With a gentle push, the doors swung wide.
Then came blood.
Snow.
Between two stone pillars coiled with jade dragons, beyond doors of dark gold inlaid with blue jade, stretched a bright, long upward passage. Blood flowed out of Xuantian Palace like a stream, pooling at Bai Qinghan's feet.
The girl stepped lightly upon it. The aura of Mysterious Yin spread outward, freezing the crimson liquid into scarlet ice crystals.
Wherever the girl passed, silver-white snow fell, frost creeping over the murals and reliefs depicting all manner of majestic deities and celestial officials. Every color dimmed and faded with her breath, turning a pale gray.
Bai Qinghan walked forward along the stream of blood, her heart calm—almost peaceful.
She even had the leisure to reach out and touch those reliefs smeared scarlet, letting the blood not yet frozen with frost stain her fingers. Vivid color gleamed at the slender, jade-white tips, like gemstones.
Blood was viscous to the touch. Snow was cold.
Bai Qinghan knew these two sensations best.
Her life had always been shrouded in them. At first, she had seized her chance to live amid the demonic calamity through bloodshed; afterward, she had wandered in bewilderment through a world filled with blizzards that blanketed the heavens.
That gloom, confusion, and despair had always haunted her life. For a long time, she had not known why she struggled to survive at all. If not for her parents' sacrifice, if not for their dying wish, Bai Qinghan seemed to have had no reason she absolutely had to keep living.
But later, she discovered that she had always wanted to live—more than anyone else, more resolutely than anyone else.
Because she had to live.
Live, and take revenge.
Against the Heavenly Demons. Against Da Chen. Against the source and hidden hand