Chapter 23: Fusang Divine Tree
The bow was already crowded with people, the atmosphere lively.
Everyone was excited and thrilled.
“That is absolutely the Fusang Tree from mythological legends, the divine tree where the Golden Crow resides,” Gao Huan said with great certainty.
He was very serious, without his usual joking around, still not recovered from the grief of his father’s murder. But his profound knowledge in the field of mythological legends did not allow him to remain silent; he had to step forward and explain the incomprehensible phenomenon to everyone.
……
Li Weiyi stood at the back of the crowd, gazing into the distance.
Deep in the ocean, two enormous mulberry trees grew, supporting each other, their gnarled trunks stretching toward the sky with lush branches and leaves.
The bronze ship was perhaps hundreds of miles away from them, or even thousands.
Because the trunks of the two mulberry trees were very faint, like looking at the moon from hundreds of thousands of miles away in the early morning. Only when the distance was far enough would this occur.
Li Weiyi had once gazed at snow mountains from hundreds of miles away and knew that faint, blurry feeling due to remoteness.
The distance to these two mulberry trees in front of him absolutely far exceeded hundreds of miles. The height of the trees was several times the height of snow mountains when viewed from afar, as if connecting to the heavens.
“The trunks are probably even thicker than the mountain body of a snow mountain, the height… who knows tens of thousands of meters.”
If it weren’t for every leaf of the two mulberry trees being quite bright, like thousands upon thousands of leaf-shaped moons, Li Weiyi might even suspect he was seeing a mirage.
As the bronze ship rode the wind and waves, sailing rapidly, the distance shortened considerably.
The trunks at the edge of the sky became clear, even revealing wood grain textures like ravines.
On the sea surface, thick fog appeared.
In the mist bloomed large and small golden flowers, with no leaves, only dense white roots immersed in the water.
These golden flowers emitted an exotic fragrance that invigorated the heart.
The large ones had diameters of over ten meters, the small ones only fist-sized, all radiating brilliant light, like a thousand divine lamps floating on the sea, making the ocean shine like a starry sea.
Gao Huan temporarily forgot his grief, his face flushed with excitement: “It’s Xihe Flowers!”
“Xihe Flowers eternally coexist with the Fusang Tree, both growing in the Tanggu Sea.”
“Xihe Flowers bloom by devouring Golden Crow Flames. Mortals burn upon eating them, lesser demons transform into giant demons.”
“Finally know where we are now!”
“It’s the Tanggu Sea.”
“The Tanggu Sea is the convergence point of the mortal world, the underworld, and the divine realm, the three realms; legend says the sea area spans one million five hundred thousand miles.”
Someone didn’t believe it: “Keep exaggerating, one million five hundred thousand miles. Is the distance between Earth and the moon one million five hundred thousand miles?”
“The distance between Earth and the moon is about three hundred eighty thousand kilometers. Kilometers, not miles.” Cai Yutong, having changed clothes and put on sunglasses and a mask, appeared beside Li Weiyi and interjected.
Gao Huan felt no one could question his authority in mythological legends and argued seriously: “Is one million five hundred thousand miles that unbelievable? Do you know how big the world where Red County Divine Continent is located?”
“《The Annals of Master Lü》 records that within the four extremes, east to west spans five hundred million ninety-seven thousand miles, and north to south the same. Your knowledge is shallow, still stuck in mortal thinking; I won’t argue with you.”
“Are we still on Earth now? We’re now in the netherworld, in the ghost wasteland.”
“Gulp!”
“Gulu!”
……
In the direction of the Fusang Tree, the seawater turned golden red, as if endless divine flames burned at the seabed.
The seawater in the outer sea area began boiling, bubbling up bubbles the size of water jars. Soon, the water mist thickened further, enveloping the entire bronze ship in a white expanse.
“Splash——”
From the depths of the thick fog, a three-legged giant bird vibrated its wings and flew out from the seabed where the two divine mulberry trees were located.
The radiance erupting from its body illuminated the white mist in the scientific expedition team members’ vision with brilliant colors.
“It’s a Golden Crow… See that? That’s a Golden Crow! So the Golden Crow doesn’t reside on the Fusang Divine Tree but nests at the seabed beneath the Fusang Divine Tree.” Gao Huan was thrilled, proving himself right once again.
The records in mythological classics, though with errors, were not baseless.
“That Golden Crow corpse in the grave forest felt like just a fledgling compared to this one soaring into the sky; it was much smaller.” Li Weiyi said.
The Golden Crow flying out from the seabed had double wings like clouds hanging from the sky, probably spanning tens of thousands of meters wide.
With one flap, it could stir up ten-zhang-high waves.
