The Mother-and-Child Divine Tree

Two thousand years ago, in a place called Zimu Village, every household had a Mother-Child Divine Tree. The trees blossomed and bore fruit in every season, with the fruit changing color as the seasons turned: golden orange in spring, emerald green in summer, deep red in autumn, and pale purple in winter. Each fruit was worth as much as 500 grams of gold. In other words, the fruit of the Mother-Child Trees served as currency. Everyone knew its value, from three-year-old children to emperors of every nation, from bandits who ruled the mountains to high-ranking chancellors. Eating just one fruit could slow aging and cure chronic illnesses that even the imperial physicians could not treat. Countless people schemed to seize Zimu Village and take its fruit, but after one failure after another, most gave up. The reason was that the villagers lived in Bagua Village, a place easy to defend and hard to attack. In military affairs, medicine, farming, and education, they were second to none in the world at the time. More astonishing still, buried deep in the heart of the earth beneath Zimu Village was a Mother-Child Divine Tree. The secret behind this tree has been passed down by four families to this day... (This story is entirely fictional)