Dreamland: Snow Lotus Location (Seeking Follow-ups [●'◡'●])

Yan Hongchen returned to his room and headed straight for the shower. Warm water streamed over his body, washing away the day's exhaustion.

He closed his eyes and let the droplets slide down his skin, but his mind still churned with thoughts about martial souls and soul rings.

When the sound of running water stopped, Yan Hongchen dried himself, changed into soft pajamas, and finally lay down in his familiar bed.

The mattress was soft and the blanket warm, yet his thoughts refused to settle.

He turned over and gazed at the hazy moonlight spilling in through the window. His mind was a mess, like a tangled ball of thread with no loose end to find.

All kinds of ideas about combining martial souls with soul tools drifted and intertwined, but he could not sort them into any clear direction.

He who hesitates only invites chaos.

Of course Yan Hongchen understood that principle, but the more he tried to sort things out, the more muddled his mind became. Before he knew it, his eyelids grew heavy, and his thoughts scattered like clouds blown apart by the wind, slowly drifting away as he sank into sleep.

Dream world.

Yan Hongchen's consciousness drifted aimlessly before descending into a vast world blanketed by wind and snow.

Heavy snow fell in a sky and earth of the same color. He wandered without purpose, crossing frozen lakes and snow-covered mountains, occasionally catching glimpses of soul beasts flashing past through the blizzard.

Suddenly, the sky darkened.

It was not the ordinary darkness of dusk or nightfall, but a suffocating, oppressive gloom that made his heart race.

Yan Hongchen looked up to see layers of black clouds surging in from the horizon, blotting out the sky as though they would swallow the entire heavens.

A violent wind rose abruptly. The previously gentle snowfall instantly became a blizzard of goose-feather snow, raging wildly in the gale and making it impossible to keep one's eyes open.

And beneath those black clouds, a figure floated in midair.

It was a woman who appeared to be no more than seventeen or eighteen. Her snow-white hair moved without wind, cascading down to her waist.

Her face was exquisitely beautiful, yet so cold that she seemed inhuman, like a work of art carved from ten-thousand-year ice. Beautiful as she was, there was not the slightest warmth to her.

Most striking were her eyes. They were ice-blue, deep as ancient black ice. There was no emotional fluctuation within them, only pure, absolute indifference.

She wore a long white dress, its hem fluttering softly in the gale. Visible mist of extreme cold curled around her body, and even through the illusion of the dream, Yan Hongchen could feel that bone-piercing chill.

Her left hand was lustrously white as jade and pure as snow, as if meticulously sculpted from the finest mutton-fat white jade.

In her right hand, she gripped a deep-blue longsword. Its blade seemed to have condensed from ice crystals formed over millions of years, glimmering with a faint, chilling light beneath the dim sky.

Lightning tribulation!

The thought had barely flashed through Yan Hongchen's mind when the first bolt descended from the sky, and his consciousness began to sharpen.

It was no ordinary lightning. Each bolt was as thick as a water barrel, glowing purple-black as it crashed down with world-destroying force.

The woman swung her sword with her right hand to block it while her left palm flashed through the air, resisting the unending lightning tribulation. One sword strike after another. One palm strike after another.

Yet the lightning tribulation seemed infinite, wave after wave, bolt after bolt, showing no sign of weakening.

Her figure continually dodged, blocked, and counterattacked amid the lightning, but her injuries steadily worsened.

The lustrous white of her left hand gradually blackened with scorch marks, and her jade-like skin began to crack. With every collision, dense fissures appeared across the blade of the ice-crystal sword in her right hand.

At last, the sword broke.

Half the blade fell into the wind and snow, only to be buried beneath the heavy snowfall in an instant.

The hand holding the broken sword trembled slightly. She looked up at the sky, and a strange flicker appeared in those ice-blue eyes—not fear, but an almost indifferent calm.

It was as if she had long expected this moment and had merely been waiting for it to arrive.

The next wave of lightning tribulation was gathering. The black clouds churned more violently, and faint purple light flowed within their depths—the sign of a far more terrifying power than before.

The woman's hand suddenly opened, and a flower appeared in her palm—

It was a snow-white lotus, its layered petals crystalline and translucent, as though formed from ice and snow.

Blooming in this world shrouded by the lightning tribulation, it possessed a strange, tragic beauty.

Yan Hongchen's heart jolted. He wanted to look closer, but as his own consciousness awakened, the scene before him had already begun to blur.

The woman's figure gradually shrank, becoming a streak of white light that merged into the snow lotus. The lotus swayed gently, as if nodding at him—or perhaps it was merely stirred by the wind.

The lightning tribulation in the sky roiled for a while before gradually dispersing after losing its target.

The black clouds receded, the gale calmed, and the snow continued to fall thickly, soon burying every trace of what had just happened.

The snow lotus, too, had vanished without a trace.

Yan Hongchen abruptly opened his eyes.

The familiar ceiling greeted him. He sat up and gasped for breath, his left hand pressed to his chest as his heart pounded violently—thump, thump, thump—as if it were about to leap from his ribcage. With his right hand, he rubbed his temples, trying to clear his head.

"Was that... the Extreme North Icefield?" Yan Hongchen muttered. "Did I dream about some soul beast undergoing a tribulation?"

The scene in the dream had been far too real—so real that it made his heart palpitate.

The black clouds that covered the sky, the endless lightning tribulation, the breathtaking yet icy woman, the snow lotus blooming beneath the tribulation clouds—every detail was so vivid that it felt engraved in his mind.

Generally speaking, people did not realize they were dreaming while they dreamed. Once they became aware of it, the dreamscape would slowly collapse.

He took a deep breath, then slowly let it out, trying to calm his wildly pounding heart. But the images in his mind refused to fade.

Wait...

The snow lotus of the Far North!

Yan Hongchen's pupils contracted slightly.

That was... Snow Empress?

He recalled that in his previous life, he had indeed read about Snow Empress's tribulation in the original novel. The foremost of the Three Heavenly Kings of the Far North, an Ice Sky Snow Maiden born of heaven and earth, she had attempted to survive a lightning tribulation after taking human form. In the end, she failed and fused with a Hundred-Thousand-Year Snow Lotus...

"Did I just dream about Snow Empress undergoing her tribulation?" he muttered, disbelief lacing his voice.

Yan Hongchen had indeed considered getting involved with Snow Empress. After all, he knew the clues to the Ten-Thousand-Year Mysterious Ice Cave at the Earth Dragon Sect. If Ice Empress and Snow Empress of the Far North were willing to cooperate, then treasures like the Ten-Thousand-Year Mysterious Ice Marrow and the Ice Extremity Divine Crystal might not be beyond reach. But wasn't this too much of a coincidence?

Just as he was about to mock himself for dreaming about what occupied his thoughts during the day, something suddenly flashed through his mind.

It was a clear map, as though it had been etched into his brain. Mountains, rivers, ice fields, snow valleys—he could not say every detail was exact, but there was more than enough of the general layout. And at the most conspicuous spot on the map was the mark of a flower.

Yan Hongchen's nerves instantly went taut. Who had tampered with his mind?!

He shot upright and warily scanned his surroundings. The room was empty, and the sky outside was still dim.

"This is... the location of that snow lotus just now?" Yan Hongchen stared at the map in his mind and murmured.