Chapter 263 The Tree and the Past "Before, I was the only one here..."
"I was the only mutated plant here before, but then I met someone and became my first companion."
"After that, she left me, and for many years after that, I was a tree again..."
"Until many years ago, a group of people were driven here, and then the animals and plants here mutated just like me, and I finally made friends."
“They don’t live as long as I can, so I watch my friends grow up and die, one batch after another.”
"Until now."
Sang Zhitao couldn't help but raise her hand: "Excuse me, but you still haven't explained why you're protecting them here."
The tree paused for a moment, then said, "Oh, haven't I already said that?"
"Mm." Sang Zhitao nodded emphatically.
The tree shook its branches, as if an elderly man were slowly nodding: "War has come..."
"Many little ones died."
The tree remained silent for a long time, until Sang Zhitao thought it had finished speaking, when the tree slowly said, "I have had too much liveliness for too long, and I can no longer bear loneliness."
"So you're protecting them here?" Sang Zhitao nodded knowingly.
"You just said I'm the only person you've met who can understand you. Have you seen me before? When?" Sang Zhitao asked about other things after the tree shook its branches and she didn't hear it speak.
"That was the first friend I ever made, and the first human friend I ever had."
The tree paused for a moment before slowly speaking: "It seems that was six hundred years ago..."
"Six hundred years ago?!" Sang Zhitao suddenly stood up and exclaimed in disbelief.
"Back then I was young, just a two-hundred-year-old sapling, but I never imagined that one day someone would be able to talk to me." The tree's voice was filled with emotion.
Upon hearing this, Sang Zhitao couldn't help but twitch her lips.
Seeing this, Lin Mo suppressed a laugh and said to her, "Even at three hundred years old, you're still a baby."
"If it's 800 years old, wouldn't that be equivalent to me being eight years old? It really is a baby that needs friends and can't stand being alone," Sang Zhitao couldn't help but tease in a low voice.
Lin Mo patted her head.
At this moment, the tree finally snapped out of its memories of its youthful days.
“More than five hundred years ago, my friend suddenly said goodbye, and then she disappeared for nearly a year before returning with a box.” The tree sighed. “But I never saw her come back to get the box, nor did I ever see anyone who could understand me.”
"A box? What box?" Sang Zhitao asked curiously.
The leaves of the big tree trembled incessantly, and the rustling sound was already quite loud.
After a while, two tree branches dragged a palm-sized wooden box to Sang Zhitao.
Sang Zhitao opened the box and found a set of numbers inside.
She frowned and subconsciously looked at Lin Mo.
"It looks like a password," Lin Mo said hesitantly after looking at it for a while.
Sang Zhitao, however, thought of the password box that Squad 477 had protected for many years.
"477?" She frowned and looked at Lin Mo.
Lin Mo tapped the box with his fingertips before speaking: "It's not impossible."
Sang Zhitao stared at the wooden box for a long time before suddenly remembering something she hadn't asked the big tree.
"Big Tree, you are the longest-living being I have ever seen. I suppose you know a lot of things."
The tree shook its branches incessantly as she praised it, causing many strange plants to hide at the edge.
"Go ahead and say it!" Big Tree replied, unable to hide his joy.
"First, have you ever heard a story?" Following this question, Sang Zhitao told a short story.
The tree thought for a moment before slowly saying, "Many years ago, when I was about a hundred years old, many humans appeared under my tree. They would hold books and read under the tree, or sing and dance to each other, or tell each other some legends. I think that might be the story you are talking about."
“The story really exists, and so does the instinct…” The one who reacted the most was not Sang Zhitao, but Lin Mo, who was taking care of her.
"Why did the story disappear?" Sang Zhitao asked the big tree, frowning.
The big tree shook its branches.
Sang Zhitao sighed in disappointment. Just as she was about to give up, the big tree suddenly spoke up: "Before my friend left, a strange light appeared in the world, accompanied by an ominous black mist."
“After my friend brought the wooden box, I never heard anyone talk about these things under the tree again.”
"The story... seems to be gone too."
"Light? What light?" Sang Zhitao asked eagerly, convinced that this matter was closely related to "truth".
“...That light appeared again three hundred years ago.” The tree shook its branches and sighed. “I don’t know whether I should thank it or not. The first time it appeared, it took away my only friend at the time and left me with many years of loneliness. But the second time it brought me more friends.”
"But...it seems that humanity is facing some problems..."
“The day my heart breaks…” Sang Zhitao murmured.
Lin Mo's expression also turned somewhat unpleasant.
"In other words, whether these stories exist because of the disappearance of human instincts, the disappearance of books, or the emergence and mutation of the two superpowers, it is all because of this light."
"There's also black mist," Lin Mo whispered a reminder.
Sang Zhitao was now almost 100% certain that this was a genuine act, but she hadn't found the real doppelganger and didn't know how the other party had managed to do it.
Sang Zhitao didn't worry about it for long; in fact, she was relieved.
Although she has never found the cause of this world catastrophe, based on her experience, as long as there is a real world, solving the "real" problem will solve most of the issues.
"I recognize an aura about you. May I see your true form?" Sang Zhitao asked hastily, thinking of the world fragments.
