Ji Shiyu had been missing for a few days.
In the end, she came back coquettishly, acting spoiled, becoming more and more like a girl, with an air of weirdness about her.
The answer was actually obvious: that fool daughter’s joys and sorrows all revolved around her old father.
By the time he belatedly realized it, it was too late.
An Electra complex is a disease—it needs to be cured!
There’s no why to this kind of thing.
Plant flowers deliberately and they won’t bloom; stick a willow branch carelessly and it becomes a tree.
Ao Tian shrank his neck.
By now, it was too late for regrets.
When he first schemed against that wandering kid, he never imagined things would turn out like this.
“So the smug idiot was me all along.”
Yun Liu pointed at himself, his gaze dull.
It was obvious his brain had crashed.
“Then what do you plan to do? Pretend you don’t know, or quietly distance yourself from her?”
In the worst case, the Madam would force a match.
The instigator asked cautiously, either way it wouldn’t end well.
Of course, even worse would be being forcibly married off by the Madam.
Coming back to his senses, Yun Liu gnashed his teeth and glared at the Yellow Chicken, wishing he could roast it.
“How can I pretend? Next time we meet, I won’t even be able to look my good daughter in the eye!”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?!”
“You learn nothing good, only bad. Even the jockey ancestor is passed down in a single line, and it’s all aimed at your father.”
“How would I dare? Shiyu really would kill me… Xing Shu probably would too.”
Ao Tian swallowed hard and hid his head in his feathers like an ostrich.
A bell sound kept coming from outside: “All black slaves tricked here by bathwater, report to the square for assembly.”
Yun Liu took a deep breath and set the matter aside for now.
When the three met up, the alchemists recruited by the Servant Spirit Envoy were gradually landing on the island.
In the thin mist, a plank bridge led to land.
“Young Master Ji, please wait a moment.”
The envoy wearing the Sacred Tree Mask stopped the three.
“What’s wrong?”
Ge Lan’s heart tightened, thinking they had been discovered.
She quickly hid her Sword Qi, not wanting to be expelled right after disembarking.
The Servant Spirit Envoy handed over an object and smiled: “You are a third-rank Earth Path Alchemy Cultivator, an honored guest of the shrine. Your treatment will differ from other fellow cultivators. You will have your own private villa and servants. If you need anything, please shake this bell.”
“Not servants, but the Young Madams.”
Yan Bingling added another remark and received a glare from Ge Lan.
“Don’t go too far!”
“I see.”
Yun Liu nodded.
They were in no hurry to land.
The envoy rang the bell and drove the Cherry Blossom Island deeper into the mist.
A shadow loomed overhead.
A massive shape was faintly visible, blocking most of the light.
There were no strange formations here, but it seemed some ancient restriction existed, impenetrable to Divine Sense and spiritual energy.
Deep within the island, the mist gradually dissipated, revealing the true face of Yingzhou.
The first thing to catch the eye was a massive pillar that seemed to connect heaven and earth, holding up the mortal world.
Upon closer inspection, it was merely the trunk of a giant tree.
The giant tree’s branches and leaves grew densely, like an open umbrella sheltering the world from wind and rain.
Looking up, you couldn’t see its top in the clouds; turning back, you couldn’t see the edge of its shade.
Such a World Tree was hidden within the turbulent currents of the Boundless Sea.
Yun Liu stared in a daze.
The shock of seeing it with his own eyes was far stronger than in the game.
Below was an ancient city built upon the massive roots, growing around the giant tree.
The architectural style was vastly different from the East Pole Province, very distinctive.
“Young Master Ji must be visiting the Divine Tree of Yingzhou for the first time. This is the Imperial God Mansion.”
The Servant Spirit Envoy spoke with considerable pride and bowed respectfully toward the Divine Tree, whether to the sacred beast Yinglong or the shrine’s Patriarch, it was unclear.
The small island slowly docked by a row of pink buildings.
The second Cherry Blossom Villa on the left was the trio’s lodging.
