"You didn't drink a single mouthful — that's rather a pity."

Xu Wanyun could tell Shen Yi had acted out of caution, but before drinking, she'd already confirmed there was nothing wrong with the tea.

"There's nothing to pity."

Shen Yi sat down in the courtyard, his gaze sweeping the surroundings as though at random, sharp light glinting, taking the whole layout of this mountain manor into his eyes. He could offhandedly drink murky well-water brought by a child in Liuli Temple Village. But he'd never touch a treasure-medicine a cultivator offered him for no reason at all. Even if it were truly a fine thing, Shen Yi was more used to getting it in hand and slowly brewing it himself. And what was more, this time he'd come for a spiritual root.

Earlier on the road, Shen Yi had questioned Aqing again about spiritual roots. A so-called spiritual root was nothing but the medium connecting the path infant to heaven and earth. The key lay in that word "spirit." Whether the age-tree could become a spiritual root was an unknown — after all, by the books Aqing had read through, no one had ever obtained a living age-tree. But if it truly had been raised into a killing-force-polluted thing, it certainly wouldn't lack spirituality. It was only the quality that was hard to say.

By conventional judgment, a spiritual root that had gained consciousness was peerless-grade. But one force-raised by others — the effect was unknown. Whatever the case, so rare a thing was worth Shen Yi making the trip.

He waved a hand slightly. Soon Jin Baowen was tugged over by something. Shen Yi withdrew the bramble hand-string into his storage treasure. "Say it all in one go."

Money and goods squared away — he wasn't the sort to rob a robber either.

Jin Baowen rubbed his arm with an ingratiating smile and said in a low voice, "There's a bamboo loft on the manor's east side, watched exceedingly strictly. I can't be sure the age-tree's there, but there's certainly something hidden inside they don't want others to…