Xue Fuyao walked through the marsh. With Clear Breeze, even when the mire beneath her feet was bottomless, not a speck of filth clung to her soles as she walked across it.
The surroundings were much like what she had seen in those people's memories.
Black Spirit Ear was black all over, even darker than ordinary black wood ear mushrooms. In truth, however, genuine Black Spirit Ear was purple, only so deeply purple that it looked black. It usually grew on rotting wood that had soaked in marshes year-round.
Seven-Star Grass, on the other hand, grew straight out of the marsh. Its leaves were purplish red, with markings resembling stars. Each additional marking represented another hundred years of age, and its color would deepen a shade as well.
Seven-Star Grass was small, each leaf only the size of a thumb, but its root system was exceptionally well developed.
Ordinarily, wherever Seven-Star Grass grew, no surrounding plants could survive, whatever they were-including a second stalk of Seven-Star Grass-because its roots would strangle them all underground. Black Spirit Ear was the exception, of course, as the two did not compete.
After she had walked through the marsh for a while, the miasma around her grew increasingly dense. Xue Fuyao frowned and rubbed her nose. Although the poison in the miasma had little effect on her, its smell was truly foul.
She extended her divine sense into the distance, hoping to find Seven-Star Grass and Black Spirit Ear sooner.
At last, effort rewarded the persistent. She discovered traces of Black Spirit Ear and Seven-Star Grass several zhang ahead.
After a few quick steps, Xue Fuyao came upon a fallen, dead tree, most of it submerged in the marsh. Large clusters of black mushrooms grew on the exposed wood. They were precisely the Black