Alice's cold shout enraged Liu Yun and the others.
Since they became conscious, no one had dared to speak to Zhongli like that.
They were about to retort.
Zhongli raised his hand slightly, motioning for them to be quiet.
Alice's anger erupted immediately.
“Now! Immediately! Set up the sound-dampening barrier! Alice the Great wants to give this reckless fellow a good scolding!”
“Do you know what you're talking about?”
“Do you know that the False Heaven, the Witch's Congregation, and Sky Island have gone to such great lengths to burn everything, all to prevent this knowledge from reaching Teyvat?”
“You open your mouth and talk about the Tree and the Sea! Are you insane? You don't want to live, and you want to drag Liyue down to die with you?”
“If Celestia finds out, do you think Liyue will be the next Khaenri'ah?”
“I know you're all unhappy with Sky Island, but no matter how unhappy you are, you can't go down the path of contacting the world outside!”
“Teyvat is on the verge of destruction, and you're trying to add fuel to the fire at this crucial moment?”
“Listen, Morax, I don't care where you heard the truth about the Tree and the Sea, but now, forget everything! It's all false!”
“You must believe this, you have to believe this. If you don't want Liyue to be destroyed, consider these words never spoken!”
“Otherwise, even the Witch's Congregation will see you as enemies!”
Alice at the border was letting loose a torrent of insults. As her emotions fluctuated, the mysterious waves that seemed like both sea and not sea surged around her.
Incidentally, she also attracted a low-level Archon.
Wasn't this just a coincidence?
Alice slapped the unlucky low-level Archon away.
The power of the founder of the Witch's Congregation was evident.
She was probably not much weaker than Zhongli.
After venting her anger, Alice felt slightly better, but her face remained grim.
She knew about the commotion in Teyvat.
Things like Snezhnaya and the Abyss Order were just trivial matters, nothing to worry about.
But the Tree and the Sea were truly related to taboos.
Sky Island and the Witch's Congregation.
One side built the False Heaven to block the outside world, while the other guarded the border to prevent anything from getting in.
Wasn't it all to prevent Teyvat from being exposed to the universe of the Tree and the Sea?
Zhongli was not afraid of death and directly exposed the truth.
What was this?
They were working their butts off outside, and there was a traitor within their own ranks?
Alice didn't directly go back to blast Zhongli, only because the situation in the Outer Sea of Darkness was not good, and she couldn't leave.
Zhongli listened to Alice's incessant chatter, feeling a bit of a headache.
After a while, he spoke slowly:
“Are you so afraid of the Tree and the Sea?”
“You're bringing it up again!”
Alice's voice became sharp once more.
“Are you forcing me to go back and blow you to smithereens?”
Zhongli sighed.
“Calm down. I just want to know what the universe outside is like. It's important to me, to Teyvat.”
“It's not important to you! You don't need to worry about it! Just stay in Teyvat and mind your own business!”
Alice coldly replied.
“Since that's the case, I understand. Teyvat is truly a being attached to this multiverse.”
Alice on the other side fell silent.
After a while, she finally realized something was wrong and said in a deep voice:
“How did you learn about the concept of the multiverse? Who told you about the Tree and the Sea!”
“It's not important to you, you don't need to worry about it.”
Immediately, the petty golden dragon used Alice's own words to retort.
Alice was furious.
“Fine, fine, you say that, right? There must be someone else with you. Let me guess, is it Xiao and the others? Xiao, listen, when I came to Liyue back then...”
“Alright! I'll tell you!”
Zhongli hurriedly interrupted Alice, secretly wiping away sweat.
This crazy woman was so talkative. If she exposed his embarrassing past, would he ever be able to show his face in public again?
“Go on, I want to see what kind of existence has infiltrated Teyvat under our noses!”
Alice's gaze was cold as she looked at the endless Outer Sea of Darkness.
All these years, she hadn't gone out to travel because Klee was not grown up yet, and she had to guard Teyvat.
Now that something dirty dared to sneak in, wasn't that slapping her face?
It seemed that being cooped up at home for so long, the creatures from the Quantum Sea had forgotten her formidable reputation.
“Before I tell you, I have a question for you.”
Zhongli paused and said softly:
“You've traveled through countless worlds. I wonder if you know about cultivation?”
“Huh?”
Alice rubbed her ears in disbelief.
“You're asking a witch about cultivation, the ancestor of all immortals?”
“No, not the kind of cultivation in Teyvat, but a higher level of cultivation.”
Zhongli retorted and continued:
“Or to put it this way, do you know about the myriad worlds?”
Alice fell silent.
The myriad worlds, that was a blind spot for her.
Zhongli could guess that, and he couldn't help but feel a little amused.
The ever-knowing witch had actually been stumped by him.
It was truly satisfying.
“The story begins a hundred days ago. That day, a being from beyond Teyvat arrived...”
Then, Zhongli roughly explained Jiang Yan's origin, the power he displayed, and even mentioned what Jiang Yan himself had said about Mount Shu and so on.
Alice at the border became increasingly incredulous with each word she heard.
She felt like Zhongli was telling some kind of fictional story.
But he never joked about matters of this magnitude.
So...
Were there really cultivators?
And they were in Teyvat?
For a moment, Alice felt a surge of excitement.
Legendary cultivators, as travelers across numerous worlds, were naturally something Alice enjoyed reading about.
Alice understood the concept of cultivation quite well.
But before, she had only considered it a form of entertainment.
Now it seemed...
She had been wrong.
Cultivators…
Refining essence into Qi, refining Qi into Spirit…
Crossing tribulation and ascending…
The myriad worlds, great and divine beings, the Mount Shu Sword Sect…
All these grand and magnificent stories made Alice feel a little uneasy.
She didn't know if it was good or bad that a cultivator had come to Teyvat.
But according to Zhongli, Jiang Yan was currently at the Returning to the Void Realm. It was likely that Celestia and the Witch's Congregation couldn't handle him anymore.
And this was before he became an Immortal, before he even reached the pinnacle of humanity.
From this perspective, perhaps Jiang Yan didn't need to become an Immortal, he just had to reach the Void Returning Stage, and the problems of Teyvat could be solved.
He might even be able to uproot the Primeval Tree.
For a moment, a spark of hope ignited in Alice's heart.
“Alice, are you listening? Can you give me an answer?”
Zhongli's voice interrupted Alice's thoughts.
She snapped out of her reverie and said softly:
“While I was traveling to other worlds, I did hear about cultivation, but it was mostly in fictional stories.”
“I didn't expect actual cultivators to exist.”
“The myriad worlds? I guess my perspective was too narrow.”
Zhongli raised an eyebrow, uncertainly asking:
“Do you think Jiang Yan's myriad worlds really exist?”
Alice asked in return:
“Many in Teyvat think Teyvat is the only world. Before, I also thought that the Tree and the Sea were the source of all existence.”
“What do you think?”
Zhongli was speechless, but in his heart, he had already placed eight out of ten points of trust in the existence of the myriad worlds.
“Then... what about the cultivation and Mount Shu that he mentioned?”
“I don't know.”