The path outside the door led to an unknown place.
“This is the Outer City of Heavenly Cherry Pavilion. The three of you may casually stroll around the nearby markets in your free time. As for other places, please do not enter without permission.”
The envoy gave all the precautions one by one and left, also entrusting them with some orders, all common third-grade spirit medicines, not difficult.
They were called guests, but it sounded more like they were imprisoned temporary workers.
The three’s range of activities was limited to where the commoners of the outer city lived.
For each batch of spirit medicine fertilizer delivered, they would receive a bottle of Divine Path Water.
A third-rank alchemy cultivator was just staying in a slightly better place.
“Using Junior Sister’s bathwater to fob me off, nice try.”
Yun Liu shook his head and entered the house.
When he tricked Ji Shiyu into working the fields, he never thought he would one day become a smuggled black slave himself.
His plan was simple: first sneak into the shrine, then pick up Junior Sister, and finally run away!
All in all, he had managed to sneak in.
The next step was to get close to the Imperial Cherry Shrine and find a way to contact Ah Lian.
Yan Bingling covered her nose with disgust: “I smell that cursed dragon’s stench again. How unpleasant.”
“Where is it? You’re so heavily injured, it can’t be having an easy time either.”
Ge Lan was nervous and paranoid, but it was too late for regrets.
Yun Liu stood in the corridor, intentionally or not looking at the dense canopy.
Yinglong dwelt at the top of the Divine Tree.
Reaching the summit of Yingzhou would trigger the Boss Battle scene.
The Divine Tree of Yingzhou stage was special, not part of the mandatory main quest.
You could come fight whenever you wanted, the difference was the form of the Fortune Fruit.
If you came early, the mother body was still barely alive.
If you waited until the Spirit Transformation Stage to crush it, you could only harvest a corpse and relics from the dragon’s belly.
But he didn’t plan to kill it head-on.
Otherwise, before he could climb the tree trunk, he would be chopped to pieces by the Hazy Sakura Crowd.
The elite leaders on this map ranged from the Nascent Soul Stage to the Spirit Transformation Stage.
Normally, the main character group pushing through required an average of the Nascent Soul Stage as the minimum threshold, making it difficult to guarantee Ah Lian’s safety.
However, someone once used a bug exploit to fly to the treetop at the Foundation Establishment Stage, lured Yinglong into the Great Whirlpool for a scripted kill, and obtained the Divine Tree Fortune early.
They were a genius.
Yun Liu this time wanted to imitate that big shot…
“What next? You’re not really planning to help them refine fertilizer to harm Junior Sister, are you?”
Ge Lan spread her hands, but saw Yun Liu turn and enter the secret Alchemy Room.
“I have a plan up my sleeve.”
The two foster mothers looked at each other—one had come treating it as a honeymoon, the other was ready to back out every day.
“He doesn’t really want to exchange for Ah Lian’s bathwater to drink, does he?”
“Time to bathe. Hmm? If you’re going to drink, drink mine. You, go heat water for me, Young Madam.”
Yan Bingling undressed, quite confident in the taste of her bathwater.
With a little ‘motherly love’ added, it would be even sweeter.
“You’re really treating me like a servant? A wet nurse isn’t human?!”
“Is there a difference?”
“Of course there’s a difference! Have you ever seen a milk cow plowing a field?”
Second Mother cupped her chest, speaking with conviction.
“Makes sense. Then milk yourself a tubful for my bath. Liuer is still growing; a milk bath is more nutritious for drinking.”
“@#¥¥%…”
The madwoman’s wonderful metaphor clashed with the lunatic’s confusing behavior, an inextricable match.
Yun Liu recalled the strategy guide details, repeatedly deliberating and eliminating uncertain factors.
Ying Lian’s mother died early.
Although her father was a coward, he also didn’t want his daughter to become a dragon bride.
He shook his head and quickly dismissed the thought.
That kind of person wasn’t trustworthy.
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