I′m standing here again.

  The pce where I was born is the peak of Fulong Mountain.

  The scenery here remains as vibrant as ever. Whether looking up or down, the sky is a deep blue, the water is clear, and every bde of grass, every tree, every bird, and every beast carries an extra touch of grace that you won′t find elsewhere.

  This is my home, the pce where the first mark of my vitality was etched.

  Every inch of soil beneath my feet, every stone, emanates a comforting, bloodline connection.

  The colorless flower still blooms once a year without fail. Yet, I no longer need its reminder.

  There are too many memories here, ones I′m unwilling to take with me.

  I only come back once every year, and I should be grateful to Mu. If it weren′t for her “honesty,” I wouldn′t have broken my rule and returned twice this year.

  I am a tree yaokai with a thousand years of cultivation. My true form, the sacred tree of Fulong Mountain, once worshiped by countless people as a god, stands at the peak of the mountain, right before me.

  Tall, handsome, and towering, with branches lush and leaves vibrant green. Every leaf shimmers with a graceful five-colored light—that is my true appearance.

  Ordinary people cannot see it because the man who once took my human form concealed its traces in the mortal world, leaving only a five-colored flower. It is said that every year when the flower blooms, I must return to my true form for twelve hours; only then can I maintain my human form and live in peace.

  Two months ago, I came back to fulfill this “tradition.”

  Today, I′ve returned to... take my true form away.

  I wasn′t so angry with Mu that I′d lose my mind, and of course, I understood the significance of my true form to a creature like me. I knew exactly what I was doing.

  There wasn′t much time left.

  Standing before my true self, I formed a seal with one hand while pcing the other on the trunk of my divine tree, chanting quietly.

  A faint smoke began to rise, swirling from the soil beneath the tree roots, accompanied by fine green beams of light shooting upward like threads of rain. Below, a rumbling noise echoed, as if something was shifting and twisting underground. The entire peak of Fulong Mountain trembled slightly from the immense force at work.

  My lips moved faster, the chant accelerating.

  A brilliant pilr of light, several meters in diameter, shot up from the ground to the sky. It then transformed in the air into irregur, cloud-like light patterns before gently descending, enveloping my true form. I could clearly feel it spinning rapidly inside this indescribable, light-like shape—shrinking, shifting, changing.

  The brightness before me was so intense that I had to close my eyes. All my vitality and spiritual energy involuntarily rushed out of my palms.

  I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually, the whistling of the wind faded from my ears, and the uncomfortable light and shadows disappeared from my closed eyes. I opened them in an unparalleled silence.

  Looking at what appeared before me, I let out a breath of relief.

  A simple little wooden boat sat quietly, docked in a beam of soft sunlight.

  Yes, I had transformed my true form into a boat.

  A thousand-year-old tree spirit's true form is not merely a decoration for me to return to for a brief moment each year.

  The thousand-year tree transformed into a boat. It can move freely through the heavens and the earth. On one of my birthdays, a close friend gave me a gift. The birthday card read these four lines. She said, "This gift may prove useful in the future. You are the only one among all spirits to possess it."

  She was indeed visionary.

  Because with this gift, once I transform my true form into a boat, there will be no pce, above or below, that I cannot reach. No malicious force can affect me, as long as I am on my boat.

  Whether gods or yaokais, while they can soar through the skies and move through the earth, this does not mean they can travel freely between every space. The universe is vast, filled with countless spaces of different natures. Objects belonging to one space, if they enter another space without any form of protection, are easily harmed by the vastly different forces of that space.

  It′s like an ice cube pced in a freezer—it will remain intact and unchanged. But if you pce it outside, under the bright sun, it will quickly melt and evaporate. This is the consequence of the differences in spatial properties.

  For humans, an ice cube in the sense of a living being can only remain in the human world. If, by accident, they fall into the underworld, their bodies cannot withstand the opposing forces of that space, and the consequences are unimaginable.

  I knew that as a yaokai who had already cultivated a human form, fully exposing my true self was an incredibly dangerous thing. Once my true form was harmed, I could easily vanish without a trace, with no way to be saved.

  But this was the only way. And I believed that I was a yaokai with a fate too great to be extinguished so easily. I still had to hold onto this life to fulfill one of my wishes.

  I turned back and took one st look at this scenery I had seen countless times before.

  The faces and voices of the past—those I wanted to forget but couldn't—gradually became clearer in my mind.

  The bright sunlight bathed my little boat in a lush green glow, and I gently sat down, settling into the very heart of my true life.

  Since I had promised, I would definitely bring them back!

  The “Tower” card was tightly gripped in my hand...