The other side of the ridge was even more desolate than they had expected.
A few withered trees leaned crookedly at the valley entrance, rubble piled around their roots. Where water should have flowed, only a shallow, dried-up channel remained. Huo Tingchuan studied the map for a moment. He confirmed they had taken the right path, but his brows drew together slightly.
Xiao Yue stepped onto a rock and looked down.
"No matter how I look at it, this doesn't seem like a place where spiritual herbs would grow."
"According to the records, a stream once ran through here, and the vegetation was lush. For it to look like this now, the water must have stopped flowing."
Huo Tingchuan put away the map and followed the shallow channel downhill. Su Yu and the others followed him. Before long, they found a patch of soil with remnants of roots at the valley floor.
Several shallow holes marked the earth, with dry, dark-red rootlets scattered beside them.
They had already been harvested.
Su Yu felt a little disappointed.
The locations recorded by the sect were not herb gardens, after all. No one would save mature spiritual herbs for them. This valley was not particularly far from the entrance, so it was hardly surprising that earlier visitors had harvested them.
He was about to look away when Huo Tingchuan crouched and picked up a piece of root to examine.
"These weren't harvested recently. It's been a long time, at least."
"Can they grow back?" Xiao Yue asked.
"They'd still need a suitable place."
Huo Tingchuan raised his head and followed the dry channel with his gaze toward the side of the valley.
Several boulders blocked the way. The ground beyond them lay lower, and a patch of dark soil was faintly visible through