A few more days passed in a routine where only one of them seemed to be having fun.
Zhì Yuǎn tested his own weight against the living wooden floor, legs firm, balance fully recovered. He raised both arms above his head, without pain, without tremor.
Lī'ya entered carrying the morning bowl, bouncing as always, and was already opening her mouth to start another story when he spoke first.
"Lī'ya."
She stopped, surprised by the use of her own name right from the start—he rarely initiated the conversation.
"I never thanked you properly," he said, his voice lower than usual. "A wounded stranger, carried into the house, fed, treated so well for more than a month. Few would have done what you did."
Lī'ya's ears lifted, caught off guard. Her face flushed a pale rose.
"I already said, I just…"
"I know what you always say." He looked at her through the slit of the mask. "But I also know what would have happened if any other cultivator had found me first. So I really am grateful."
Lī'ya lowered her eyes, fidgeting with the rim of the bowl, clearly not knowing what to do with the praise.
"That's why," he continued, "I would like to see your clan."
She lifted her eyes again, hesitant.
"People will ask questions," she murmured. "I don't know if I can protect you from everything out there the same way I can in here."
"Lī'ya… I need to recover my cultivation, and I won't manage it if I just stay still receiving treatment."
Her eyes began to travel over the muscular body of the man in front of her, as if judging his health.
A silence stretched in the room for a moment much longer than necessary.
"I only need you to walk beside me, guiding me," he added when he saw the hesitation rising in her.
She widened her emerald eyes slightly and studied him for a long moment, her gaze fixed on the narrow slit of the mask.
Even though he doesn't talk much, he always knows what to say to make me do what he wants, she thought.
"All right," she yielded at last, her voice small, but already without the resistance from before. "But stay close to me."
She stood, adjusted her skirt, and walked to the straw door. Before pulling it, she turned once more.
"Zhì Yuǎn."
"What?" he answered.
"Nothing," she said, a small smile escaping before she could contain it. "I just wanted to say it before we left."
He had not hidden his own name—he saw no reason for it. From the first conversations, when she had casually mentioned formation concepts that not even the Formation Masters of the Middle Realm could scratch, he had already suspected he was no longer there. A different Realm. Probably superior to the one he had left behind—though still without absolute certainty of how much.
Hiding his own name would waste a courtesy that cost him nothing.
The door slid on its rails with a low creak.
Zhì Yuǎn rose from the mat and walked to the threshold beside her.
The smell came first. A humid, thick breath of closed forest—old sap, trampled bark, rain, and the sweet scent of flowers that only bloomed in the dimness.
Right after, a stronger beam of light invaded his vision.
Zhì Yuǎn raised the palm of his right hand in front of his face, then ran it along the curved wall of the corridor.
The wood was not cold like stone, nor dry like cut board. The surface had the texture of living skin, with dark veins following the contour of the arch. His gaze recognized, despite the lack of his Divine Sense, craftsmanship at a level he himself had not yet touched, as if it possessed a Dao of its own. The fibers of the tree had been induced to grow in fine spirals, outlining the gallery in perfect arcs before braiding themselves into the ceiling.
Lī'ya noticed his pause and puffed her short chest.
"No human could do this," she said in a higher tone. "These carvings were made millions of years ago by the most famous artisan who ever set foot in the world. He was from the Wolf Clan and spoke with the Sky-Tree for almost a century until every gallery grew ready."
Zhì Yuǎn slid his thumb along one of the grooves without changing his pace.
"Impressive," he observed. "Definitely the work of an Immortal."
"Exactly," Lī'ya confirmed, her tail giving a satisfied whip in the air.
The corridor opened onto a colossal balcony carved into the outer edge of the trunk.
The view stole his breath with its scale. The wall of living wood rose and fell without a perceptible curve, rising like an infinite wall that seemed to hold up the sky itself. Thousands of levels of pagodas, suspended courtyards, and vine bridges emerged directly from the monumental bark. Below them, the sea of green forest canopies stretched until it lost itself in the misty horizon.
Zhì Yuǎn contemplated the abyss without haste, assimilating a dimension that far surpassed the monumental palaces of the Middle Realm, before following Lī'ya along the adjacent walkway.
The great walkway received them with the continuous movement of the clan.
