Yun Nian: “That’s Brother Mu, isn’t it?”
Nan Yan: “No, you’re mistaken. Let’s find a place to hide.”
Yun Nian: “But that is Brother Mu! Aren’t you two like siblings?”
Nan Yan: “I don’t know that person. My brother drowned in the ocean of literature years ago.”
With that, Nan Yan dragged Yun Nian far away. Meanwhile, Mu Zhanting, trailed by a massive army of silver insects, remained fearless. As he reached the depths of the silver forest, an earth-shattering roar shook the entire southern swamp. All the insect fruits began to stir restlessly. In the distance, Mu Zhanting spotted a pit covered with bones and decayed fur, from which a scale-covered tentacle emerged.
Startled by the sight of the great insect rising like soaring clouds, Mu Zhanting had no time to compose poetic phrases. The tentacle seemed to target him, and with another roar, the millions of silver insects pursuing him in the sky formed a piercing net, closing in around him.
“Mother of… Is this the insect mother?” Mu Zhanting glanced at the tentacle, thinking the creature was impossibly huge. Realizing he couldn’t overpower it, he tried to break free but found himself trapped. Without hesitation, he raised both hands, transforming the sky above into a sea of fire clouds. In an instant, fire rained down from the heavens.
The Panya Celestial Fire was a supreme technique that the Red Emperor had created by combining demon arts with the essence of the great sun. If mastered, one could become the sun itself, incinerating everything.
The silver insect net began to melt like wax under fire, creating holes. This seemed to enrage the insect mother, and a hundred-foot-long tentacle swung towards Mu Zhanting like a collapsing iron tower.
As he frowned, preparing to use his trump cards, the world before him suddenly turned black and white as if drenched in ink. In the next moment, he saw an identical figure of himself appear nearby. The tentacle abruptly changed course, striking at the ink shadow instead.
“Run,” Nan Yan’s voice came from behind. Mu Zhanting felt a tug at his collar as someone pulled him away.
Half an hour later, in a temporary cave carved out of the silver forest, Nan Yan peered through a crack in the rocks. She watched the giant tentacle sweep the area, finally retreating in frustration after a fruitless search. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief?
“Is it gone?” Mu Zhanting asked.
Nan Yan gave him a withering look. “What, do you want to drag it out for a fight?”
Mu Zhanting explained, “This place is so strange. I was worried you might end up as a frozen corpse on the roadside. I was in a hurry and found myself surrounded by those weird insects before I knew it…”
Nan Yan scoffed, “Don’t worry. After all, I’m the toughest monk in your eyes. I won’t starve to death on the road.”
The three exchanged their recent findings, eventually returning to the topic of the silver forest.
“The silver insect mother was originally very powerful, but it’s weakened due to egg-laying. That’s why it couldn’t pursue us thoroughly. Even so, it still has strength equivalent to the Nascent Soul stage. Moreover, as the ruler of the southern Tribulation Sea, it must have unique killing moves,” Yun Nian analyzed.
Nan Yan added, “The pile of bones where the tentacle came from emitted a fire-attribute source of spirit energy. If I’m not mistaken, the fire-attribute spirit well should be beneath the insect mother. If the three of us confront the insect mother directly, we’ll likely pay a heavy price. If we fail, even if we escape, it’ll be hard to compete with cultivators from other regions later.”
“To be safe, we could gather people from other regions to cooperate. However…” Yun Nian glanced at the white jade ring on Mu Zhanting’s hand, which now had two black lines from the merged black jade rings. “Brother Mu has already killed two cultivators. At least we can’t trust the evil cultivators nearby.”
Nan Yan remembered Yuan Ang’s group. Some of their cultivators were killed by the blood bees, but the imperial sons had Nascent Soul stage treasures protecting them and had all escaped successfully. She wondered where they were now.
