Ruomu

Ruomu is an ancient sentient tree that once condensed stolen years into Fruits of Longevity. Millennia of exploitation and near-destruction transform it into a deeply hostile power toward cultivators. (Chapters 588–590)

Biography

Chapter 588

Li Fan encounters a withered Ruomu and the humanoid Daoist Xiumu manifestation, then discovers that his thoughts and perceptions have been rewritten. Recovered visions show cultivators harvesting Ruomu's fruits, sealing the tree, draining its life essence, and suppressing every attempt to resist until a rival faction interrupts the extraction. Ruomu survives but remains permanently decayed, later manifesting in human form and cultivating hatred for those who exploited it. It lets Li Fan go for reasons he can only infer and later becomes the feared Mother Tree whose attention threatens younger spirits such as Lin Ling. (Chapters 588–592, 692, 826, 841, 975)

Appearance and personality

Ruomu's true body is an immense, ancient, withered tree shedding dead leaves, with cracked trunk and damaged branches. Daoist Xiumu is its humanoid-facing identity, but the corpus does not fix that manifestation as a separate biological person. Ruomu is patient, deceptive, resentful, radical, and capable of taking pleasure in cultivators' destruction, though that hatred grows from sustained historical abuse. (Chapters 588–590, 826, 841)

Abilities and cultivation

Longevity extraction and thought distortion

Ruomu draws years and life essence from beings to bear purple-gold Fruits of Longevity, spawns creatures, attacks with branches, and directly alters memory, judgment, and perception. Its influence can make victims misread their own actions until an external record exposes the discrepancy. Powerful ancient cultivators can suppress and drain it, and its old injuries never fully recover; the source explicitly avoids reducing its strength to a simple formal realm. (Chapters 588–591)

Relationships

Cultivators of the ancient great sects are Ruomu's exploiters and central enemies. Lin Ling and other younger tree spirits descend from the broader ancient-tree lineage but receive no guarantee of safety from the Mother Tree. Li Fan survives an encounter and thereafter treats Ruomu's mental influence as a top-level threat. (Chapters 589–592, 826, 841)

Items

• Fruits of Longevity: Ruomu produces these by concentrating stolen years. They are biological products of the tree and targets of cultivator plunder, not conventional treasure stock freely offered by Ruomu. (Chapters 588–590)
• Withered Ruomu branch: Li Fan later holds and experiments on a fallen branch. Its custody lies with Li Fan, while its lingering sentience and origin remain Ruomu's. (Chapters 590–592)