Chapter Eighty-One: Fifty Years?

  Hong Ke Xin's voice was small, but the old man still heard it roughly. The old man immediately said, "Little fatty, don't have those crooked ideas anymore. These fruits, even if you pick them now, they're useless."

  "Huh?" Both of them looked at the old man with a puzzled expression.

  The old man smiled and said, "The fruit of the ancestral sound takes 500 years to mature once. These fruits are not yet ripe, even if you take them away, they will be useless?"

  "Huh?"

  Two people stopped in their tracks. Xiao Yun raised her head and looked at the radiant ancestral fruit, "Senior, when will these fruits be ripe?"

  "The old man said, 'A hundred years ago, when I found these three trees, they had just borne fruit.'"

  "Isn't that... still four hundred years?"

  Simple arithmetic, Xiao Yun can still do it. The fruit of Zu Yin will take 500 years to mature, and it started bearing fruit 100 years ago, which means that in another 400 years, the fruit will be ripe. This result is somewhat difficult for Xiao Yun to accept. It's not four years, nor is it four months, but a whole 400 years. How can she wait?

  The old man's words made Xiao Yun feel like she had been struck by lightning, and she stood there in a daze.

  Hong Kexin was also stunned, and after a while, she said, "Xiao Yun, be open-minded, maybe this old man is deceiving you. Besides, even if these few Zuyin fruits don't work, we can still go to other places to find them. The Sacred Realm is so big, there must be some in other places."

  "Hahaha!" The old man suddenly burst out laughing, "I've been stuck in this sacred place for a hundred years, if there's another ancestral fruit somewhere else, I would have found it already."

  Hong Kexin turned back and glared at him. This old man was really despicable, seeing Xiao Yun suffer a setback, yet he still had to add insult to injury.

  The old man's gaze swept over Hong Ke Xin, his eyes gleaming with a hint of amusement as he smiled and said, "Hand over all the scores you know, and in exchange, I can give you one Zuyin fruit."

  Xiao Yun woke up, her eyes fell on the old man's body, and she said despondently, "Didn't you say that Zu Yin Guo would take 400 years to mature? I can't wait for 400 years, what's the point of exchanging with you?"

  "Who told you to wait for four hundred years?" The old man heard this and smiled.

  "Huh?" Xiao Yun's face was filled with confusion.

  Hong Ke Xin rolled her eyes, "I told you so, this old man must be cheating us, and indeed he is, didn't you say it yourself earlier? Now you're going back on your words?"

  The old man heard this and had not seen Hong Ke Xin before, but only said, "I only said that the fruit would take 500 years to mature after it was formed. I have been guarding this fruit for a hundred years. When did I say that we still need to wait another 400 years?"

  "Huh?"

  Xiao Yun and Hong Ke Xin exchanged a glance, feeling somewhat perplexed. Five hundred years minus one hundred years, isn't that just four hundred years? Is this old man pretending to be crazy or playing dumb, unable to even do such simple arithmetic?

  The old man looked at the Zuyin fruit tree on the cliff, his eyes filled with expectation. "You also know that the Zuyin fruit tree likes to listen to beautiful music, but it's unknown how important music is to the Zuyin fruit tree."

  "Please speak clearly, senior," said Xiao Yun.

  The old man turned around and pointed to the valley, "You see, what's different about this valley compared to other places?"

  "This valley is desolate and barren, with few trees and sparse grass, no other place is lush." Xiao Yun turned his face to look around, he could only find these differences.

  The old man nodded, "Do you know why there are so few plants here?"

  "Why can't you just say what you want to say at once?" Hong Kexin was getting impatient and couldn't understand why this old man was dragging things out.

  "The old man said, 'If the Zuyin fruit wants to grow, it needs to absorb a large amount of spiritual energy from heaven and earth. The Zuyin fruit is a heavenly spiritual species, and this absorption is almost plundering in nature. Just these three Zuyin fruits have absorbed all the spiritual energy in this entire mountain valley, including the nutrients in the soil. As a result, the plants in this valley will naturally wither away. Now you can still see some grass and trees, but in two more years, there won't be a single blade of grass left.'"

  Xiao Yun was taken aback, "Senior, this seems to have nothing to do with our question?"

