Chapter 42 The Person He Couldn't Catch

Little Lloyd seemed to be born with a natural tendency to be a chatterbox. He tugged at Ya Feiyu's sleeve the whole way, chattering in his childish voice. His speech was still unclear, mixed with a lot of the official language of the Sea Palace that Ya Feiyu couldn't understand. To avoid misunderstandings and embarrassment, Ya Feiyu shut his mouth and walked forward stiffly. The child didn't know what embarrassment was. Even though Ya Feiyu didn't respond to him, he continued to talk to himself. Ya Feiyu had no doubt that if he didn't stop him, the child would keep talking until they found the person.

A quiet, gentle breeze blew beside me, carrying the warm scent of sunshine.

His eyelashes trembled slightly, and just then, the child stopped. Ya Feiyu subconsciously looked down and met those clear blue eyes. He smiled, his dimples shallow: "Big brother, don't move, there are flower petals on your head!"

Ya Feiyu was taken aback. The child seemed to want to take the flower off for him, so Ya Feiyu squatted down to comply. The child held a golden petal in his hand and waved it in front of Ya Feiyu's eyes.

"This is the Golden Lotus, the national flower of the Sea Palace!" He raised his head and shouted, "Big brother is someone favored by the Sea Palace!"

Who would go against a child? At least Ya Feiyu wouldn't. He lowered his eyelashes, bent down and picked him up, saying, "Oh? Does this mean I'm being protected by the Sea Palace?"

"Big brother is from the Sea Palace!" The child hugged his neck tightly and nuzzled against his neck. "Logically speaking, big brother should marry my father, but my father has a mother, so big brother should marry me instead!"

His eyes sparkled with tiny stars: "I will take responsibility for my big brother!"

Ya Feiyu fell silent: "..."

Unfortunately, Lloyd didn't understand the meaning behind his silence. He held him and muttered to himself for a long, long time.

Until he was put down by Ya Feiyu, Lloyd looked over helplessly, only to find a fleeting, elusive figure, like a gentle breeze.

...

Ya Feiyu was someone he couldn't hold onto.

Lloyd was a smart man; how could he not see the look in Ya Feiyu's eyes? Those eyes, as bright as the moon, had always been lonely. He had naively thought he could melt this unapproachable iceberg, until ten years passed, a hundred years passed, and he grew up, only to find that Ya Feiyu was still the moon he could never reach.

So he had already let it go.

The slightly stiff atmosphere during the conversation said it all. Ya Feiyu had come here specifically to see him. His long, pale gold eyelashes drooped. The tastes of the people of the Sea Palace were different from those of outsiders. He preferred a brown liquid called "coffee." As people lived longer, they appreciated the lingering aftertaste of coffee, savoring the bitterness that rose on their tongues, and sometimes even tasting a hint of sweetness.

He picked up his cup, took a sip, and then spoke, his voice already a little hoarse: "Feiyu, you haven't come to see me in a long time."

This sounded like a coquettish remark. Even though the man in front of her had grown up, in Ya Feiyu's eyes, he was still her junior. He trembled and said softly, "I haven't had much time to visit lately."

"It's nothing, I know you're a very busy person." Lloyd waved his hand and laughed it off, seemingly trying to awkwardly change the subject. He concealed the gloom in his eyes and pretended to be relaxed, saying, "Why did you suddenly come to see me? To be honest, the current situation at the Sea Palace is not really suitable for receiving guests. If it weren't for you coming, I might not have let you in."

These words inexplicably carried a hint of intimacy, and even if Ya Feiyu wanted to pretend he hadn't heard them, something felt off. But the current situation didn't allow him to think about such things, so he simply asked, "What happened?"

"Haha, whatever you came to the Sea Palace for, it's not very convenient now." Lloyd said apologetically, "You've come at a really bad time. The Golden Lotus Tree in the Sea Palace... is about to wither."

"Golden Lotus Tree?" Ye Chi asked.

Ya Feiyu looked at him: "The big tree we saw when we came in."

After answering Ye Chi's questions, he didn't linger on the matter. Mentioning the Golden Lotus Tree, even he couldn't help but sit up straight. His demeanor was already cold and aloof, and when he became serious, he exuded an even more oppressive aura. "When I came here, I saw that the Golden Lotus Tree was withered and decaying, and I felt that something was wrong. Sure enough... something happened?"

"Sigh..."

Lloyd sighed heavily, his well-maintained, glossy blond hair appearing even paler: "As you know, the Golden Lotus Tree is the foundation upon which the Sea Palace was built. The lifeblood of the people in the Sea Palace is nourished by the Golden Lotus Tree. It can be said that without the Golden Lotus Tree, there would be no cultivators in the Sea Palace, and there would be no Sea Palace at all."

“So,” he paused, then buried his hands in his palms, looking extremely tired, “the withering of the Golden Lotus Tree was inevitable. A hundred years ago, a high priest prophesied it, but at that time it was said that it would take at least another five hundred years for it to gradually wither.”