After some thought, she said, “We ultimately came here to enter the Ten Professions Mountain. Before that, our basic goal is to collect source spirit energy equivalent to the Nascent Soul stage. The three of us are fine for now, but if we call people from other regions, who knows who might stab us in the back?”
“That’s true, but half of the silver insect mother’s strength lies in its offspring. If they all attack at once, we’ll be surrounded. It might be difficult to break through their defenses in a frontal assault…” Yun Nian pondered.
Mu Zhanting, who had been silent after being scolded by Nan Yan, suddenly spoke up, “Why do we need to break through their defenses? Those insects can fly but can’t go underground. Why don’t we dig a tunnel under the insect mother’s belly to steal the source of spirit energy? The Dragon Lord gave me a bag full of treasures for flying, running, swimming, and burrowing. I even have an earth-boring awl.”
Nan Yan and Yun Nian fell silent—they hadn’t considered this angle, that the silver insects couldn’t enter the ground.
“…Brother,” Nan Yan said.
“What?” Mu Zhanting asked.
“Can your intelligence stop fluctuating so drastically? It’s scary.”
As night fell, Mu Zhanting took out an earth-boring awl and planted four of them in the ground. When activated, the soil between the four awls gradually changed from rock to sand, finally seeping into the cracks in the earth.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The three jumped into the tunnel, replanting the awls every time their spiritual energy ran low. After digging about 3000 to 5000 feet, Mu Zhanting struck something hard and smooth when he tried to plant the awls again.
“There’s a barrier,” he announced.
After brushing away a layer of dirt, they found a white stone wall with a translucent, jade-like luster when illuminated by spirit light.
“Such a large deposit? What material is this?” Yun Nian wondered.
“I don’t recognize it. Let’s see if we can go around it,” Nan Yan suggested.
They tried boring along the white jade wall but found it seemingly endless.
Running low on earth-boring awls, Mu Zhanting turned to Nan Yan, “I’m losing my sense of direction. Your nose is sharp, can you smell where the fire source spirit energy is?”
Nan Yan gave him a look before circling the area. She knocked on the white jade wall and said, “The direction is correct. The source of spirit energy is faint on either side, but it’s abundant behind this wall. However, this jade wall is too smooth to be natural. I wonder what it’s for?”
Mu Zhanting: “I think this wall is perfect for writing poetry on.”
Nan Yan: “…”
Nan Yan: “Blood bee, bite him.”
Before Mu Zhanting could finish saying “What are you doing,” he felt a sting on his chin. A blood-colored poisonous bee flew away, and his tongue and throat went completely numb, rendering him speechless.
Yun Nian: “Sister Zhenyuan, why did you have the blood bee sting, Brother Mu?”
Nan Yan: “He’s overheated. I’m giving him acupuncture to cool him down so he’ll be energized to deal with the insect mother later. There must be something beyond this stone wall, but my and his methods are too noisy. Do you have any other ideas?”
Yun Nian: “I recently learned a new armor-breaking poem. Although no one can compose poetry with me, I can try it alone. It should be able to break through this jade wall.”
Nan Yan made a sound of surprise and quickly used her spiritual energy to block Mu Zhanting’s mental connection to Yun Nian. “Go ahead then. If it doesn’t work, we’ll think of something else.”
Mu Zhanting, clutching his numb chin, angrily tried to communicate with Nan Yan mentally: “Quick, tell him I can compose poetry with him!”
Seeing Mu Zhanting’s fierce gaze and muffled cries, Yun Nian asked, “Does Brother Mu have an objection?”
Nan Yan, with a straight face, said, “Your Brother Mu says that there’s scenery before him that he can’t describe, and Yun Nian’s poem should be above it. He wants to humbly learn from you, so go ahead.”
Heartbroken, Mu Zhanting rushed forward and carved a line on the wall: “A scholar’s will cannot be taken away!”
As Nan Yan prepared to try and persuade him to let go of poetry, she saw the carved line melt into the wall.
“What’s happening?”
