"Thank you, Sister Xiao."
She Xilu carefully accepted the wooden box Xiao Sui handed her, opened it, and asked inwardly, Youchan, how do I eat this?
"You don't need to eat it," Youchan said in her mind. "You just need to touch it yourself. During the primordial cataclysm, a mortal who had only just begun cultivating accidentally touched a Time Fruit and instantly reached the end of their destined lifespan, ascending from a mortal to the Supreme One Realm in the blink of an eye."
She Xilu placed the wooden box on her lap and slowly reached out with her fingertips toward the strange fruit, which resembled an infant yet looked hazy and unreal.
The instant her fingertips touched its surface, the mysterious power within the fruit seemed to find an outlet. It flowed out along her fingertips and enveloped her at once.
Boom!
In a daze, she watched the world before her blur until it vanished, and time seemed to stop with it.
Then a boundless river appeared before her.
The river surged endlessly forward, seemingly stretching toward some infinitely distant place. Its waters were turbulent in some stretches and placid in others, and she stood within it.
"This is..."
She Xilu murmured.
In this illusory world where time stood still, her position marked a dividing point. The river behind her was like stagnant water, frozen solid. Looking closely, she could actually see countless versions of herself within it: herself at seventeen, at sixteen... all the way back to her birth.
Ahead of her, what looked like a surging river was, on closer inspection, actually formed from countless hazy, illusory tributaries. Some were wide and others narrow, and every tributary contained a different future version of her. They branched constantly at countless minute junctures, weaving together infinite futures.
"This