There's only one village nearby. He nodded, and she smiled, "Then I'll take you back. There are demons in this forest; it's not safe at night."
With a gentle push from her palm, he left the grove of trees.
For a year, he didn't see the fairy again. He exchanged the two gold ingots that the Daoist Master gave him for food, but he couldn't bear to exchange the earrings that the fairy gave him.
This year was no different from any other; he was still driven away by the villagers and still went hungry.
But there was something different about her; he often thought of her, and in his memory, she was different from others.
A year later, the two met again. He was starving and had finally caught a skinny bird. He was eagerly stuffing it into his mouth when he unexpectedly ran into her again.
"Ugly monster, don't eat this bird! We went through so much trouble to find this bird to search for the sacred tree!"
"You're not allowed to eat it!"
"release!"
"Ugly monster!"
He didn't know what kind of tree to look for; he only knew that he would starve to death if he didn't eat.
"Are you that hungry?" a familiar voice called out. "Don't eat this bird. How about I trade you something else?"
He had a bird's wing stuffed in his mouth, and when he heard this, he looked up: It's her, it's a fairy.
He was starving, but when he saw that she wanted the bird, he hesitated.
"Senior sister, why are you wasting your breath talking to him?"
"Alright, he was the one who spotted the Xuan Bird first. We are cultivators, not bandits."
Her gaze fell on him again, looking at his thin, bony body and tattered clothes. After frowning slightly, she said, "If you agree to switch places with me, I can guarantee you won't go hungry afterward."
He nodded quickly, but felt a strange sense of loss; she seemed to have forgotten him.
She led him to a mountain hollow where colorful flowers were in full bloom.
She crouched down and used a magical tool to dig through the soil, quickly pulling out a string of small, round, mud-covered objects from under the flower.
"This thing is called sweet potato. I obtained it by chance from a foreign land during my travels."
“You can eat what grows from its roots. It’s also very easy to grow. Just use the seeds I’ve cultivated, cut them into pieces and bury them in the soil. When they grow, just pinch off the flowers, and what grows will be enough for you to eat. I’ll give you all the ones I grow here.”
She gave him all the sweet potatoes, but he saw her pick a flower and tuck it behind her ear with great interest—he realized she really liked these flowers.
But when the other fairies came to find her, the flower in her hair had disappeared again.
Later, he grew some sweet potatoes. Because of his interactions with the fairy, the villagers who used to dislike him gradually came closer to him. He then learned that the fairy actually lived on a nearby mountain. She was looking for a tree, which they said was a sacred tree.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
