ming, there was an undeniable sense of sitting together with him.
This time, he truly didn't analyze anything.
Because it wasn't necessary.
He understood everything.
He could see the patterns on the tree, the three layers of formation principles beneath the path, and even the momentum vaguely connected throughout this entire forest.
Yet he simply didn't want to do anything.
He just wanted to stay here.
Stay beneath this tree, stay beside this path, stay in this place where he could finally confirm that he hadn't strayed, and quietly catch his breath.
He rarely looked back at how far he had traveled.
Because he couldn't.
Looking forward meant fragmented memories, half-understood formation principles, and problems bigger than the last. Looking back meant slumbering within the ring, changing masters one after another, having to play dead at a moment's notice, and living under the constant threat of having his soul scattered to the winds.
He could only push forward, one inch at a time.
Sometimes he would deduce a structure and think it looked passable, but the next time he remembered it, he would always wonder: Could it be wrong?
No one told him.
No one could tell him.
Until today.
This path, this tree—they hadn't said anything to him, yet they had explained it more clearly than anyone else ever could.
You're on the right track.
Thinking this, Lin Yu's eyes, usually carrying a hint of laziness and mockery, closed very lightly for a moment.
When he opened them again, there was something else in his gaze.
Not excitement. Not passion.
But a deep, sinking sense of solidity.
Like a person drifting on the surface of the water finally touching the riverbed.
Time passed like this, bit by bit.
The light beams slowly shifted beneath the tree. At first, they fell upon Su Ming's knees, then moved to the roots, and later were obscured again by the leaves and branches. The mist in the forest thickened and thinned, occasionally drifting past the roots in wisps before silently dispersing.
Shadow's eyes were still open at first, but her eyelids gradually drooped as well. Finally, she simply buried her head under her wing and fell asleep.
Su Ming remained seated.
He didn't know if he had fallen asleep or entered a very shallow state of meditation. His consciousness seemed to still be there, yet it also felt as if it were being held aloft by the shade, the mist, the stone path, and the light beams, floating in a place neither deep nor shallow.
Neither sinking down.
Nor coming out.
Until, after who knew how long, a dewdrop fell from a high leaf tip and landed with a *pat* on his shoulder.
Su Ming's eyelashes stirred ever so slightly.
When Su Ming opened his eyes, the mist in the forest was thicker than before.
Not a choking white mist, but a wet, heavy layer that spread from the ground up to half a person's height before slowly rising further. The distant tree shadows had all faded, leaving only the nearby ancient tree visible in outline. The formation lines on the bark appeared more profound and even slower within the mist.
He didn't move for a moment.
First, he raised a hand and touched his shoulder.
There it was—a small patch of dampness.
A dewdrop.
At some point, Shadow had crawled from his lap into the hollow of his neck, curled up into a round ball, with a few tiny feathers hanging with small droplets of water. Startled awake by Su Ming's movement, she opened one eye, looked around groggily, and then slowly lifted her head.
Su Ming scooped her up in his hand and casually wiped the water from her feathers.
"Had a good sleep, didn't you?"
Shadow responded with a single caw.
Su Ming stood up and brushed the fallen leaves off his robe.
The hem of his robe was slightly damp, and the tips of his hair were also touched with moisture. But aside from that, there was nothing unusual about him. His meridians were stable, his spiritual energy was smooth, and there were no signs of his Consciousness Sea having been secretly touched by anything.
If not for the dewdrops that had formed beneath the tree, Su Ming would have almost suspected he had only been sitting for a moment.
But clearly, time had passed.
As for how long—he couldn't say.
Within this secret realm, the sunlight was already faint, and most of it was blocked by the forest and mist, making it impossible to easily tell the time like outside. Fortunately, Su Ming wasn't one to dwell on it. As someone who had grown accustomed to playing it safe, one of his greatest strengths was: when faced with something he couldn't confirm, he didn't try to guess.
Guessing wrong was the worst thing for one's mental state.
"Awake?"
Lin Yu's voice sounded within the Consciousness Sea.
Compared to the rare silence from yesterday when they first entered the forest, his tone at this moment had already regained its usual steadiness. Yet beneath that steadiness, there seemed to be less of his old playful aloofness and more of an indescribable gravity.
"Mm." Su Ming responded. "How long was I sitting?"