The day Celestia Abbey cultivators arrived at Peach Blossom Village, the ancient scholar tree shed its last yellow leaf. Ethan Chen crouched by gnarled roots, tracing mysterious tadpole scripts that had materialized overnight—their amber glow syncing with his jade tablet's constellations. When his blood dripped onto a bark crevice, the tree resonated like chime stones.
"Unexpected to find a Shigu Script adept in this backwater." A cold feminine voice drifted down as emerald silk brushed Ethan's shoulder. The woman carried a scorched-tail seven-string zither, her waist-jade chiming in unison with the tree. "This millennium-old ghostwood isn't for mortal hands."
Rising, Ethan felt his tablet pulse. Her hairpin bore miniature bronze cauldron handles matching his doorstep relic's缺口. More unnerving: constellations shimmered beneath her sleeve as she inspected the tree.
"I'm Sylvie Su of Celestia Abbey, investigating ley line anomalies." Her fingers brushed new buds where tadpole scripts morphed into Zhouyi hexagrams. "Three days ago, your village's geomancy surge shattered hundred-mile star compasses."
Before Ethan could respond, Sylvie struck the trunk. Tree rings whirled alive, revealing a mountain peak where nine colossal cauldrons formed an armillary sphere. Purple qi outlined Twenty-Eight Mansions as Master Yun conducted rituals in the center.
"This... the Seven Stars Conjunction thirty years ago?" Sylvie paled, zither levitating defensively. "Who are you? Why activate our forbidden archive?"
The tree quaked violently. Ethan's tablet tore through his clothes, embedding into the trunk. Bark transformed into jade, revealing a crystalline ten-zhang bronze monolith! Lianshan and Guizang hexagrams rotated, pulling them into astral space.
"Move!" Ethan tackled Sylvie as violet lightning scorched their previous position. In the void, nine-headed Xiangliu's phantom swam through stars, each maw clutching a cauldron. His Taiji mark burned as the tablet projected constellations mirroring Sylvie's wrist patterns.
"Big Dipper governs death, Southern Dipper life..." Sylvie gripped Ethan's meridian points. "How did you steal Xuanji Tome?" Her constellations flared green, extinguished by his Taiji mark. Primordial Qi surged as "Serenity" characters formed a scripture barrier.
The illusion shattered. Ethan knelt on jade roots while Sylvie spat blood, her zither oozing amber fluid from broken strings. The tablet now fused with the monolith bore new prophecies: "Mars-Venus Collision, cauldrons westward; Nine Infants weep blood, Abyss blooms lotus."
"Care to explain?" Sylvie produced a bronze fragment—his cauldron's missing handle. "This taotie-patterned piece matches our stolen Demon-Suppressing..."
Hoofbeats interrupted. Ethan's blood froze: approaching Celestia cultivators' robe hems bore Big Dipper embroidery matching the plague glyphs' squirming scripts.