Chapter 644: One Sentence Exposes the Truth, the Mighty Being Turns Out to Be an Old Chatterbox?

At the beginning of the mao hour, a thin layer of light mist still lingered within Greenwood Court. The glow from those luminous plants inside the banyan tree's trunk had not yet fully receded, diffusing into hazy clusters of radiance through the fog.

Su Ming sat upright on the sleeping cot woven from vines, slowly exhaling a long stream of turbid qi as he settled the Like Water Art that had been circulating through his body all night.

A very soft tapping sound came from outside the door.

"Creak-"

The wooden door was carefully pushed open a crack, and Ye Qing's slender figure squeezed through. "Su Ming, are you awake?" Ye Qing's voice drifted through the gap in the door, carrying a hint of barely contained excitement and nervousness.

Su Ming opened his eyes, a flash of deep blue light flickering through them before vanishing. He rose, brushing the faint dust from his robe, then waved his hand to dispel the prohibitive runes behind the door and pulled it open.

Ye Qing's slender figure stood outside, the soft green tendrils atop his head slightly stiffened from tension.

"Elder Woodheart wants to see you." Ye Qing swallowed hard, speaking rapidly. "Set for the chen hour, meeting in the Root Vein Hall."

Hearing this, Su Ming, who had just lifted a cup of spirit tea, froze mid-motion.

Su Ming paused, the teacup of spirit tea he had just poured from the stone table beside him hovering in midair. The emerald-green tea rippled gently in the cup, reflecting his demeanor as still as an ancient well. But when he looked up at Ye Qing, his eyes revealed a perfectly measured expression of nearly frozen shock.

"Elder Woodheart... summoned me of his own accord?" Su Ming's voice was deliberately slow, as if processing an enormous amount of information. He did not tell Ye Qing that Elder Woodheart had already communicated with him yesterday, to avoid any unnecessary complications.

"Yes!" Ye Qing nodded vigorously, a fervent look of witnessing history in his eyes. "Elder Woodheart hasn't summoned an outsider for a private audience in a full three hundred years. The last time, a royal of the Qiming Sect came seeking his guidance, and Elder Woodheart didn't even let the man step through the Root Vein Hall's door!"

Su Ming rose, teacup in hand, and walked to the window. With his back to Ye Qing, his gaze crossed the layered tree dwellings to the deepest part of Greenwood Court, a region shrouded in dense green radiance.

"Let's go." Su Ming turned around, setting the teacup gently on the table, his voice already restored to calm. "When a mighty being summons you, you must not be late."

Ye Qing read a complex emotion from his upright silhouette - perhaps surprise that a ten-thousand-year-old mighty being would value an outsider so highly, perhaps a faint hint of concern, or perhaps both.

Before a being who had lived ten thousand years, anyone was nothing more than a mayfly born at dawn and dead by dusk.

"I thank Brother Ye for leading the way." Su Ming gave a slight nod.

Ye Qing asked no further questions, turning to push open the wooden door.

Shadow obediently flew down from the lintel, trying to land on Su Ming's shoulder, but was stopped by his raised hand.

"You stay here." Su Ming issued the command through his spiritual sense. Before a mighty being who could see through everything, bringing the Profound Shadow Crow would only add uncontrollable variables.

Shadow seemed to sense some kind of unfathomable, terrifying pressure as well. For the first time, she didn't act coy, but obediently flew back into the shadows deep within the tree hollow, curling herself into a small black ball.

Su Ming followed Ye Qing, stepping out of the tree hollow.

In the passageway, the four spirit race guards at the peak of the Soul Nurturing stage who had been stationed day and night were now nowhere to be seen.

The two followed the intricate network of trunk passageways, descending all the way toward the lowest part of the banyan tree.

The deeper they went, the denser the life force around them became - so dense it was almost viscous. The air carried an ancient woody scent unique to aged timber, and every breath felt like swallowing liquefied vitality. But beneath this overwhelming life force, Su Ming's Observation of the Minute skill keenly caught a faint, hidden death aura, like dry rot spreading through withered wood.

This death aura was firmly suppressed by the life force, yet stubbornly clung to the walls of the passage on all sides.

"The decline of the Root Vein Defense Formation is no empty talk." Su Ming confirmed silently in his heart.

After roughly the time it takes to burn one incense stick, the passage ahead suddenly opened wide.

At the beginning of the chen hour.

Su Ming, accompanied by Ye Qing, finally arrived at his destination - the Root Vein Hall.

