“How are you feeling now?” the narrator asked.

Song Qian Ji answered lazily: “Just like this, not bad.”

“Without the Immortal Spring, without your strongest cultivation, not even having a physical body, you still feel not bad?”

“You don’t understand.”

Song Qian Ji thought to himself that he had fought his battles, protected his land, and accomplished what he failed to do in his previous life. By coincidence, he had also made the world better. If he had any regrets, there was only one.

“You just said my soul is being nurtured in the Sky-Supporting Tree? How are you here too?” he asked.

“I am the narrator, formless and bodiless, randomly wandering anywhere in the world. Now, with the tacit approval of the world’s origin will, I’ve come to wake you up.” The narrator very eagerly offered two plates of melon seeds and peanuts. “Try them, they’re also things you liked before.”

Song Qian Ji cracked melon seeds and fell into deep thought: “The river of time was also something you showed me with approval, right? Last time you deceived me!”

“Ahem, let’s not mention past things. We still have to live on…”

Song Qian Ji waved his sleeve: “Who wants to live with you!” He asked, “What if I had failed this time?”

The narrator said dejectedly: “You were the last turning point. If you had failed, everyone would have perished together. I would have perished too.”

Song Qian Ji thought that the world’s origin would have a self-preservation instinct but couldn’t directly intervene in the world’s evolution and development. It could only send him back to the past to start over, giving this world one more chance.

If he had failed, the entire world, including the narrator, would cease to exist. So after he succeeded, did it create a back door for him? And let the narrator in to keep him company?

Song Qian Ji wasn’t very angry. Being nurtured in the tree was better than being in someone else’s domain.

The feeling of relying on others’ mercy was quite unpleasant—just ask the working souls who used to labor in his wheat fields.

“Is there anything else you need?” the narrator asked obsequiously, “I’ll try my best.”

Song Qian Ji: “I want to go back to farming. Is that possible?”

“You are the Sky-Supporting Tree. Now the world depends on you for support. You’re equivalent to a creation deity—no, a world-supporting deity! As long as you work hard to bear fruit, when the fruit falls, you can obtain a new physical body.” The narrator exaggerated, “At that time, with the body of a deity, you’ll stand alongside mortals and naturally be able to return to farming. Congratulations, congratulations!”

With the body of a deity, standing alongside mortals? Reverse cultivation?

Song Qian Ji didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: “Congratulations to you too. There must be people outside who miss me. I still want to tell them my soul hasn’t been extinguished.”

The narrator was troubled: “Trees can only bloom, shed leaves, and bear fruit. How can they talk to people?”

“I’ll try,” Song Qian Ji decided to make an effort.

…

The golden Sky-Supporting Tree was magnificent, emitting a faint golden light, like gentle, warm sunshine.

The heavy fog was dispersed by the light, and the edge of the continent was no longer a desolate place where yin and yang were separated.

When people looked up at the new Sky-Supporting Tree, they felt a solid, vast, yet gentle power.

Other small trees grew around it, flourishing vigorously, showing no trace of the apocalyptic scene from seven days ago when the earth was about to collapse and the sky was about to fall.

For a full seven days and nights, common people from all regions looked toward the western sky in prayer, while cultivators braved the wind and snow, working together to cross the Ice Chasm plain, rushing toward the edge of the continent.

Everyone channeled spiritual energy into the Sky-Supporting Tree, finally giving birth to this vibrant forest.

When the earth stopped trembling and the Sky-Supporting Tree stopped swaying, the edge of the continent was submerged in shouts.

This was the birth of a miracle, an indescribable shock.

Regardless of past grudges, old enmities between sects, or differences in origins and backgrounds, at least at this moment, the joys and sorrows of thousands of people were connected.

They cried and laughed, experienced great joy and great sorrow, feeling lost about what to do, what to say, and even why they were still there. They only knew that Song Qian Ji was no longer in the human world.

“This world has been saved.”

“We’ve survived this crisis.”

“But Song Wang can’t come back.”

The Sky-Supporting Tree shook its leaves, and the rustling sound grew louder and louder, like a gentle, melodious tune.

As the cultivators listened to this song, it was as if an invisible hand gently patted their backs, gradually calming their emotions.

Chen Hong Zhu was the first to stand up: “Song Wang merged himself with the Dao for the continuation of all living beings and peace in the human world, not for us to cry here. Where are the disciples of Hua Wei Sect?”

