"Fu Zongzhu! This is-!"
Lan Zeyan clenched his fists in growing fury as he glared toward the cave where Qinghui had been dragged. Beside him, Lan Feirong crouched and picked up the half-eaten steamed bun Qinghui dropped earlier. A faint, sickly scent of demonic Energy wafted up to his nostrils.
The moment it hit him, his expression changed. He quickly covered his nose with his sleeve.
"Fu Zongzhu!" Lan Feirong called out, alarmed. "This bun-"
Lan Zeyan took one look at the object in his hand, his eyes darkening. He too covered his nose with his sleeve as the sinister energy became clearer.
"...It was imbued with demonic energy," Lan Zeyan confirmed gravely.
Ningning and Meng Yao's eyes widened in disbelief.
"But-how?!" Ningning exclaimed, frustrated. "Where did he even get that? And how could he not sense the demonic energy in it?!"
"Maybe..." Meng Yao hesitated, "Maybe Qinghui-ge doesn't have any Qi to begin with? That might explain why he couldn't detect it."
Lan Zeyan shook his head. "That's not possible. If he were truly Qi-less, he wouldn't have survived in this forest in the first place. Besides... he showed the same symptoms as the other two seniors who were turned into trees. This is not a coincidence."
His expression hardened as he turned to the two juniors. "Ningning, Meng Yao-I want you to return to White Sun Sect immediately. Report the current situation and request backup."
Both disciples looked stunned. Lan Zeyan never asked for help lightly. For him to call for reinforcements, something had gone terribly wrong.
"Once that's done," he continued, "head to Wei Guo and Xiao Dan's quarters. Search them thoroughly. Then go to the infirmary where Qinghui stayed last night. Look for a small table with medicinal tray. There may be clues."
Ningning and Meng Yao exchanged tense looks before bowing deeply.
"We understand, Lan-gongzi."
Summoning their spiritual weapons, they took to the skies, heading swiftly toward the sect.
Only Lan Feirong remained, standing beside Lan Zeyan.
"...You don't really think someone inside the sect planned this, do you?" Lan Feirong asked quietly, brows furrowed. "That someone planted the bun?"
Lan Zeyan didn't answer immediately. His eyes were still fixed on the dark cave ahead, its entrance pulsing faintly like a beating heart.
"Let's rescue that brat first," he said grimly.
"Understood."
Without hesitation, the two cultivators dashed into the dark, gaping mouth of the cave.
As they stepped inside the cave, shadows swallowed them whole. No light reached this far beneath the earth.
Lan Feirong lifted his hand, summoning a soft flame with a swirl of Qi. The fire hovered steadily above his palm, casting flickering golden light along the jagged stone walls. The two treaded cautiously, the silence between them filled only by the echo of their footsteps.
After a moment, Lan Feirong broke the quiet.
"Lan-gongzi," he began softly, keeping his voice low as if afraid to wake something sleeping in the dark, "before I arrived, I asked around the nearby village."
Lan Zeyan glanced at him, and with a faint nod, encouraged him to go on.
"There's an old tale... about this forest," Lan Feirong continued, eyes fixed ahead. "The villagers speak of a boy who once lived not far from here. He was the youngest of several children-small, frail, and always blamed when things went wrong. His mother punished him harshly, and his siblings mocked him endlessly. Life was unbearable."
Lan Zeyan said nothing, but his gaze sharpened.
"One day," Lan Feirong went on, "the boy ran into this very forest, intending to end his own life. But instead of death, he met a god. Or so the story says.
A gentle, benevolent one, who fed him warm meals-one of them being a steamed bun-and comforted him every time he returned. The god gave him a token, something precious. And in time, the boy began to call that god 'Father.'"
Feirong lowered his voice further. "Then... the boy brought his mortal family here. One by one. And the god-his so-called father-killed them all."
Lan Zeyan's eyes narrowed. "A god took revenge... on behalf of a child?"
"It's just a tale," Lan Feirong added quickly. "I don't know if it's true. Most say it's only a ghost story to keep children from wandering too deep into the forest."
Still, the silence that followed was weighty.
Lan Zeyan looked ahead, his voice soft and thoughtful. "Even so... for such a story to exist, something must have happened here. Gods, if involved, do not act without reason-benevolent or not."
Lan Feirong didn't respond immediately. The flame trembled slightly in his hand, casting longer shadows on the cavern wall as the air around them grew colder.
"...Let's keep going," he finally said. "We need to find Qinghui before something worse happens."
Lan Feirong's flame flickered faintly against the damp walls, casting long, twisted shadows that danced like specters around them. After the tale ended, silence stretched between them for a while-thick, uneasy silence. Even the cave seemed to hold its breath.
Suddenly, a sound echoed deeper within. A scraping. Not loud.
But enough to halt both cultivators mid-step.
Lan Zeyan narrowed his eyes and raised his hand slightly, motioning for Lan Feirong to lower the flame. The glow dimmed. The two crouched low behind a jagged rock formation, peering into the narrow throat of the cavern ahead.
There-faint light.Greenish, pulsing softly. Like a heartbeat.
They moved closer, cautiously. The air grew warmer and heavier, carrying a strange scent-earthy, damp... and metallic.
As they rounded the next corner, the narrow tunnel opened into a large hollow chamber.
Roots-massive and winding-throbbed across the walls and ceiling like veins. In the center of the room, a half-opened pod of roots cradled a familiar figure: Qinghui, unconscious, suspended midair like a puppet caught in its strings.
"Qinghui-ge!" Lan Feirong moved without thinking, but Lan Zeyan grabbed his sleeve.
"Wait."
Lan Feirong froze.
Behind Qinghui, from the mass of roots, something stirred.
It wasn't just a tree or spirit. It had form-nearly human, but not.
A child's silhouette-barefoot, draped in white, with long tangled hair. Its face was obscured, but a mouth slowly stretched across its face as it stepped forward, whispering in a voice both soft and old:
"Don't take my Gege away. He was fed... He belongs to me now."
The cave trembled slightly, roots shifting as if responding to the child's emotions.
Lan Zeyan slowly reached for the talisman hidden inside his robe.