Time gradually passed.
At some point, the lilting, ethereal music slowly faded into silence, and the grove of red bean trees stopped rustling and swaying.
The two women sensed something almost simultaneously and looked toward the towering divine tree before them, which had suddenly begun to glow.
A sacred, boundless aura flowed steadily from the divine tree. Warm and bright, it also gave both women an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
"...!?"
Shen Xi, who had been standing still, felt her pupils contract slightly, her mind going somewhat blank from overwhelming shock.
Yet her body instinctively moved, slowly approaching the towering divine tree in a daze.
Step by step, she reached the foot of the towering divine tree and extended her fair, translucent palm, trembling slightly, to touch its trunk.
More and more crystalline tears streamed uncontrollably from the corners of her eyes.
Her voice trembled, filled with a certain disbelief. "Is it you... have you come back...?"
She, too, knew the origins of the towering divine tree.
After that terrifying battle had ended all those years ago.
Su Changge had sacrificed everything he had. Before everyone's eyes, his body had dissolved into specks of light that filled the sky, leaving not a trace.
However, back then, a divine tree seed containing a tiny part of Su Changge had inexplicably fallen from the depths of space-time and happened to come into their possession.
Although, to outsiders, placing their feelings for someone whose very traces had completely vanished in a divine tree seed of unknown origin seemed utterly childish and utterly ridiculous.
The two women had nevertheless nurtured this towering divine tree with the utmost care.
After countless years had passed.
Just when even they felt that a miracle would never happen again, this divine tree, which carried their last hope, finally