Carriers with wolf ears bent under baskets of roots, a badger tail sweeping the floor behind a cart, two women with slit pupils sharing a bucket of raw fish. A hunter passed close to him with his head a palm above the crowd, broad boar snout, thick fur down to the knuckles, and the wood groaned under his step. The smell of wet fur came together with smoke and forge oil.
Half-beasts, Zhì Yuǎn concluded, for lack of a better name.
Everyone made way for Lī'ya with respect. But as soon as she passed, the gazes dropped to the man beside her.
The whispers began before the hundredth step, muffled among the exchange stalls.
"…so the Young Mistress finally chose a male?"
"Could he be some Young Master from the human clans?…"
A woman with a basket of dried fish pressed her lips to contain a laugh. Her husband gave her a sharp nudge. Further ahead, a boy pointed with his finger, receiving a quick slap on the forearm from his mother.
Zhì Yuǎn stopped in the middle of the walkway.
Lī'ya took two more steps before noticing the pause. She turned slowly, fluffy ears lowered in a mixture of dread and shame, trying to disguise the tension by pulling the edge of her skirt.
"What is it?" she asked, her voice coming out an octave higher than normal. "Did your legs give out?"
Zhì Yuǎn crossed his arms over the raw cotton tunic and fixed the slit of the mask on her.
"Why is everyone in this place pointing and whispering about me?" he asked, his voice dry.
Lī'ya froze. Her small neck reddened all the way to the roots of her ears. The reddish-brown tail dropped at once, curling miserably behind her legs.
"T-They're… they're not whispering anything," she stammered, looking to the sides as if searching for a crack to vanish into.
"They are. The word 'male' was said three times since we left the corridor," Zhì Yuǎn answered, raising his hand and pointing his index finger at his own face. "What is the true purpose of this mask?"
Lī'ya hunched her shoulders, chin almost touching her collar.
"It's the ornament of the mating ritual," she confessed in an embarrassed rush, pressing her hands against her skirt. "When a fox-woman carves the mask, engraves her energy signature, and gifts it to a man… it means he is her chosen one. When you walk like this in front of everyone, they think you are… my man."
Zhì Yuǎn narrowed his eyes behind the wooden slits.
After a long moment pressing her with his gaze, he let out a resigned sigh. He could only think of Yù Qíng melting that Sky-Tree down to the roots, and Yù Méi using the clan's hunters as firewood, if they discovered he was parading in public with the mating mark of a fox who barely reached his chest.
But, at the moment, his Dantian was isolated. He needed cover.
Lī'ya opened one eye slowly, observing his immobility, and swallowed hard.
"Y-You don't have to look at me like that!" she protested in a sharp tone. "You were the one who asked for something to cover your face! And I… I even put illusion formations on it so no one can identify you, okay?!"
"Let's go," his voice echoed dryly.
Zhì Yuǎn turned his face toward the walkway and resumed his pace.
Lī'ya took an instant to notice that he would not take his irritation out on her. She trotted to catch up with him, her tail still curled around her legs, and kept glancing sideways at the wooden face.
It's good to have the protection of a top figure in this world, Zhì Yuǎn pondered in silence. I only need to make sure the high ranks of this clan and her suitors don't get in my way.
"You're not going to… say it was a mistake?" Lī'ya asked, biting her lower lip.
"If I say it was a mistake, I'll have to explain who I am," he said, his calm voice echoing from behind the wood. "The mask does its job. Let them talk."
Lī'ya let out the air in a relieved breath. The pride of the Young Mistress returned in an awkward jolt, and she puffed her chest.
"Yeah… yeah, it's good! And if anyone doesn't like it, I'm Lī'ya! Daughter of the Clan Chief! The most talented young woman in this entire world!"
The crowd on the walkway parted.
A tall man, with massive shoulders and wearing hardened bone armor, stopped five steps away. The fox ears were reddish at the base and gray at the tips, the left one bearing the mark of an old scar. The eyes were a closed, cold amber.
Zhì Yuǎn took the last step and stopped.
At the settling of his boot on the walkway, the living wood of the branch let out an imperceptible crack, yielding a fraction under the blind weight of Primordial Qi flesh devoid of internal support.
The captain's amber eyes dropped immediately to the board beneath Zhì Yuǎn's foot, then rose again to the maple mask.
