He told Shi Hao about Shi Ziling and Qin Yining being held captive by the Qin family of Immortal Mountain.
However, he wisely left out one detail....
That the two of them had been busy trying to conceive another child.
He was afraid Shi Hao might not be able to handle such a devastating blow.
Truthfully speaking, this kid's fate was rather pitiful.
His bone had been dug out when he was young.
Then his parents left him behind in Stone Village....and within a few short years, they were already busy "creating new accounts."
While other cultivators were focused on cultivation breakthroughs and leveling up…
His parents were hard at work making new characters.
It was well known that the higher one's cultivation, the lower the chances of successfully having offspring.
Shi Ziling was a peerless genius of the Stone Clan, and Qin Yining was once the Holy Maiden of the Immortal God Mountain.
Even in the lower realms, their talent and cultivation were extraordinary.
For them to successfully "bind souls" even once must have required tremendous effort.
Frankly, it was almost absurd.
"If you don't believe me," Zhu Chen added,
"go ask the Willow Goddess yourself. She'll confirm whether I'm telling the truth."
Shi Hao had originally planned to verify Zhu Chen's words with the village elders or the Willow God anyway.
But the moment Zhu Chen mentioned the name Willow Goddess, his expression froze completely.
"You… you even know about the Willow Goddess?"
"What else wouldn't I know?"
Zhu Chen shrugged with a faint smile.
"To be honest, we came to the Great Wilderness to see the Willow Goddess.
I want to borrow the Original True Explanation from Stone Village.
In exchange, I can help heal the Willow Goddess's old injuries."
"You even know the Willow Goddess is injured?!"
Shi Hao was stunned.
He had only recently learned this secret from the village elder, Shi Yunfeng.
Legend said that the Willow God descended upon Stone Village amidst endless lightning.
At that time, it was nothing more than a lifeless, charred tree stump.
Only after years of careful nurturing did it regain a trace of vitality, eventually sprouting a single willow branch.
Shi Hao wasn't foolish.
He knew the Willow God had suffered unimaginable injuries and was still in the process of recovery.
Unfortunately, Stone Village lacked the resources to truly nourish it, which was why its recovery had been so slow.
If this person truly had a way to heal the Willow God…
Then perhaps bringing him back to the village wouldn't be a bad idea.
Besides, neither Zhu Chen nor Huo Ling'er seemed like bad people.
"Alright," Shi Hao said after a brief pause.
"I'll take you to see the Willow God. I also need to verify what you just told me."
At this stage, Shi Hao was still relatively naive. After only a moment of consideration, he readily agreed.
At his invitation, Zhu Chen and Huo Ling'er mounted the Azure Scaled Eagle as well, and the three of them flew together toward New Stone Village.
…
Meanwhile—
In a tribal village tens of thousands of miles away,
A scorched, withered tree stump seemed to sense something.
The drooping willow branch trembled slightly—
And a faint divine light quietly bloomed.
The Azure-Scaled Eagle was the aerial overlord of the outer Cangmang Mountains, its veins flowing with the blood of an ancient demonic bird.
The Azure-Scaled Eagle Ziyun that accompanied Shi Hao had once received guidance from the Willow Goddess during its hatching, triggering a bloodline reversion.
Its strength far surpassed that of its mother, the old Azure-Scaled Eagle.
Especially in terms of flight speed—it was like a streak of lightning, even faster than the celestial horse Zhu Chen had stolen earlier.
Riding on the eagle's back, Zhu Chen and the others cut through the sky, crossing tens of thousands of miles in just over a day before finally arriving at Xinshi Village, where the Willow Goddess resided.
"Grandpa Clan Chief, I'm back!"
The moment they landed, Shi Hao excitedly ran into the village, eagerly recounting everything that had happened at the ancestral land to an elderly man leaning on a cane, his hair completely white.
This old man was Shi Yunfeng, the village chief of Stone Village.
If the Willow Goddess and the Five-Colored Sparrow were excluded, he was essentially the only cultivator in the village besides Shi Hao.
Zhu Chen and Huo Ling'er followed them into the village.
The instant Zhu Chen stepped inside, he felt a faint divine sense descend upon him.
It was the Willow Goddess.
She was observing him.
Zhu Chen remained calm, his expression unchanged, and continued walking forward.
The villagers of Stone Village assumed the two were friends Shi Hao had brought back.
They were warm and hospitable, quickly offering fruit and roasted meat.
"Hey, Zhu Chen… why are we staying here with this little brat?"
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