Chapter 704: That Voice

After all, you can't die in a dream, so might as well enjoy it.

It's just that the Abundance aura is too strong.

It's so thick that each breath makes her feel grass growing in her lungs, the air full of thick, sweet plant sap scent; she even doubts a flying arrow from the Imperial Bow might fall from the sky the next second and pierce this tree together with her fish.

Of course, after that thought arose she felt relieved again; after all, it's just a dream.

If she encountered this thing in reality, she wouldn't even have the Qualification to lie back and enjoy the scenery; she'd be dead long ago.

On the fish's back beneath her feet, a few tiny golden branches had sprouted at some point, poking out from the gaps between the fish scales, each bearing a few white blossoms the size of fingernails.

Of course that's not her potted plant sprouting on its own.

It's simply that the Abundance aura in the air is absurdly strong, causing even the solidified fish beneath her to start growing things out of its scale gaps.

Qingque casually plucked one off and tossed it into the sea that had appeared beneath the fish, at an unknown time.

The sea reflected the golden light of the Golden Giant Tree, shimmering, and looked quite nice.

She plucked one, and two more sprouted; she grew lazy to keep pulling, since these plants and flowers only served as decoration for the fish and posed no real harm.

The fish's Tail swayed as usual, its fins fluttered as usual, carrying her slowly drifting above this sea that mirrored the Golden Giant Tree.

Qingque withdrew her hand from under her head, half‑closed her eyes, and began humming a little tune.

The melody was the lazy little tune often played in the Luofu teahouse, forming an extremely odd contrast with the apocalyptic scene before her.

Halfway through humming, she suddenly felt something missing; it should be paired with a cup of tea.

Making a cup of tea in a dream shouldn't be hard, right?

She tried to will it, but nothing happened.

At that moment, a voice suddenly rang inside her mind.

It didn't come through her ears; it exploded right in the center of her mind, as if someone had installed a tiny speaker beneath her Heavenly Spirit Dome.

Help…

Qingque almost spat it out.

She, a Salted Fish, sat up straight, her ash‑gray long hair sliding from her shoulders to fall beside her face.

Her emerald eyes looked left and right; there was nothing above her head, no figure on the sea below, and the distant Giant Tree still exhibited its slowly expanding demeanor.

Where did that b noise come from?

Qingque leaned on the fish's back and looked down; the sea below churned with waves under the roots' agitation, reflecting gold, and the city had been swallowed into the ground by the roots dozens of minutes ago, leaving perhaps only herself as the sole living being in the world.

She lifted her head and tried shouting toward the empty sky.

"Anyone there!"

No one answered.

That voice sounded again, this time a bit longer than before.

Help… down… here…

Qingque's back stiffened slightly.

It was the Pioneer's voice.

The few sentences spoken just before dissipating on the fish's back were in that tone, breath like a wandering thread, intermittent, each word seeming to be forced out of the throat with all one's strength.

But hadn't that guy already cracked?

Qingque had watched with her own eyes as she slowly faded piece by piece in the golden light.

How can she still hear speech?

Dead ash reborn?

Sit‑ups?

She raised her hand to cover her ears.

To no avail.

The voice didn't come through the ears; no matter how tightly she covered them, it couldn't be blocked.

That breath‑like, relentless voice kept echoing in her mind, with a reverberation—Help down… Help… Help me…

Qingque lowered the hand covering her ears, and her emerald eyes blinked blankly.

She and the Pioneer hadn't met many times in total, right?

When the Pioneer's party had just arrived at Luofu, Qingque was in charge of reception, leading them around Luofu, introducing some basic procedures; the other side said odd things like "Oh," "Okay," "Is that trash can alive?"

Then they handed the people over to another department.

The total time spent meeting might not even equal the time she spent feeling the Imperial Wall Jade in the teahouse.

It was just a very official reception process between strangers.

Now, great, after dying she became a lingering spirit behind, right!

So why is it specifically her?

Why can the Pioneer, after dissipating, still leave a repeat player in her mind?

"Pioneer?"

She tentatively muttered.

There was no response, only that "Help me" refreshed again in her mind.

Fine, it's not two‑way communication, it's a one‑way broadcast, and the kind that forgot to install a shut‑off button.

Qingque grabbed her head and shook it, the ash‑gray long hair flailing around her shoulders, the stray hair on her skull bouncing a few times.

Her brain juice was nearly homogenized from the shaking, yet that phrase remained, firmly pressing at the deepest layer of her thoughts, like a looping, maddening BGM that can't be turned off or skipped, forcing her to hear it over and over.

She lowered the hand holding her head and let out a long sigh.

That counts as leaning on her.

But leaning on her is useless.

Qingque spread her hands, facing the empty air before her; though no one was there, the voice in her head could be heard, and she began to argue logic.

"Don't bother rescuing, calling Uncle is useless; it's not that I don't want to save, it's that I truly can't."

"Did you see that tree? Shuhuo, do you know Shuhuo? Back then the Luofu General was still Lord Tengxiao, leading the Five Cloud Valiants, and gathering the whole Xianzhou's power just barely defeated it."

"I'm just a Xiao Bu Zhe of the Tai Bu Si, I don't even have a proper Cloud Cavalry rank; my usual work is flipping through files, goofing off, striking Imperial Wall Jade, and you want me to go fight Shuhuo? What merit do I have~"

She elongated the last syllable, dragging the final word out, her tone full of helplessness.

Then she withdrew her outstretched hands and rested them again beneath her head, switched the direction of her crossed leg, and kept swaying her toes.

At that moment, the distant giant tree suddenly burst open another ring of aura.

A ring of deep crimson ripples, as thick as blood, erupted from the exact center of the trunk, fanning outward toward the horizon.

Where the red wave passed, the cloud layer was pushed aside, the golden branches' hanging filaments were simultaneously straightened by the shock, and the already choking Abundance scent in the air instantly multiplied several times.

The blue fish Qingque was on was hit head‑on by the shockwave, the whole fish jolted backward dozens of meters, flipping several times before stabilizing.

She herself sprang up from the fish's back only to fall back, landing solidly on her bottom; her teeth clacked together in that instant, nearly biting her tongue.

Qingque covered her mouth, eyes wide, staring into the distance.

The scarlet eyes on the trunk were changing.

Each eye was writhing, not just the eyeballs but the entire socket together with the surrounding bark.

The eyelid portions flipped outward, the pupils sank inward, and the bark around the eyes tightened and loosened in concentric circles, as if molding something with the bark.