Chen Lingxi took the Undying Willow Branch, a faint smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.
The willow branch trembled slightly in his palm, warm to the touch, like a tender twig freshly scooped from spring water—supple beyond belief.
He raised his head and looked toward the nine-zhang-tall willow tree. Its crown was lush and dense, countless branches swaying gently in the night wind.
That bare, withered branch from earlier had long since withdrawn into the depths of the canopy, nowhere to be found, as though it had never extended itself at all.
"I wonder what use that Undying Willow Branch has... one of two choices..."
The smile on his face deepened as he tucked the Undying Willow Branch into his musk-deer hide pouch.
Everything within the Total Perception Divine Chamber was no different from the real world, save for the two precious mirrors hanging high above in the heavens.
"Undying Willow." He softly spoke the three words. "There was no sacrifice, so why did it give me this Undying Willow Branch?"
"Was it because I planted it as a child?" Chen Lingxi speculated inwardly. "Did it recognize me?"
With that thought, he paused, then suddenly pressed his palm against the trunk once more, slowly sending spiritual qi into it.
This time, another change occurred.
His spiritual qi spread upward along the densely packed veins deep within the trunk.
Yet his consciousness did not descend underground. Instead, it climbed together with the spiritual qi, passing through the trunk, through the branches, all the way upward.
Then, he saw something even stranger.
At the deepest point of the crown, in the very center surrounded by countless branches, hung a cocoon.
The cocoon was roughly the size of a fist, pure white throughout, like a fine piece of mutton-fat jade steeped