"I am a Spirit Vein Spirit. I have an innate sensitivity to the lay of the land, and I can sense a half-dead spirit vein not far from here..."
Little Green's words caught Su Jiu's attention.
"A half-dead spirit vein? Doesn't the Azure Realm only have three spirit veins?"
At Su Jiu's question, Little Green paused. Then, as though it had made some momentous decision, it let out a long, quiet sigh. "Perhaps it's time I told you."
"I once told you that the Azure Realm has Four Great Spirit Veins, each guarded by a Sacred Beast..."
Su Jiu nodded. She considered her memory fairly good, and she certainly remembered Little Green mentioning this.
"Four spirit veins. Three survived, while one became a dead vein because the Sacred Vermilion Bird died..." Su Jiu stopped there, as though an unbelievable possibility had occurred to her.
"Don't tell me that half-dead spirit vein nearby is the one the Vermilion Bird once guarded?"
Su Jiu had only asked casually, never expecting Little Green to actually nod. "The spirit vein the Vermilion Bird once guarded does indeed lie deep within the Demon-Subduing Land. If my guess is right, these Demon Crows probably became what they are now because of it, too."
Su Jiu knitted her brows, feeling the questions in her heart multiply.
Surely the elders from ten thousand years ago had known what Little Green knew. But why had they forcibly turned a spirit vein into the Demon-Subduing Land? And hadn't the spirit vein died without the Vermilion Bird to keep it in check? Why was it now half-dead instead?
"Little Green, how much of what you told me before was actually true?"
Su Jiu could no longer be bothered to dance around the issue with Little Green, so she simply asked outright.