By the time she had killed all the snow wolves, she was utterly exhausted and collapsed onto the ground.
"Truly unique, one of a kind, enough to captivate all under heaven."
"Do you know that staring at a girl for so long is terribly ungentlemanly?"
The woman had long grown accustomed to the gazes of the opposite sex.
But she had just gone through a desperate battle, and being watched still made her uncomfortable.
"Miss, are you all right?"
He was helpless as well. Unable to stand, he could only ask verbally.
All right? She was so exhausted that she had sat on the ground without caring about her appearance—how could that be all right? And did this man not know to lend her a hand?
Besides, he had no gentlemanly manners at all. She had just fought for her life while this bastard quietly watched from afar.
What a waste of that handsome face.
"Hey, don't you know to give me a hand?"
Xiao Xuan was speechless and rolled his eyes at the girl.
"You're so young—how are your eyes already failing? Didn't you see that I rely on a wheelchair just to get by? This is a Healing Pill. If you're not afraid it's poisoned, take it yourself and heal up. The ice plain is strange; who knows what other dangers may be lurking? By the way, why has a young lady like you come to these sparsely populated Northern Plains? Your situation just now was truly perilous."
The girl in red was not afraid of poison. She accepted the pill directly, placed it in her mouth, and refined its medicinal power. Half a Shi Chen later, she finally regained the ability to move.
"Were your legs injured in battle? As for why I came here, I simply wanted to seek Life and Death trials for myself. What about you? Why did you come here?"
"I was born this way. I can't stand. As for me, I came here purely to seek death. I wanted to see whether facing Life and Death would bring anything different."
This had been a sudden impulse for Xiao Xuan. He always felt that he had forgotten something, yet he could not remember anything at all. He could only seek death himself and see whether he might gain some clue at the final moment.
"Seek death? You're still so young. Why be so pessimistic?"
Jin Ping'er was stunned for a moment before she came to her senses, looking at him in disbelief.
"Everyone has different experiences, different thoughts, and different desires. Naturally, only they themselves know what they want. A person like you, willing to put herself in mortal danger for cultivation and seek rebirth through death, is rare indeed. Saying that I'm seeking death is not entirely accurate. Put more nicely, I also hope to seek rebirth through death. I am Xiao Xuan. May I ask this young lady's name?"
"Jin Ping'er!"
The two chatted for a while and continued onward together...
Beneath a stone cliff, a fire burned brightly.
A beast's hind leg roasted over the flames, continuously dripping mouthwatering grease into the fire.
The snow wolves Xiao Xuan had killed had instead become their meal.
"Young Master Xiao, why isn't this meat done yet? I'm starving to death."
Jin Ping'er hugged her flat, empty stomach and complained unhappily.
"I say, Miss Jin, you're exploiting the value of a disabled person."
On the Arctic Vast Sea Ice Plain, after Jin Ping'er departed, Xiao Xuan continued deeper alone.
Fortunately, his luck was not bad. He did not encounter a Beast Tide, at most running into a few Fierce Beasts.
Even so, the endless slaughter and battles, the sudden attacks of Fierce Beasts, and the ice chunks and snowballs falling from the sky made danger impossible to guard against. He was struck repeatedly and became covered in wounds. The elegant young master of the past was nowhere to be seen; now, there was only a ragged beggar. Several times, he nearly lost his life.
Tempering himself upon the ice plain, where all four seasons were like winter and day and night alternated, roughly a year passed. It had already been two years since he left Qingyun.
Two years—one spent traveling and one spent tempering himself through Life and Death. Especially for him, his cultivation technique operated at every moment.
As Yuan Qi circulated, his meridians widened and his entire body was strengthened, allowing him to obtain the Qi of the Five Viscera and Five Elements.
The Five Qi forged the Lower Dantian into the Yellow Court. The Yellow Court continuously absorbed and liquefied the Qi of the Five Elements, refining Taiji Primordial Qi within it to form Taiji True Essence.
Because he had been born with powerful soul force, after the Taiji True Essence liquefied and passed through his Upper Dantian, its spirituality greatly increased.
In merely two years, he had progressed more than he had in the previous five. One had to know that the further one cultivated the Taiji Xuanqing Dao, the more difficult it became.
He lacked neither comprehension nor perseverance. The only thing holding him back had been the meridians in his legs.
Over the years, as the meridians in his legs were tempered, they gradually improved, and his cultivation became faster and faster.
For others, if such a condition befell them, it would cut off their path of cultivation.
But he had endured it. Perhaps, just as he had said, when heaven closed a door for you, it surely opened another. What was lacking was only the effort to seek it out and discover it.
Gazing at the distant end of the ice plain, at that black-and-white colossal mountain stretching nearly ten thousand li and soaring into the clouds, Xiao Xuan was overcome with tears and could not stop sighing.
This divine mountain stretched almost ten thousand li across and rose tens of thousands of zhang high. It was majestic and vast, ancient and weathered.
Facing north with its back to the south, it stood amid ice that had never melted since antiquity. Its enormous head resembled that of a serpent, yet two spike-like horns, like spears, stabbed straight into the heavens.
Its broad black scales were each nearly ten thousand zhang in diameter, arranged in an extraordinary pattern.
Its thick and powerful tail was covered in barbs more than a zhang thick and over ten zhang long.
Its four limbs were like Qingtian pillars, deeply rooted beneath the ice.
Its huge mouth was slightly open, revealing rows of fangs. It looked incomparably ferocious and terrifying, more like an ancient Fierce Beast. Truly, one could not judge a divine beast by its appearance.
"What... Spirit Marrow, with at least a thousand years of potency?"
Half a month after entering the divine mountain, Xiao Xuan saw the small pool at its center. The little pool of liquid within it was filled with boundless, violently surging spiritual energy, and he was instantly overjoyed.
"Haha, what an unexpected windfall."
He immediately sat beside the Spirit Pool, circulated his cultivation technique, and fell into a hazy trance.
At that moment, a mysterious voice of unknown origin, detached, cool, and serene, suddenly entered his mind. It was like immortal music from the nine heavens, carrying the charm of Yaochi and an incomparably mysterious power.
"Water is close to the Dao; the Dao is everywhere, and water benefits all things. It avoids heights and flows downward, never acting against its nature..."
Hazy and ethereal, elegant as water, it gradually became the resounding chime of metal and stone. It was like the roars of dragons and tigers, deafening and enlightening, yet also like morning bells and evening drums, shaking the soul.
Under that voice, Xiao Xuan entered a state without joy or sorrow, without self or thing.
He did not know how much time had passed. When he awoke, the pool of spiritual liquid had already nearly run dry.
"Three Flowers Power of Essence Qi and Spirit, Purple Mansion... Hehe, soul, Divine Sense, Primordial Spirit—they are merely different names. I never expected that not long after stepping onto the path of cultivation, I would stumble into tempering my Divine Soul. To a certain extent, I had walked part of the path ahead of time, so that my future cultivation would not be utterly without direction. Who could have imagined it? Even I could not have imagined that my former self would reach this point one day. It is time to leave. I have been away from Qingyun for more than two years."
On Dazhu Peak.
"Mother, Little Junior Brother has been gone from Dazhu Peak for over two years without any news. It is truly worrying. I hope that during the trip to Liupo Mountain three months from now, we might hear something about him."
Before you continue