The moment he stepped into the hall, Su Ming's pupils sharply contracted, and his breath even stalled for half a breath.

This was an enormous space located at the very base of the banyan tree's main trunk, formed by countless ancient, thick tree roots interweaving together. The hall's dome soared over thirty zhang high, with no trace of artificial carving whatsoever - it was entirely a natural, inverted bowl shape formed by root tendrils coiling together.

Those roots, thick as flood dragons, converged from every direction, weaving, twisting, and fusing together at the center of the space, ultimately forming a massive platform ten zhang in diameter.

At the very center of the platform floated a ball of light emitting a soft, emerald-green glow.

The light orb was roughly three chi in diameter. It was not solid, but rather a highly condensed aggregate of energy. Within that emerald light, countless formation patterns so fine that a single glance would make one dizzy with vertigo swirled and flowed. Every single line pulsed with a strange, rhythmic beat.

"Thump-"

That pulsing sound was not heard through the ears, but struck directly against the soul.

It was a heart.

The heart of the ten-thousand-year-old luminous banyan - the core body of Elder Woodheart.

Ye Qing halted abruptly a full twenty zhang from the platform. His knees gave way, and he dropped directly to the ground, prostrating himself with his forehead pressed tightly against the root-veined floor. His entire body trembled violently beyond control, not daring to even take a full breath.

"You... go ahead. The elder only wants you to approach alone." Ye Qing's voice was as faint as a mosquito's buzz.

Su Ming drew a deep breath, his deep-blue Ruo Shui spiritual energy surging wildly through his meridians, forcibly suppressing the instinctive urge to kneel in worship.

He stepped forward, unhurried, walking steadily toward the root platform.

With each step, that ancient, weathered pressure grew heavier. When he reached a distance of only ten zhang from the platform, the pressure had become like a physical mountain bearing down on his shoulders, causing his bones to emit faint grinding sounds.

Su Ming halted, folded his hands across his chest, and bowed deeply.

"Junior pays respects to Elder Woodheart."

His voice echoed through the empty Root Vein Hall, carrying not a trace of trembling born from fear.

The hall fell into dead silence.

The emerald-green light orb pulsed slowly. Between the brightening and dimming of its glow, it seemed as though a pair of eyes spanning ten thousand years were quietly observing this insignificant human.

"Your body carries two sets of laws in operation."

A voice suddenly sounded from all directions at once.

The voice was indistinguishable in gender or age, as if the entire ten-thousand-year-old luminous banyan were speaking simultaneously, carrying a hoarse weightiness like wood grinding against wood.

Last night's disguise was indeed as transparent as glass before those eyes.

Su Ming maintained his bowing posture, his spine straight as an arrow, his voice clear and unflinching.

"The elder has keen insight." Su Ming spoke slowly.

No unnecessary explanation, no panicked pleading - only calm acknowledgment.

Before absolute power, honesty was the highest form of the Way of Survival.

The hall fell silent once more.

The emerald light orb floating at the center of the platform flickered several times, and the glow along those thick surrounding roots seemed to brighten and dim in tandem.

The anticipated thunderous wrath did not descend.

Instead, what came was a sigh so long it seemed to expel every last bit of pent-up melancholy from the chest.

"Ahh-"

That sigh echoed layer upon layer through the hall, and the emerald light flowing along the roots dimmed slightly for a moment. It carried the weariness and desolation of extreme old age.

"Do you know..." Elder Woodheart's voice sounded again, this time with some of that lofty divine might diminished, replaced by a touch of the same desolation as an old man reminiscing about the past. "...that in ancient times, the human race and the spirit races were not as irreconcilable as they are today?"

Su Ming raised his head slightly, his eyes revealing a perfectly appropriate measure of confusion.

Of course he didn't know. The sect classics of the human realm only recorded that those not of our kind must harbor different hearts, only recorded the bloody, war-torn battles of the four races.

Elder Woodheart didn't seem to expect an answer from him either. That weathered voice flowed through the hall on its own, beginning to tell an ancient history that most of the spirit races had forgotten, and that the human race had utterly erased.

"That was a brief era." The patterns on the light orb slowly turned, as if rewinding a scroll of time. "Before the great war of the ancient four races that swept across heaven and earth, there existed an age known as the Era of Interracial Exchange."

"Back then, the World Gate was not opened for war. Human formation masters crossed the Void to come to this land, and our spirit races' law resonators had also been honored guests, visiting your world brimming with spiritual energy."