  "What's the big deal?" The old man smiled and tidied up his disheveled hair. "Under normal circumstances, it would take at least 500 years for the Ancestral Fruit to mature if there is sufficient spiritual energy. If the spiritual energy is insufficient, the maturation period will be even longer. However, shortening the maturation period of this fruit is not impossible. This tree loves music, and music is its best nutrient. Simply use beautiful music to nourish it, and you can accelerate its ripening!"

  "Feed it with music? You mean, feeding it with music can shorten its maturation period!"

  Xiao Yun was shocked, it's been a strange year, but this is especially many. Zu Yin Guo Shu likes to listen to music, which is already bizarre enough, and now it needs music to survive, this is simply absurd.

  "That's right!" The old man nodded slightly, looking at Xiao Yun with a gaze that was as gentle as teaching a child, "In the past hundred years, I don't know how many tunes I've used to nourish it, before finally ripening it into its current form!"

  Xiao Yun was somewhat enlightened by the old man's words. No wonder he wanted to exchange that score for his own, it turned out to be this reason.

  "How much longer will it take for this ancestral fruit to mature?" asked Hong Kexin.

  "The old man said directly, 'At least fifty more years!'".

  "Fifty years?"

  Xiao Yun and Hong Ke Xin both exclaimed at the same time, let alone fifty years, even if it's fifty days they can't wait. Calculating the time, they have been in here for four days already, leaving only eleven days left.

  "Come with me!"

  The old man nodded and beckoned to Xiao Yun and the others, then turned around and walked towards the waterfall.

  Xiao Yun and Hong Kexin looked at each other in dismay for a moment, then followed the old man towards the waterfall.

  ——

  The waterfall seemed to fall from the nine heavens silver river, looking very magnificent. The old man took Xiaoyun and walked straight through the waterfall curtain into a cave.

  The cave is quite spacious, and the waterfall reflects the outside light in, illuminating the entire cave. Unlike the gloomy atmosphere outside, the cave has a lively appearance, with lush green vines hanging from the stone walls, and deep inside, there is a stone bed and a stone table.

  "Are you just entering Sheng Ji?" The old man asked Xiao Yun as he sat down in front of the stone table.

  Xiao Yun nodded, "Junior Xiao Yun, this is my friend Hong Kexin. My friend speaks his mind, please don't take offense, senior!"

  The old man shook his head and said, "Which faction are you from?"

  "I am from Yunzhou Boya Mountain Tianyin Sect, and Hong Niang is from Zhongwang Palace!" After a pause, Xiao Yun still spoke frankly.

  The small sect is like this, even if it's reported on the mountain name, others may not know, but the big sect, as long as the name is mentioned, others will definitely know.

  The old man seemed somewhat surprised, originally he still thought these two were fellow disciples.

  "It's really like a white horse passing through a gap, and the fleeting time has passed in an instant. I didn't expect that one hundred years would pass so quickly." The old man sighed, with endless vicissitudes in his eyes.

  Xiao Yun Dao said, "Senior, if I'm not mistaken, you should have entered the Sacred Trace when it opened a hundred years ago, right?"

  The old man nodded, "Yes, a hundred years, just for this ancestral fruit, I have been guarding it here for a hundred years."

  Xiao Yun turned to look at Hong Kexin, both of whom were shocked in their hearts. For a few Zuyin fruits, they had been guarding this sacred place fraught with danger for a hundred years. What kind of persistence was this?

  Perhaps it was because he hadn't met anyone for a long time, the old man slowly opened his mouth and began to tell Xiao Yun and the others about his past. "I was born with a defective root bone, only one of the five tones remained, and it was the worst kind. I tried many techniques to change my fate, but none were effective. I flipped through countless ancient books, and in this world, only the ancestral fruit that contains the original sound spirit can save me. One hundred years ago, when the sacred mark opened, I took the opportunity to come in and search for an opportunity. After much difficulty, I finally found the ancestral fruit in this mountain valley, but unexpectedly, these three ancestral fruits had just borne fruit, and there was no way, so I could only stay behind!"

  "Who would have thought that even seniors like you would experience such things!" Xiao Yun sighed with a bitter smile, feeling a sense of camaraderie. "However, senior, you're still better off - at least you still have one shred of your five notes left, although it's inferior, but you can still achieve something. As for me, I've lost all five notes and can't even break through the realm of music craftsmanship."

  ————

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