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"Elder, I have a question for you. Do you know where in these deep mountains I can find a fragrant torreya tree that's over four thousand years old?"
Unmoved by your inquiry, the white-haired elder merely glanced up, his eyes void of anything.
The village chief walked over and translated what you had just said into the Zhuji dialect.
Only then did the white-haired elder extend his arm, thin and dry as a dead branch, and began conversing with the village chief.
Although they spoke a variant of the Wu Yu, some of the words were so abstruse that you could only grasp the gist of the conversation.
After the exchange, the village chief turned to you and said, "The elder says there's a valley behind the village that has a few fragrant torreya trees, rumored to be extremely old, but exactly how old they are he couldn't say."
"Let's go have a look, then."
