The ruins had come to an end.
Continuing forward, there was a stone wall beyond the garden.
There was nowhere left to go.
A osmanthus tree stood quietly in the garden. It was the first plant Jiang Qiao had seen since arriving in this world.
According to legend,
this should have been that extremely famous osmanthus tree.
Jiang Qiao examined the trunk.
There were many healed scars on it.
This seemed to match the scene from the myth. Wu Gang of Hexi had been punished for chopping down the osmanthus tree on the moon after learning the arts of immortality but disobeying the rules of the Dao. Yet the tree healed as soon as it was cut and could never be felled. Thus, Wu Gang could only chop at it day after day, year after year.
Every Mid-Autumn Festival,
the tree would be covered in osmanthus blossoms, filling the air with fragrance.
And on that day,
after midnight had passed—the sixteenth day of the eighth lunar month—the leaves of the osmanthus tree would drift down while Wu Gang was chopping it, with some floating down to the mortal world.
Any lucky person who picked one up would gain endless wealth.
It was said that
when Emperor Ming of Tang visited the Moon Palace, Wu Gang had met him and even invited him to drink osmanthus wine.
However,
Wu Gang's face had been weary.
His ax had rusted as well.
Even when his clothes had torn, there had been no one to mend them.
He had looked utterly wretched.
Clearly, being a lumberjack was no good job. This was where Bald Man had to be mentioned. Even with the interference of the two bears, his house had still been piled high with wood.
He was clearly a model worker in the