"Even if it withers, it won't immediately decay. The Golden Lotus Tree is formed from the purest spiritual energy in the world, and is essentially a divine tree. Even if it withers, it will fall petal by petal, and it will take at least tens of thousands of years for the Golden Lotus Tree to completely wither."

Ya Feiyu stared at him intently and said slowly, "However, now, only a hundred years later, all the Golden Lotus Trees have withered away."

Lloyd leaned back on the sofa, sinking into its softness. His eyes were unfocused, staring blankly at the ceiling. He blinked slowly and said, "This is a matter of great importance to the entire Sea Palace... I really don't know how to handle it."

"You must have seen the devastation in the outer city when you came here."

He smiled wryly, "The outer city is farther from the Golden Lotus Tree, so it should have been less affected. But their spiritual energy was even more disordered. As soon as the Golden Lotus Tree withered, a strange disease broke out, and they died one after another..."

Ye Chi stared wide-eyed in disbelief. No wonder they hadn't seen a single living person in the outer city, even though it wasn't particularly backward; so this was the reason...

Ya Feiyu frowned and said, "Does this strange disease only circulate among the people of the Sea Palace?"

“Yes, the physical structure of the Sea Palace people is quite different from yours.” He smiled, but his face seemed a little pale. Only then did Ye Chi realize that Lloyd was truly at his limit. Although he was a cultivator and his appearance was not old, he already showed signs of aging.

Ya Feiyu was unusually silent for a moment: "...Is there a solution?"

“A solution?” Lloyd repeated blankly. “If there were a solution, that would be wonderful…”

In the end, Ya Feiyu didn't say another word, but silently pulled Ye Chi away.

...

The Golden Lotus Tree is born from spiritual energy, and its withering cannot be easily reversed.

Ye Chi knew that Ya Feiyu had a way.

"Master, where are we going?" he asked, feigning ignorance. "We came to the Sea Palace... to find a way to cure Shi Baijindan, right? But given the current situation, it seems difficult to find..."

Ya Feiyu glanced at him and said indifferently, "Go and take a look at the Golden Lotus Tree."

With just that one sentence, Ye Chi was certain that Ya Feiyu truly wanted to help the people of the Sea Palace. He paused slightly, feigning surprise, and asked, "This... Master, do you have a way?"

"It's definitely worth a try."

As a distinguished guest of the Sea Palace Master, Ya Feiyu traveled without hindrance. Although Vena was not by his side, the guards of the Sea Palace had obviously received the message from above. They did not stop them when they saw them and let them pass smoothly to the very center of the Sea Palace.

The golden lotus tree stands here.

Normally, unauthorized personnel are not allowed to enter this place. Now that the Golden Lotus Tree has encountered trouble, the first to be affected are the guards and staff who remain here. As soon as he stepped in, a desolate deathly aura hit him. Ya Feiyu frowned slightly. In his previous life, he had been through many days of bloodshed and had long since developed a keen intuition—this place gave him a very bad feeling.

The golden lotus tree is clearly a symbol of purity.

The closer he got to the Golden Lotus Tree, the stronger the nausea became. The last time he had such a severe physical reaction was during his trip to the Linglong Pavilion, when he unexpectedly stumbled upon the demon's lair. This familiar feeling returned. The Sea Palace people had a relatively unique physical structure; their genes incorporated a portion of the bloodline of ancient dragons, making them sensitive to spiritual energy but not to demonic or monster energy. At most, they could only vaguely sense something amiss when the demonic energy was extremely concentrated.

Often, by then, it's already too late.

Ya Feiyu pushed open the magnificent, golden gate, and a thick fog, almost tangible, rushed out like wolves and tigers. Ya Feiyu instinctively felt nauseous, while Ye Chi, though slightly weaker, was also shocked and turned pale. He helped Ya Feiyu up, and the two exchanged a glance, neither showing any sign of backing down, before turning their gazes away and moving further inside.

From the outside, the golden lotus tree still appears to be gilded.

But once inside, one discovers that the roots of the golden lotus tree are already rotten and decaying.

Its branches were golden on the outside, but the inside, exposed as it rotted, was scarlet—the color of blood, the color of a corpse. Ya Feiyu frowned slightly, suppressing an instinctive nausea as she slowly approached. Demonic energy seeped out from within, transforming the entire hall into another demonic lair. To protect the Golden Lotus Tree, the entire structure was sealed off, except for the holes just large enough for branches to pass through. The concentration of demonic energy was extremely high, while the spiritual energy content was extremely low. Ya Feiyu immediately erected a barrier, saying, "Be careful."

The next second, the demonic energy seemed to come alive, transforming into one demonic energy bullet after another that rushed towards Ye Chi. If it weren't for Ya Feiyu's barrier being erected in time, a single blow from these demonic energy bullets would probably have taken half of Ye Chi's life.

He looked up, using the barrier as a shield, and watched with lingering fear as the demonic energy projectiles hurtled towards him.

The concentration of demonic energy in the air seemed to have increased even further.