The Hua Wei disciples responded in unison and returned under Chen Hong Zhu’s leadership.

Child of Midnight Manjusri picked something up from the ground, then stood up, leading the reluctant Green Cliff Scholars away.

Ji Chen looked at Child of Midnight Manjusri, murmuring: “Doesn’t he have anything to say to Brother Song?”

At that time, following Song Qian Ji’s arrangement, he had given the box filled with Thousand Channels’ fertile soil to him. Even then, he felt that Child of Midnight Manjusri was too cold, his emotions too restrained to seem human. After receiving the box, even in regret, anger, or pain, he only said two words.

Dealing with such a person must be quite difficult.

Child of Midnight Manjusri and Meng He Ze passed each other.

Meng He Ze glanced sideways, noticing what was in his hand, and suddenly wiped away his tears and stood up: “This season, it’s time to prepare for the wheat harvest.”

Ji Chen: “What did you say?”

“I said I want to go back to Thousand Channels to harvest wheat!”

Ji Chen grabbed his sleeve: “I don’t believe it. You must be planning to go to the Western Sea to become a demon lord. Brother Song won’t be happy about that.”

Ji Chen thought, if you dare go, I’ll draw a confinement formation, and we’ll both be trapped beneath the Sky-Supporting Tree waiting for Brother Song.

One year, ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years, ten thousand years… but while the Sky-Supporting Tree’s lifespan equals heaven’s, they couldn’t live that long.

If ascending in broad daylight meant going to a world without Song Qian Ji, it would be better to become withered bones beneath the Sky-Supporting Tree.

But Meng He Ze said: “He will come back.”

“How do you know?” Ji Chen was stunned, asking in disbelief, “What did you see?”

Meng He Ze proudly raised his head. In front of Ji Chen and other Song Academy disciples, he had never felt so superior.

He carefully picked something from the ground and proudly showed it to everyone: “Can your Sky-Supporting Tree bloom potato flowers?”

A pale purple flower bud blossomed between his fingertips, still with a drop of crystal-clear dew, identical to those in the Song Academy garden.

“This is a ‘Land Three’ flower. On the eve of the Dengwen Elegant Gathering, Elder Brother gave me this flower to encourage me. That was a long time ago when we were still working in the outer sect of Hua Wei Sect…”

The Song Academy disciples gathered around him, eyes bright, listening to his story.

That night Song Qian Ji had given out two potato flowers. Logically, with two flowers in bloom, each would represent a branch. But Meng He Ze never mentioned the other one.

The Thousand Channels disciples occasionally burst into exclamations of surprise. Only Wei Zhen Yu stood outside the crowd, eyes closed, carefully listening to the sound of the tree.

The golden leaves rustled and swayed, undulating like the sea, like a melody conforming to some pattern.

The surrounding voices gradually faded away, with only the melody resonating in his ears.

Born into a noble family, he had some understanding of music, but now he only regretted not having diligently studied the musical Dao.

Otherwise, he would be able to hear more.

“I can’t make it out, but there must be someone who can!” He suddenly opened his eyes, rushing around, barging through the crowd.

People didn’t know what he was looking for and thought he was deeply affected and had gone mad. Li Ci Quan and Zhu Sheng called out “Wang Wei,” trying to stop him.

Until Wei Zhen Yu encountered a veiled woman in a thorn hairpin and plain dress, carrying a zither in her arms.

He walked up to her, with hidden expectations:

“Did you also hear it? What is this melody saying?”

He didn’t mention her name. He also hadn’t imagined that he would ever have a peaceful conversation with this person.

But in the vast cultivation world, whose musical Dao attainments could be higher than hers?

He feared she wouldn’t tell him, and feared even more that she would say there was nothing, that it was all his illusion.

“On the night of the full moon, the soul shall return.” The woman with the zither continued walking without stopping, looking straight ahead as she passed him. “If you want to welcome him back, why not forge a magical tool suitable for a soul to dwell in, and try your luck on the fifteenth day of the eighth month?”

“The soul shall return, the soul shall return!” Wei Zhen Yu was instantly struck by immense joy, his head spinning. In his momentary distraction, he let the woman walk away, and could only shout: “Which year?”

Her silhouette faded away, and her voice accompanied by zither music drifted from the horizon: “Every year.”

Wei Zhen Yu looked at her slender figure and called out loudly: “Thank you.”