The heat and light erupting from its body, even after being blocked by the bronze ship’s defense power, still seared the eyes and made skin hot.
A scientific expedition team member, full of curiosity, threw out a thumb-thick steel rebar.
The steel rebar flew past the outer defense barrier of the bronze ship and, before falling to the sea surface, was scorched red by the terrifying heat, showing signs of melting.
Everyone watched in stunned silence.
Was it so terrifying outside now?
The temperature in the air must have reached thousands of degrees, no wonder it could incinerate the sky and boil the sea.
Was this the might that the legendary destructive divine bird Golden Crow could unleash?
That adult Golden Crow flew into mid-air, glanced back at the bronze ship sailing on the sea surface, and could see the juvenile bird corpse on the ship. But it didn’t dare approach at all; there was an aura on the ship that made its soul spirit tremble.
This aura, it had never sensed on any living being in this world before.
Too terrifying!
It flapped its wings toward the high sky above the clear empyrean, flying westward.
Soon after, it became a blazing sun in the sky dome.
……
In the deck area, in that sea of tombstones grave forest.
Not far from the Golden Crow fledgling corpse, beneath a tombstone. A white bone dressed in red palace attire also gazed at the Golden Crow departing into the distant sky dome.
Her long hair was jet-black like silk, draping to her feet.
Just standing there casually exuded poise and presence. Even as mere white bones, one could imagine her peerless beauty in life.
In the deep sockets of her eye bones were two clumps of spirit flames the size of fingertips.
She looked at her white bone arm, where strands of blood threads flowed, with life energy constantly being born inside the bones, and murmured: “That kid must be a descendant of that ancient clan from the legends; only the blood of that ancient clan descendant can drip blood to awaken corpses, make white bones grow flesh, revive the undead, and return to the yang realm order within the life laws.”
“Unfortunately, my sun marriage ritual with him was only half completed before he escaped.”
The red-clad white bone looked at Qi Shanshan on the ground, whom she had grappled and who was still unconscious, and muttered to herself: “First hide my bone body inside her, borrow her flesh and blood shell and life aura to evade that life law between heaven and earth that prevents reversal of life and death.”
……
Ever since the bronze ship sailed past the “Tanggu Sea” as Gao Huan described, in the following days, day and night appeared on the sea.
Many scientific expedition team members guessed that many Golden Crows lived at the bottom of the Tanggu Sea, turning into the sun and flying from east to west, creating day and night in this world.
In reality, no one knew where east or west was.
They were all judging directions based on prior knowledge of the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, assuming the direction the bronze ship was sailing was north.
The Fusang Tree was long out of sight, and the bronze ship seemed to continuously space jump to another sea area, where the sea no longer had terrifying lost souls.
The sea was windless, the surface flat as a mirror.
The seawater was scarlet red, very abnormal. When scooped up in a bucket, it was like blood; even filtering couldn’t remove the color, so no one dared drink it.
Of course, only not daring for now…
Because the generator couldn’t be repaired, and food that wasn’t easy to store had almost all spoiled. Starting yesterday, food and water were rationed, instantly changing from three meals a day to half a meal a day.
Another day passed.
Scattered coffins appeared on the sea surface, from who knows where. They moved in the same direction as the bronze ship, leaving long wakes on the calm sea.
This world always gave a heavy yin energy feeling, which even the Fusang Tree and Golden Crow couldn’t dispel.
That initial “Soul Sea” was like the soul return place for lost souls of all planets in the universe. This current “Blood Sea” was like the gathering place for blood of all living beings in the universe.
In the afternoon.
Giant birds flew over from the horizon, hunting in the sea, their calls resounding. Then a flock of strange birds with scythe-like beaks, gull-like, pecked open coffins floating on the sea, sharing the rotting flesh and bones inside.
With signs of life, everyone’s mood on the ship greatly improved, quickly forgetting the grief and fear from a few days ago.
They all speculated that they were not far from the shore.
So exhilarating; as long as they reached land, they could survive somehow.
These past few days, aside from the area around the white bone demon’s tomb, Li Weiyi had searched the entire bronze ship but found no trace of Qi Shanshan.
“She couldn’t really have been eaten by the white bone demon, could she?”
Li Weiyi had long suspected this, because the most dangerous thing on the ship now was that ghost thing.
Regardless, he had to go investigate.
In his heart, there was both the idea of repaying Qi Shanshan’s favor to no longer be bound by it, and a sense of crisis, always feeling that the white bone demon would eventually crawl out from the grave.
Better to proactively resolve the hidden danger than wait to be killed.
But before that, he needed to boost his own combat power a bit more; he didn’t want to rush in and die.
……
Monday, begging for monthly tickets.
