Mu You felt a pang of regret at her answer. After thinking it over, he tried another question. "Are there any places like gardens in here?"
"No. This is just an undeveloped mountain forest. Never mind gardens, there aren't even any flower beds." Fuya shook her head again.
"Then there must at least be some ancient creatures, right?" Mu You asked.
"Ancient creatures... do trees count? Quite a few of the old trees in this forest have been around a long time," Fuya said after some thought.
"Uh, preferably something that can talk..." Mu You felt awkward. The Bitter Garden had disappeared more than thirty-five hundred years ago, so his idea was to find a creature that had survived from that era and ask what had happened back then.
"An ancient creature that can talk... oh, you mean Geguwu?" Fuya suddenly remembered something.
"Geguwu?" Mu You was puzzled. This was a name he had never heard before.
"Geguwu is an old hag who lives in the Bitter Forest. Supposedly, she's also a Potion Maker, but she isn't quite right in the head. She's always acting crazy, never communicates with the outside world, and has lived as a recluse in the forest all this time," Fuya said.
"Oh?" Mu You paused as he read. "Isn't this your academy's forbidden forest? Your academy tolerates an outsider staying in its forbidden grounds long-term?"
"It's your academy too!" Fuya corrected him first, then sighed. "Geguwu has actually lived here for a very long time. Nobody knows what era she's from. In any case, before the academy was founded... no, before the Lan'er Empire was founded, even when the Imperial Capital was still a wilderness of mountains, people had already seen Geguwu in the Bitter Forest. And even then, she already looked as old as