491: Chapter 491 Under the Tree

The moment this thought occurred to Su Ming, he immediately frowned.

Something wasn't right.

He couldn't just sit down haphazardly.

If some Restriction were to activate the moment he sat down, pinning him there so he couldn't get up, that would be a true grievance.

Thus, instead of sitting, he first walked a circle around the roots of the tree. He watched as he walked, and listened as he watched. The soil beneath his feet was moist, with no signs of traps being triggered; the surrounding woods were silent, with no aura of lurking beasts; the Array Patterns on the tree trunk flowed steadily, showing no signs of an impending attack.

He even went as far as to take out a small Spirit-Sensing Array Plate and quietly pressed it into a crevice in the rocks several yards away.

If something really did pounce, it would at least make a sound first.

Lin Yu watched all of this, and his originally heavy mood was almost coaxed into a trace of a smile.

Well then.

This kid even has to leave himself an escape route just because he "wants to sit for a while."

But precisely because of this, Lin Yu felt more at ease instead.

Only after Su Ming finished all of this did he find a relatively flat spot under the tree and slowly sat down.

"You don't run off either."

He beckoned to Ying.

Ying fluttered a couple of times, jumped onto his lap, curled up, and shrank into a small black ball. Perhaps because the aura under the tree was truly too tranquil, even the little creature's usual arrogance faded. After tilting its head to watch the tree patterns for a while, it too slowly lay down.

It was very cool under the tree.

But it wasn't a gloomy, cold chill.

It was more like the refreshing coolness found by deep waters or in great mountains, carrying the scent of moisture and vegetation. After Su Ming sat firmly in a cross-legged position, he leaned his back against the rough old roots and looked up at the few rays of light filtering down from the canopy.

The sunlight passed through layers of branches and leaves, falling on his face and also on the Array Patterns of the bark.

A wind blew through the high branches, and the leaves rubbed together gently, making a very low rustling sound. Somewhere in the distance, a drop of water accumulated on the tip of a leaf fell, hitting the moss by the roots with a 'pah'.

The entire forest suddenly became silent to the extreme.

Su Ming had originally been thinking: I can't sleep, I can't relax too much, I can't let my mind wander.

But those thoughts soon slowed down as well.

They didn't disappear.

Instead, they were like being stretched out, sinking into his breathing.

He suddenly realized that the "breathing" of this tree and the spiritual energy fluctuations faintly coming from the stone path beneath his feet were connected. They were very faint, very long, and very slow. It was as if this path extended underground and met the tree roots; thus, the path's spiritual mechanism became part of the tree, and the tree's silence in turn suppressed the path's restlessness.

Su Ming was in no hurry to comprehend anything.

Nor did he try to grasp that thread.

He just sat there.

Sitting and listening.

Listening to the wind, listening to the leaves, listening to the extremely faint sound of flowing water beneath the tree roots, listening to that ethereal pulse deep within the stone slabs. After listening for a long time, even his own breathing slowly subsided, leaning into the things around him.

He couldn't even tell if he was resting or cultivating at this moment.

Lin Yu also slowly descended.

He had no physical body, so naturally, he wasn't truly "sitting," but when his soul body hovered beside Su Ming, there was a sense of sitting together with him.

This time, he really didn't go to analyze anything.

Because it wasn't necessary.

He understood everything.

The patterns on the tree, the three layers of array principles beneath the path, and even the momentum formed by the faint connection of this entire forest—he could see it all.

But he simply didn't want to do anything.

He just wanted to stay here.

Stay under this tree, stay by this path, stay in this place that finally allowed him to confirm he hadn't strayed, and quietly take a breath.

He actually rarely looked back at how far he had come.

Because he couldn't look.

Looking forward, there were fragmented memories, half-understood array principles, and one pit larger than the last; looking back, there was the slumber within the ring, the changing from one master to another, the frequent need to play dead, and the days when his Soul Flying Away and Spirit Scattering was possible at any moment.

He could only grind forward.

Grinding inch by inch.

Sometimes he would deduce a structure and think it looked decent, but the next time he thought of it, he would always doubt: Could it be wrong?

No one told him.

And no one could tell him.

Until today.

This path and this tree said nothing to him, yet they spoke more clearly than anyone.

You walked the right way.

Thinking of this, Lin Yu's eyes, which usually carried a bit of laziness and mockery, actually closed very slightly.

When they opened again, there was something else in his gaze.

It wasn't excitement, nor was it passion.

It was a settled sense of peace.

Like a person floating on the water's surface who finally touched the riverbed.

Time passed bit by bit like this.

The beam of light slowly moved under the tree, initially falling on Su Ming's knees, then moving to the tree roots, and later being covered again by the branches and leaves. The mist in the forest thickened and thinned; occasionally, a few wisps would glide past the roots and silently dissipate.

Ying had its eyes open at first, but then its eyelids gradually drooped, and finally, it simply buried its head under its wing and fell asleep.

Su Ming remained sitting.

He didn't know if he had fallen asleep or entered some kind of very shallow meditative state. His consciousness seemed to still be there, yet it also seemed to be held up by the tree shade, mist, stone path, and beam of light together, floating in a place that was neither deep nor shallow.

Not sinking down.

Nor coming out.

Until an unknown amount of time had passed, a dewdrop fell from a high leaf tip and, with a 'pah', landed on his shoulder.

Su Ming's eyelashes fluttered slightly.

When Su Ming opened his eyes, the mist in the forest was thicker than before.

It wasn't that choking white, but a moist, heavy layer that spread from the ground up to over half a person's height, then slowly floated upward. The distant tree shadows had all faded, leaving only the silhouette of this nearby ancient tree still visible; the Array Patterns on the bark appeared deeper and slower in the mist.

He didn't move for a moment.

First, he raised his hand to touch his shoulder.

There was indeed a small patch of moisture there.

A dewdrop.

Ying had at some point crawled from his lap into the crook of his neck, curled up into a ball, with tiny water droplets hanging from its fine feathers. Startled by Su Ming's movement, it opened one eye, looked around dazed, and then sluggishly raised its head.

Su Ming cupped it in his hands and wiped the water from its feathers.

"You certainly slept soundly."

Ying gave a cry in response.

Su Ming stood up and patted the fallen leaves off his robes.

The corners of his clothes were a bit damp, and the tips of his hair were also touched by moisture, but other than that, there was nothing unusual about him. His Meridians were stable, his spiritual energy was smooth, and there were no signs of his Sea of Consciousness being secretly touched by anything.

If it weren't for the dew that had formed under the tree, Su Ming would almost have suspected he had only sat for a moment.

But time had clearly passed.

As for how long—he couldn't say for sure.

In the Secret Realm, sunlight was already thin, and with most of it blocked by the trees and mist, it was impossible to easily distinguish the hour as one could outside. Fortunately, Su Ming didn't dwell on it. As a person accustomed to being cautious, one of his greatest strengths was: not making hard guesses about things that couldn't be confirmed.

Guessing wrong would hurt his state of mind the most.

"Awake?"

Lin Yu's voice rang out in his Sea of Consciousness.

Compared to that rare silence when they entered the forest yesterday, his tone had now regained its stability, though beneath that stability, there seemed to be a bit less of the previous flippancy of watching a show and more of an indescribable depth.

"Mm," Su Ming responded. "How long was I sitting?"