After hearing Xiao Wu's tearful accusation, the grove fell into a long silence.
Xue Bingchen stood with his arms crossed, quietly watching Xiao Wu without saying a word.
As a transmigrator familiar with the plot, he naturally knew who Xiao Wu's enemy was—the current Pope of Spirit Hall, Bibi Dong!
After hearing Xiao Wu's story, Snow Empress also remained silent for a long time.
Only after quite a while did Snow Empress's cool voice ring out again.
"I see. I understand now."
Snow Empress looked at Xiao Wu, with little sympathy in her eyes. Instead, there was an exceedingly rational coldness in them:
"I can understand your choice to avenge your mother, but..."
"Clearly, what you did was incredibly foolish and extremely unwise."
Snow Empress mercilessly poured cold water over her:
"The human world is far more dangerous than you imagine.
In your current transformed state, with no ability to protect yourself, you dared enter the human world. Most likely, before you could even grow stronger, other powerful humans would discover you and turn you into their Spirit Ring and Spirit Bone."
"By coming out so rashly, you would never be able to take revenge in your entire life. You might even throw your life away for nothing."
At this point, Snow Empress even gave a cold laugh.
"Fortunately, you still have a bit of conscience and weren't foolish enough to make that Sky Azure Bull Python and Titan Giant Ape transform with you.
Otherwise, you would only have dragged them down and caused them to become Spirit Rings and Spirit Bones for powerful humans as well."
Snow Empress's words were utterly merciless, even somewhat harsh.
But that was Snow Empress.
As the peerless overlord who had ruled the Far North for seven hundred thousand years, she had witnessed far too much death and cruelty.
Her tenderness and patience were extremely limited, reserved only for the very few people truly close to her.
Xue Bingchen was one of them, and Ice Empress, far away in the Far North, was another.
Even toward Xiaobai, the Ice Bear King and another overlord of the Far North, Snow Empress had always been exceedingly strict and unsmiling.
Therefore, after hearing of Xiao Wu's tragic experience, Snow Empress naturally could not possibly shed tears of sympathy or pity like those saintly human women.
The only reason she had asked was that, as a high-level Soul Beast that had lived for seven hundred thousand years, she felt a trace of pure curiosity toward an "oddity" like Xiao Wu, who had dared choose transformation upon merely reaching one hundred thousand years.
Now that her curiosity had been satisfied, she naturally gave the most objective and cold-blooded assessment.
And at this moment.
Having obediently explained everything, Xiao Wu listened to Snow Empress's merciless blows. Though she was deeply unconvinced, she did not dare utter a single word in rebuttal.
She could only stand there trembling, secretly sizing up Snow Empress and Xue Bingchen with a gaze filled with awe, confusion, and even a hint of collapse.
Xiao Wu's little head was now filled with countless questions!
I can't understand it!
Xiao Wu roared wildly in her heart:
Why? Why is this happening?!
I only transformed a few days ago! I only just arrived in this remote Notting City, where not even birds bother to shit!
Why would I run into the supreme overlord of the Far North—Lord Snow Empress—here?!
She was a terrifying existence whom even Daming and Erming together could not match with one hand! Why would a big shot of this level appear in a little beginner village like this?!
And...
Xiao Wu glanced at Xue Bingchen, who was trying to hold back his laughter beside her, and felt her worldview completely collapse.
Why did the dignified Lord Snow Empress emerge from the body of a human man?!
Shouldn't she be staying high above in the Far North, patrolling her territory? The Far North has such a vast domain and so many subordinates—did she not want any of them anymore? Just to be this human's... bodyguard?!
Xiao Wu felt that this world was simply too crazy. She, a hundred-thousand-year-old little rabbit, truly could not make sense of it!
Meanwhile.
In the core region of the Far North, tens of thousands of miles away, where ice and snow covered the land year-round and the temperature was low enough to freeze even one's soul.
A gorgeous scorpion of petite size, seemingly carved from the purest icy jade and radiating an aura of ultimate frost, lay listlessly atop a massive iceberg.
She was none other than the second-ranked of the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Extreme North—the Ice Jade Empress Scorpion, Ice Empress!
Suddenly.
"Achoo!"
Ice Empress let out an exceptionally loud sneeze, shaking the surrounding ice and snow until it rustled down.
She rubbed her crystalline little nose in confusion, and a flicker of bewilderment passed through her emerald-like eyes.
"How strange..."
Ice Empress muttered:
"I am a dignified Ice Jade Empress Scorpion with four hundred thousand years of cultivation. How could I possibly sneeze? Could it be... someone, somewhere, was talking about me behind my back?!"
Elsewhere.
As Snow Empress withdrew the terrifying pressure that belonged to the seven-hundred-thousand-year Ruler of the Far North, Xiao Wu immediately felt the mountain weighing upon her heart vanish.
She gulped down breaths of air, and at last, a trace of color returned to her pale little face.
This meant that Snow Empress's aura was no longer locked onto her and that she would not kill her for the time being.
But Xiao Wu could not feel happy at all. She did not even feel the joy of surviving a disaster.
Because...
Standing before her was Snow Empress!
The strongest and coldest woman in the entire Far North!
Not to mention that Xiao Wu was currently just a Soul Beast cultivator with no combat ability, unable to even defeat Flat-top Yu Xiaogang, who only knew how to spout nonsense.
Even if she were still in her untransformed, hundred-thousand-year Soft Bone Rabbit true form, she absolutely would not be able to withstand even a single finger from Snow Empress!
What should I do? How can I survive? I still have to keep this life to avenge Mom!
Xiao Wu screamed wildly in her heart, anxious as an ant on a hot pan. Her gaze swept back and forth between Snow Empress and Xue Bingchen, trying to find a sliver of hope.
Suddenly!
When Xiao Wu's eyes landed on Xue Bingchen, who stood nearby with his arms crossed and watched her with interest, a flash of inspiration suddenly struck her mind!
Wait a second!
Xiao Wu widened her ruby-like eyes, and stormy waves surged in her heart:
This human Soul Master... this white-haired big brother who looks only a little older than me, actually called Lord Snow Empress... Mom, without the slightest awkwardness just now?!
And Lord Snow Empress not only didn't get angry, she even acknowledged his identity as the Young Master of the Far North?!
What did that mean? It meant this human held an absolutely extraordinary position in Lord Snow Empress's heart!
At that thought, the cunning and survival instinct belonging to Xiao Wu, the hundred-thousand-year rogue rabbit, instantly overcame her fear!
Before you continue