The tree remained silent for a long time before slowly shaking its head: "I'm afraid it won't work, child, I've already..."
"It's hard to believe you humans..."
"You always have many ways of deceiving and tormenting your fellow human beings and us."
Sang Zhitao didn't inquire in detail about what the tree had encountered in the days after her friend left, or what the strange plants had gone through over the years.
After thinking for a moment, she looked at Lin Mo and said, "Dad, let some blood out."
Although Lin Mo didn't understand what she wanted to do, he still picked up the knife and made a cut on his fingertip.
The blood dripped into the ground and was caught by the branches of the big tree.
“I know what it is.” The tree quickly stretched out a branch.
Sang Zhitao looked at it for a long time before discovering a crystal-clear fragment the size of a grain of sand on one of the leaves.
The aura emanating from those fragments was that of fragments of the world.
Sang Zhitao silently took the crystal-like grain of sand into her hand, and then felt it dissipate in her palm.
This was the most shattered fragment of the world she had encountered since her transmigration, practically reduced to dust.
"There's one more thing," Sang Zhitao pointed to Lin Mo, "My father lost his memory after using his superpower. Is there any way to fix it?"
The tree branch gently poked Lin Mo before saying, "His original ability wasn't this one. The immense grief made his ability even stronger, but it also made him unable to bear those painful memories. So every time he uses the grief ability, he suffers from amnesia."
"What should we do then?" Sang Zhitao looked at the big tree. "Do you have a solution?"
The tree shook its branches, as if it were deep in thought.
After a long while, he finally spoke to Sang Zhitao and the other person, saying, "I can't think of any other way besides him accepting the reason for his grief."
"Thank you. Since there's nothing else, I'll be going now." After a long silence, Sang Zhitao stood up and said goodbye to the big tree.
"Besides the huge emotional fluctuations, the emergence of superpowers is also caused by a huge obsession when those emotions arise. Perhaps you can try to resolve his obsession."
After Da Shu finished speaking, he didn't reply to her again.
Sang Zhitao didn't mind. She stood up, brushed the dust and fallen leaves off her clothes, thanked the tree, and then said to Lin Mo, "It's good that we have a clue. Let's go."
Lin Mo held her in his arms, not asking her about the things he had just heard from the big tree that his intuition told him shouldn't exist in this world.
"Dad, shall we try the password at Dilasun's place when we get back?"
She gently leaned against Lin Mo and whispered in his ear.
"Okay." Lin Mo's voice traveled to her ears on the wind.
"Baby, don't assign any generational titles to your grandson..." After a long while, his teasing remark accompanied Sang Zhitao as she drifted off to sleep...
"Kane! You're asking for it!" They had just stepped into the safe zone near the East District when they heard a loud explosion ahead.
Kane, the captain of the Spiral Tower Cleansers who had once encountered Sang Zhitao, was holding up a triangular shield, protecting some of the Spiral Tower members behind him.
Opposite me was a blond man with an extremely beautiful face, like a heroic woman.
The blond man grinned wickedly and threw out black halos.
The aura enveloped Kane's shield, turning it black.
The black shield was covered in spikes, and then, like a porcupine in danger, the spikes flew back towards Kane.
Kane immediately threw away the shield and then constructed a square shield.
The two then began to fight back and forth.
Behind Kane, the people of the Spiral Tower cheered him on.
Behind the blond man, members of the Shadow Council also cheered and applauded for him.
However, many more people stood not far away watching the spectacle, the majority of whom were from the Pipe World, but there were also some wounded members of the Shadow Council and the Spiral Tower receiving treatment in the treatment area.
Sang Zhitao glanced around and noticed that most of the people cheering and shouting behind the two had never been in the treatment area.
Everyone who had been in the treatment area had a peaceful expression, no longer showing the madness and blankness they had displayed before.
"Stop!" a furious roar rang out.
Han Yue walked over from a short distance away, her eyes piercing the two like sharp swords: "We haven't settled accounts with you for trespassing into the underground world, and now you're fighting here? Are you planning to make the underground world your new battlefield?!"
A hint of embarrassment flashed across Kane's face. He sheathed his shield and bowed to Han Yue: "I'm sorry, I had no choice but to do this in order to pursue the traitor."
The blond man looked at Han Yue without any apology and said, "I'm sorry, President, I came with him."
Seeing his finger pointing at him, Kane couldn't help but turn his head away, looking like he didn't want to talk to him.
"Leo, do you think I would believe that?" Han Yue looked at Leo with a cold smile.
Leo shrugged indifferently.
Seeing this, Han Yue took a deep breath, glanced at Sang Zhitao, and said to the two of them, "Let's have a meeting."
Sang Zhitao didn't know the content of their meeting, but she roughly knew it was about storybooks and superpowers.
Han Yue originally wanted her to attend the meeting with her.
But she refused.
"I'm still a baby! I don't want to get involved in adult things, it's too tiring~"
Seeing her nestled in Lin Mo's arms, refusing to come out no matter what, Han Yue felt somewhat helpless.
She wanted Lin Mo to carry Sang Zhitao over with her, but Lin Mo disagreed, so she had to give up and led the two people from those factions into the conference room.
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