Mu Zhanting’s spiritual energy carried a fire attribute. When it touched the jade wall, it melted like wax, revealing small, ragged holes.
The three squeezed together to peer through the holes and simultaneously gasped. Inside was a giant golden tree with countless translucent egg sacs on its branches. The thin membranes of the sacs were filled with silver sand, which upon closer inspection, turned out to be insect eggs.
It was indeed the insect mother’s lair.
The three fell silent and began communicating mentally.
“What kind of monster is this insect mother? How is it so big?”
Nan Yan gathered her courage and looked again. She saw the golden giant tree’s roots coiled around a bright red pit, drawing fire-attribute source spirit energy into its trunk and delivering it to the egg sacs on its branches.
Looking up at the strange tree, Nan Yan saw a half-centipede-like giant insect at the top of the trunk, chewing on some unknown bloody food. Its lower half was connected to the golden tree, creating a bizarre half-insect, half-tree image.
Yun Nian, fighting nausea, forced himself to look and suddenly realized something. “I know the origin of this silver insect mother. It’s recorded in our cultivation world as the Insect Mother Tree.”
“What’s that?”
Yun Nian explained, “The Insect Mother Tree is a rare natural wonder, a symbiosis of insect and plant. When mature, it uses the tree as a host to produce insect fruits, each containing a seed. When these fruits ripen, other silver insects carry them to nearby soil to take root, forming new small Insect Mother Trees. The insect eggs accompanying the seeds constantly hunt to nourish the new tree, hence its name ‘One Tree Forest.'”
Insect Mother Tree…
Nan Yan felt she had heard this name long ago and asked, “Where did you hear about this?”
Yun Nian scratched his head, “When I was young, studying at Daosheng Heaven, I heard it from a… from a senior brother who taught us enlightenment.”
Mu Zhanting, not noticing Nan Yan’s slightly odd expression, asked, “Do you remember any weaknesses of the Insect Mother Tree?”
Yun Nian touched the palm-thick white jade wall, “Getting close to the Insect Mother Tree would surely be detected, but we’re lucky. This wall is likely the resin of the silver insect mother, an almost extinct medicinal ingredient. If we coat ourselves with it, the Insect Mother Tree won’t notice us.”
Nan Yan asked an additional question, “Is it good for the skin?”
Yun Nian smiled awkwardly, “Ancient books say it can detoxify, remove scars, and make skin smooth as jade.”
Nan Yan nodded, went to a corner, and dug out a large piece to store in her ring, planning to use it to persuade her second brother to convert to Buddhism sooner.
After coating their exposed skin and clothes, they sneaked in. The silver insect mother didn’t react at all. Hiding behind a rock, Mu Zhanting spotted a person-sized hole under the golden giant tree and volunteered for the most dangerous task:
“Give me all your empty spirit jades and stones. I’m the fastest, so I’ll go down that hole to find the source of spirit energy. After absorbing it, I’ll return the same way. If the Insect Mother Tree is alerted, you two leave first.”
Nan Yan thought there was no way they’d leave first. She took out a piece of wood-attribute essence from her ring and said, “I’ve heard that among the nine spirit wells in the mountains and seas, five are occupied by ghost tribes. I encountered a dangerous entity called ‘Ghost Marquis’ in the wood-attribute spirit well earlier. Although this fire-attribute spirit well seems to be completely controlled by the Insect Mother Tree without any elemental chaos, we can’t be careless.”
Mu Zhanting carelessly said, “It’s fine. If I can’t fight, I’ll just die and go to the underworld to meet literary predecessors. Maybe I can even steal Li He’s reputation…”
“What’s so fun about the underworld? After we get out, I’ll take you straight to the Western Pure Land,” Nan Yan glared at him. “Be serious. If there are ghost tribes down there, just say… say: ‘Fire Ghost Marquis, I am the successor to the next Prison Lord of Fengmo Heaven. Do you dare obstruct me?'”