Dreams Shattered, Flowers Fall; Moon Hidden, Clouds Grieved

The ninety-nine white jade steps of the Pope Palace shimmered with a cold light in the twilight as Qian Lingche pulled his mink-fur cloak tighter and climbed upward.

His Soul Power churned restlessly within him, and the lingering chill of his martial soul caused frost to bloom along the edges of the stone steps.

"I trouble you to announce my arrival to Mother..." He looked up at the three-zhang-tall gilded palace doors, where the angel emblem on the guard's breastplate reflected a blinding glare.

The heavily armored captain of the guard blocked his path with a halberd: "Apologies, Your Highness, but Her Holiness the Pope is currently in seclusion."

Laughter suddenly drifted from within the hall. Through the carved doors, Qian Lingche saw the slender figure of a young girl clinging to his mother's arm.

"Teacher, I can finally release my martial soul with ease!"

"Nana is wonderful. Tomorrow, Teacher will take you to hunt for a soul ring."

Qian Lingche's fingertips dug deep into his palms. He felt that the agony of absorbing a three-thousand-year soul ring was nothing compared to this; his mother's gentle tone felt like an ice pick from the Far North, piercing through his eardrums and into his heart.

As the twilight soaked the final step, he arrived at the entrance of the Worship Hall.

The setting sun gilded the statue of the Six-Winged Angel. His sister's sweet laughter drifted on the evening breeze, and the crisp sound of clinking dinner plates was punctuated by his grandfather's deep, approving praise.

Qian Lingche did not know why—why he alone was the superfluous one.

But he did not ask again. He simply turned in silence and walked back to his own palace.

Fortunately, as a young master of Spirit Hall, even if he was not valued, he still possessed what he was entitled to, though that was all there was to it...

The twelve ice-cracked patterned windows of the Frost Snow Palace reflected a lonely shadow as Qian Lingche curled up on a bed carved from black ice.

The dinner served by the maid as per custom gradually grew cold on the side table. Ice beads condensed on the edge of the rosewood tray and slid slowly down the wings of the angel relief.

In the Angel God Palace above the sea of clouds, Qian Yuhan's six wings stretched out amidst the starlight.

The divine mirror reflected the Frost Snow Palace on the Douluo Continent, where ice crystals were growing along the eyelashes of the sleeping child.

"A Six-Winged Angel of extreme cold, is it..." Her finger tapped the mirror surface, and ripples revealed the scene of the day Qian Lingche awakened his martial soul.

Snow God Qian Shangyi's silver eyelashes trembled as her fingertip brushed the frozen red earlobe of the child in the mirror: "Thirty thousand years, and this is the only child with the same martial soul as mine."

Qian Shangyi's fingertips condensed frost on the surface of the divine mirror, and ice crystals grew along the outline of the curled-up Qian Lingche.

"Look at how he clutches his cloak; it is exactly the same as when I was locked out of Spirit Hall at twelve years old."

Qian Yuhan's hand trembled slightly as she watched the scene emerge in the mirror: a young girl in a tattered fox-fur coat walking arduously through a blizzard, step by step.

Inside the glass windows of the Pope Palace, other heirs were gathered around a warm stove, sharing honey cakes.

"Of all Father's children, only I..." Qian Shangyi brushed the frost from the mirror, revealing her younger self kneeling in the snow.

A cold wind suddenly blew into the hall, and Qian Lingche shivered in his sleep.

Qian Shangyi's divine consciousness manifested as a phantom, gently stroking the child's back. This gesture reminded the Angel God of that Xue Ye ten thousand years ago—when she, having just become the Angel God, passed through the snow plains and saw the young Qian Shangyi using her own body to warm a frozen Ice Plains Wolf.

"Human troubles are nothing more than a few words." The Snow God's voice shattered the frozen time: "Unable to let go of blood ties, unable to understand why one is cast aside, unable to see through the warmth and coldness of the world, unable to forget the lingering warmth in one's palm."

Qian Yuhan's gaze fell to a spot in the mirror. Beside Qian Lingche's pillow lay half a crushed Snow Honey Cake; it was something Guang Ling had shoved into his hands yesterday, but he could not bear to finish it.

"If someone had left me a honey cake back then..." Qian Shangyi's silver eyelashes were covered in ice crystals.

"How similar he is to your own experience." Qian Yuhan's eyes reflected Qian Shangyi's regret: "In the end, will he also become that beam of light in a night that no one illuminates?"

"But my ice shattered the shackles that bound me!" The ice crystals condensed around her into that Snow Soul Sword that had accompanied her through ten thousand years of battle: "Yet he is still waiting for others to bestow light and warmth upon him."

Qian Yuhan shook her head, and holy light smoothed over the cracks in the mirror.

A new scene emerged: Qian Lingche was using his Soul Power to condense ice crystals, which then flowed between his fingertips into the shape of a sunflower.

"Look, he actually understands everything; he just still wants to try."

Qian Shangyi stared blankly as Qian Lingche placed the carved ice flower opposite his cold dinner plate, as if his imagined family were sitting there.

"Life is like snow; the harder you try to grasp it, the more it slips through your fingers."