Hearing herself called "Mommy," the corner of the Ice Empress's eye twitched slightly, but she quickly returned to normal.
After all, Xue Bingchen had first been taken in by the Snow Empress, and these two soul beasts who had been single since birth for over a million years had never raised a child.
It was their first time being elders, so naturally, they could only refer to the ethical system of human society.
In the human world, an older woman who raised a child was usually called a mother.
Thus, from the time Xue Bingchen first began to babble, he had naturally called the Snow Empress "Mommy."
As for the Ice Empress, he called her "Auntie Ice Empress."
Although the Snow Empress had initially flushed and seemed at a loss when she heard that form of address, a rare expression on her eternally frozen face, she had ultimately accepted it under Xue Bingchen's innocent gaze.
The Ice Empress, meanwhile, complained aloud about why she had to be the auntie, but deep down, she rather enjoyed the little fellow's dependence on her.
The Ice Empress raised a finger and lightly flicked Xue Bingchen's forehead, correcting him:
"Little fool, of course it wasn't because you drank soup.
"Though you're only three years old, we've already tempered your body with countless heavenly treasures until it's even stronger than the cubs of those ten-thousand-year soul beasts."
The Ice Empress's expression turned serious. Looking at the distant wind and snow, she explained softly, her voice carrying a trace of reverence and longing:
"Because the Snow Empress believes that the origin of the Heavenly Snow Woman Clan lies within the wind and snow between heaven and earth.
"And the Dance of the Heavenly Snow Woman is not merely the most beautiful dance in the world. It is also the tangible manifestation of the Snow Empress's understanding of Ultimate Ice and the laws of the Far North.
"You may not be able to cultivate yet, but your body has already been cleansed to flawless purity by the supreme treasures of the Far North.
"The Snow Empress hopes that by watching the Dance of the Heavenly Snow Woman more often, your soul and body can begin to sense and harmonize with that ultimate rhythm of ice and snow.
"That way, when you turn six, your chances of awakening the Heavenly Snow Woman martial soul will greatly increase."
At that, the Ice Empress reached out her soft, fair little hand and ruffled Xue Bingchen's fluffy white hair, curling her lips as she said:
"For your sake, this little fellow has made the Snow Empress go to great lengths.
"You should know that in the Far North, aside from me, even those soul beast overlords with a hundred thousand years of cultivation would be instantly frozen into ice sculptures and have their souls obliterated if they dared sneak even one glance at the Snow Empress dancing.
"You little brat really doesn't know what kind of damn luck you've stumbled into."
Xue Bingchen nodded as if he understood, a thoughtful light glimmering in his clear ice-blue eyes.
In truth, neither the Snow Empress nor the Ice Empress knew that as Xue Bingchen grew older, fragmented images and words had recently begun surfacing in his mind for no apparent reason.
Whenever he looked at the vast white Extreme North Ice Plains before him, at the Ice Empress beside him in her form as a green-haired, twin-tailed girl, or recalled the aloof Snow Empress who always held him and nourished his body with her origin power, an indescribable sense of familiarity rose in his heart.
That familiarity did not stem merely from the fact that he had been born and raised here.
It was a recognition that seemed to transcend time and space, deeply branded into his soul.
"Far North... Snow Empress... Ice Empress..."
Xue Bingchen silently repeated those names in his heart.
He always felt that he had heard these names long, long ago, in an entirely different world.
Moreover, it seemed that an incomparably vast set of memories was sealed within his mind.
Whenever he tried to touch that seal, he felt a faint wave of dizziness.
He had a powerful intuition that perhaps only when he turned six, truly awakened the so-called "martial soul," embarked upon the path of cultivation, and gained stronger spiritual power, would he be able to recover all those sealed memories and truly understand who he was and why he had been born in this forbidden land of extreme cold.
"Whew—"
Just as Xue Bingchen was lost in thought, the biting wind that had been howling atop the snowy mountain suddenly stopped without warning.
No, it had not stopped. It had submitted.
The violent ice and snow elements drifting through the air seemed to sense some supreme summons at that instant and became utterly docile.
The snowflakes falling from the sky were no longer scattered and chaotic. Instead, as if controlled by an invisible hand, they swirled and danced in midair before finally laying down a crystal-clear carpet of ice and snow atop the mountain.
"She's here!"
The Ice Empress's eyes lit up at once. She excitedly rose from the icy rock, her gaze fixed firmly on the deepest reaches of the snowstorm.
Accompanied by a refreshing yet incomparably frigid fragrance, a flawless, graceful figure slowly walked through the air from amid the falling snow.
She still wore that pure white long dress without any unnecessary adornments. Her silver hair drifted in the wind behind her, as though woven from strands of the purest ice crystals in the world.
Her features were peerlessly beautiful, and her temperament was as cold and otherworldly as an exiled immortal, untouched by even the faintest trace of mortal dust.
Whenever her jade-like foot lightly descended, an ice-blue lotus the size of a palm naturally bloomed in the void beneath it, steadily supporting her.
Lotuses bloomed beneath every step—the sovereign of ice and snow.
This was the supreme ruler of the Far North, the Snow Empress.
The Snow Empress's figure lightly descended into the center of the snowy mountaintop.
When her eyes, once as indifferent as ten-thousand-year black ice, fell upon Xue Bingchen sitting on the icy rock and the Ice Empress standing beside him, they instantly softened somewhat, revealing an exceedingly rare gentleness like a spring breeze and nourishing rain.
She said nothing, merely nodding slightly to the pair, one large and one small, before slowly raising her flawless arms, as pale as mutton-fat jade.
Clap! Clap! Clap!
Seeing this, the Ice Empress immediately lifted both hands in excitement and began clapping forcefully.
The crisp applause echoed across the empty mountaintop, as though it were the only accompaniment to this dance that would shake the ages.
Xue Bingchen also immediately caught on. Imitating Auntie Ice Empress, he climbed down from the icy rock and clapped hard with his two tiny hands while shouting at the top of his childish voice:
"Mommy's dancing is so pretty! Mommy is the best!"
"Pfft..."
Hearing Xue Bingchen's utterly artless praise, yet feeling the childish innocence and attachment within it, the Ice Empress could not help rolling her eyes. Still, an irrepressible smile curled at her lips.
She had long since grown used to it.
After all, the Snow Empress had been the one to first lift Xue Bingchen from the wind and snow. For the past three years, she had also been the most devoted in feeding him Ice Marrow Milk mouth to mouth and using her origin power to cleanse his marrow and transform his body.
Though the two rulers of the Far North had never raised a child and could only imitate the human way of child-rearing, Xue Bingchen's crisp calls of "Mommy" had already, without their notice, melted the Snow Empress's heart, which had been lonely for hundreds of thousands of years.
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