"Evergreen Fruit of the World Tree? What’s that...?"

Tangxue shook her head, like a willow in a breeze; she’d never tasted one.

"Hahaha! If you’ve eaten that, I’ll drop to my knees and call you granny!" The half‑beast shaman crowed, pride thumping like a drum.

"..."

Tangxue felt her words sink like pebbles in a pond; did he have to go that far?

"Hmph. The World Tree’s Evergreen Fruit—across the whole plane there were likely fewer than three. And that was before the plane collapsed."

"Plane collapse...?"

"Ah? You don’t know?" The shaman scratched his head, voice dark as stormclouds. "This plane once brushed the Divine Realm. Then a top god suddenly tried to punch into the Supreme seat. They failed, but their power scraped that height. When they fell, their death tore our sky like a cracked mirror. To save what remained, the gods split off our region, shaving the disaster to a dull edge... and we became lives the gods cast adrift."

"It feels... hard to accept," Tangxue said, a cold stone settling in her gut.

"Same here!" The shaman’s temper sparked, then burned to ash. "Sentenced out of nowhere... But I’m over it now. I probably won’t live to see the world’s final winter. So why clutch worry like a thorn? I’ll just let it rot."

"...Fair enough."

The shaman flopped into a seat, legs crossed like loose branches. "Sigh... Enough chatter. Little sister, where were we?"

"Enough chatter."

"..."

"Right, I remember—the World Tree’s Evergreen Fruit, yeah? Ahem. That Evergreen Fruit..."

The Evergreen Fruit grows only on the World Tree, a single tree per plane, a pillar like a mountain’s spine.

When the plane split like broken ice, the god the Elf Clan revered couldn’t bear her children drowning in despair. She snapped a branch from the World Tree, planting that lifeline into this land set to die.

Because of that branch, this plane still breathes like an old whale. The god left a sign: only when the tree blooms and bears fruit will the frozen world have a chance to thaw to spring.

Yet to this day, the former sapling towers like a sky‑piercing giant. The sacred fruit ripened long ago, red as a heart in snow. The world still slides toward ruin like a slow avalanche. That prophecy... has faded like smoke and been forgotten.

After chatting, Qingsheng Tangxue left, thoughts knotting like vines. The shaman didn’t block or pry. He watched her leave the church with a kind gaze, warm as lantern light.

Right now, the Evergreen Fruit sits with the Elf Clan, in the Forest Capital.

It would surely sharpen her mind like a blade rinsed in cold spring. But... how to take it?

Steal? Rob? Trick?

Robbing, she did have that weight. The Elf Clan stands fragile as reeds. And she, a child of the mermaid princess, has tides of reason to act. Even if it sparks war, her web of ties would shield her like coral walls...

"Forget it. That’s not something I can do." Tangxue sighed, a small cloud dissolving.

If those paths all close, then only trade. But what treasure could match the World Tree’s Evergreen Fruit, shining like a star cupped in leaves?

Find a time and ask the Elf Clan’s chieftain, she thought, sending a thread like a moth toward light.

It’s already late. Maybe rest tonight? Tangxue glanced at the lively street, lanterns bobbing like fireflies. Her stomach growled like a distant drum...

"I’ll grab a late‑night snack."

Meanwhile, in a church within the Forest Capital, several nuns in heavy wraps drifted into the abandoned backyard like shadows pooling.

"How did it go?" A nun tugged down her scarf beneath a black hood, revealing a face pale as a corpse under moon‑milk.

"Key nodes across the Forest Capital all have arrays in place, Elder." The others bowed, voices mixing like rain—male and female— not just half‑beasts, but humans, Blood Clan...

"...Good." Her tone was a flat stone. "Per the Ritual Lord’s plan, our moves in the Elven Dominion and the Beastman Dominion will mark the plane’s turning. If we succeed... our long vow will finally unfurl. If we fail... our church ends here, like a candle pinched out."

"We’ll succeed, Captain." Confidence rose like a tide. "The Ritual Lord has never missed. This time they’re sure. Even if an unstable factor slipped into the Elven Dominion—so what? The great current rolls; even the plane’s will leans our way."

"...Let it be so." The corpse‑pale captain closed her eyes and bathed in moonlight like thin frost. This world keeps growing colder, wind gnawing like wolves.

Past midnight, Qingsheng Tangxue found a hotel that looked decent, a house of rest like a warm shell. The shopkeeper blinked at her in surprise—other races are rare in the Forest Capital, and blue hair is a splash of sea on land. He said nothing; he finished the check‑in and slid her a card with a small smile.

Third floor. Room 302.

It’s just a night. Trouble shouldn’t bloom... Yet unease fluttered in Tangxue’s chest like a caged bird. She felt something bad stalking the alley of time.

Hotels are cheap here, but water costs extra, buckets counted like coins. Tangxue lacked for everything but water; all she needed was a bathtub, a white pond.

She slipped back into her mermaid form, and Qingsheng Tangxue sank into the tub with a soft sigh, eyes narrowing like crescent moons. "Walked all day. I’m dead tired... This is still the best."

"Feels like every pore unwinds in water, like buds in spring. Blub‑blub... gurgle blub‑blub~~"

She dipped half her head under, releasing slow bubbles. She felt them pop against her cheek with little puffs, like pearls cracking. No matter how many times she does it, she never gets bored.

As a child, this was Tangxue’s favorite river‑game. Now too.

She hadn’t played long when a bell chimed outside the door, slicing the calm like a knife through silk.

"What a buzzkill." Tangxue frowned, her mood curdled like sour milk. She climbed from the tub, dressed, and moved to see which idiot kicked her quiet.

"Coming, coming." She hesitated at the door, breath tight as a bowstring. Ice hardened in her hand into a rigid crowbar, cold and blue. She hid it behind her and eased the door open with cautious fingers...

"Good evening, sis!" A white‑haired loli bounded in like a snow‑fox and dove into Tangxue’s arms, drinking in that scent that soothed her like warm tea.

Tangxue sprawled on the floor, stunned, her thoughts scattering like sparrows. "What just hit me...? Wait, what are you doing?! Let go!!!"

"Uwu... so mean. Sis, you squeezed too hard. It hurts..." The white‑fur loli puffed her cheeks, sitting on the floor, eyes wet like dew.

Tangxue rose with a blank face, brushed her clothes like dust off leaves, and turned to shut the door.

"Wait! Please don’t, sis!" Panic crumpled the loli’s features like paper in rain.

Before she could be shoved out, the white‑fur loli clamped onto Tangxue’s thigh, refusing to let go, tears pooling like little lakes.

"Don’t you know me, sis? I..."

"...Who are you?" Qingsheng Tangxue pressed her fingers to her brow, a headache throbbing like drums. The girl felt familiar, a face in mist, but the name wouldn’t surface.