"Captain Rhōk," Lī'ya greeted, her voice losing its boisterous tone and taking on a formal rigidity.
"Young Mistress." Rhōk inclined his head in a short gesture. "Elder Vhōl sent to ask if you were ill. The formation chamber has been waiting for you for four days."
"I was… taking care of the infusions in the cabin," she answered, too quickly.
Rhōk did not press. The veteran's gaze remained fixed on the masked man, measuring the rigid alignment of Zhì Yuǎn's shoulders, the total absence of aura, and the raw weight the floor continued to bear.
"The carving came out firm," the captain observed, his voice grave like stone scraping stone.
"Thank you," Lī'ya murmured, her neck reddening.
"The Patriarch will want to know who you chose after half a century of stalling," Rhōk continued.
"I'll speak to my father myself," she declared, lifting her chin.
Rhōk held Zhì Yuǎn's gaze for one more breath. And then he took half a step to the side, clearing the passage.
Zhì Yuǎn passed him without altering the rhythm of his walk.
Lī'ya, who had been left behind, recovered quickly, ignoring the soldier and quickening her pace to catch up with "her man."
The walk continued in silence for a few moments.
"That was my cousin. He's always been very… protective," she commented.
But Lī'ya received no answer, shrinking slightly.
------
The rest of the walk lasted almost half a day.
After following countless paths for several li, taking a few teleportation arrays through the squares, the walkway finally narrowed as they approached the outer edge of the tree.
In a side path, an old man sold grains sitting behind a small stall, motionless.
"Don't stare," Lī'ya murmured, without moving her mouth. "It's a Thunder Sovereign Tiger. He's been sitting there selling grains for a thousand years, but every time someone tries to buy he argues until he talks them out of the purchase altogether. To this day I don't really understand…"
Zhì Yuǎn glanced in passing, but caught nothing beyond an ordinary human with broad shoulders and worn skin. The only thing out of place was the empty space the size of a room that the crowd opened around the stall, diverting in silence without anyone daring to look at him.
When they crossed the last vegetal arch, the closed canopy opened fully to the open air. The cold wind of the valley struck Zhì Yuǎn's tunic, bringing the clean smell of altitude and the unobstructed view of the abyss.
They advanced to the end of the bridge.
It was an aerial root as wide as a street, projected from the trunk over the valley, and the wind had the space of the entire world to strike it. The balustrade was cold and wet with mist. Down below the forest ran as far as the eye could reach, canopies so distant they looked like moss, cut by a river that was nothing more than a thread of silver.
"Now turn," Lī'ya said.
Zhì Yuǎn turned.
The trunk occupied everything.
The base ran straight, dark, far beyond what a gaze should reach, and only at the two ends, too far away, the line began to fold back, slowly, like the edge of a world.
"Six hundred li side to side, at the base," Lī'ya said with pride. "Thousands of li in height."
He raised his gaze. And raised it again.
The bark rose furrowed with wrinkles, each one as wide as a valley, and in the wrinkles there were terraces, rows of lanterns, vine bridges thin as strands of hair. The levels passed and passed. He looked for the gallery where he had walked the entire day and took a while to find it. A seam of lights, no thicker than thread.
Halfway up, a band of cloud cinched the trunk like a belt. Below it rained, a rain only there, gray, falling on a stretch of forest while the rest of the valley stayed in the sun.
Above the cloud the bark still continued. Then came the branches.
Each one was born from the trunk wide as a hill and extended over the valley without any hurry. On them there was forest, and inside the forest, small as grain, smoke from villages. Vines descended in entire curtains and touched the canopies below. Higher up, the branches joined into a single vault, green so deep it made night, torn in columns of sun that fell slowly over the plains. The shadow of the tree covered the valley, and the valley was a province.
A flock of birds crossed one of those columns, tiny as dust. He followed it until it vanished and the birds had not even passed the first branch.
A low sound descended from above, of too many leaves and too much wind, like a sea that takes time to arrive. His palm was on the balustrade. The wood was cold, but right beneath the chill there was a slow beat, of something large sleeping.
He did not remove his hand.
"The hunters' territory is from here down," Lī'ya said, pointing at the platforms, her voice almost a whisper. "And up there, in the center… is my father's dome."
He looked where she pointed, but only saw more tree.
The path back to his wives would begin there, step by step, under the bark of an ancient sky.