First Meeting with the Ice Empress, Recruiting a Gatekeeper

She lowered her head, her expression focused as she used her warm fingers to wipe away the tiny ice crystals that had formed along the hem of Yu Chen's robe from the cold.

Her movements were gentle, earnest, even carrying a trace of... reverence.

As though what she was doing was not some trivial task, but a sacred ritual.

Wang Dong'er sat on Yu Chen's other side, her arm wrapped intimately around his, half her body leaning against him.

As she watched Ma Xiaotao's actions, a complicated look appeared in her lovely pink-blue eyes.

Was it awkward? A little.

After all, not long ago, this woman had been Shrek Academy's famed "Flame Maniac," a senior even the teachers found troublesome. Yet now, she was doing the lowliest tasks like a... servant.

But was Wang Dong'er pleased? That was true as well.

The man who could make such a proud phoenix bow her head was her man.

She shared in that glory.

Thus, Wang Dong'er nestled even closer into Yu Chen's embrace, lightly resting her chin on his shoulder. Like a kitten declaring its territory, she silently proclaimed something in Ma Xiaotao's direction.

Ma Xiaotao showed no reaction to her provocation. Or rather, she simply did not care.

It seemed that her world contained only the man before her and the few ice crystals on his clothes that needed to be cleaned away.

Yu Chen was equally unperturbed by it all.

As though a woman's obedience and service were only natural.

His gaze remained fixed on the distance.

On the end of that vast white ice field, where the boundary between heaven and earth had blurred beyond recognition.

"Chen, where are we going?" Wang Dong'er asked softly beside his ear, her warm breath making it itch slightly.

"To meet a neighbor."

Yu Chen's answer was brief and to the point.

"A neighbor?" Wang Dong'er blinked, taking a moment to process it.

In this godforsaken place, where could there possibly be a neighbor?

"A... not very friendly neighbor," Yu Chen said, his tone as casual as if he were commenting on the pleasant weather. "As it happens, my Heavenly Dragon God Pavilion is still missing a gatekeeper."

A gatekeeper?

Wang Dong'er froze.

A fervent gleam also flashed through Ma Xiaotao's downcast eyes.

Her lord's words were never a joke.

If he said he needed a gatekeeper, then it meant that some peak existence in the Far North was about to become the guard beast of the Heavenly Dragon God Pavilion.

How domineering!

Only such dominance was worthy of their lord!

Just then.

The Ice Jade Scorpion beneath them, which had been gliding as smoothly as silk, stalled for the first time.

Its enormous body shuddered violently, letting out a low hiss full of terror. Then it sprawled over the ice, trembling uncontrollably and no longer daring to advance even an inch.

"Hmm?"

Yu Chen did not so much as furrow his brow, merely letting out a faint questioning sound through his nose.

The change came swiftly.

The sky ahead darkened without warning.

It was not the darkness of clouds blocking out the sun, but a darkness as though the light itself had been forcibly frozen.

An indescribable chill descended from the heavens!

This cold was completely unlike the biting winds that pervaded the Far North. If the earlier cold had been physical, then this cold acted directly upon the soul!

Wang Dong'er could not help shivering, instinctively curling even deeper into Yu Chen's arms.

Ma Xiaotao's body tensed as well. She instinctively circulated her Soul Power to resist, only to find that before this chill, her phoenix flames were like fire doused with a basin of icy water. Even their rising momentum weakened.

Only Yu Chen remained as steady as a mountain.

He did not even change his posture. He merely raised his eyelids and looked toward the darkened sky.

In the heavens, a jade-green figure approached from afar, breaking through the frigid clouds.

It was a woman.

A woman so beautiful that she took one's breath away.

She had long jade-green hair, skin so fair it was nearly translucent, and features exquisite enough to seem like the most perfect creation of a goddess of ice and snow.

Yet her equally jade-green eyes held not the slightest human emotion. There was only eternal frost and an absolute zero capable of freezing all things.

She hovered in midair, looking down upon the three people on the Ice Jade Scorpion's back. At last, her gaze settled upon Yu Chen.

Cold and indifferent, as though she were looking at three rocks about to be frozen into fragments.

A clear, icy voice bearing overwhelming majesty rang across the entire ice field.

"Humans, you have trespassed into my territory. Have you come... to die?"

Her voice seemed carved from ten-thousand-year black ice. Every word carried a chill capable of freezing souls into powder.

Wang Dong'er instinctively shuddered. She nearly had to cling to Yu Chen's body just to draw a trace of warmth from the bone-piercing cold.

Ma Xiaotao remained on one knee, but her body had already gone taut. Phoenix Soul Power surged wildly through her body, yet it could barely protect her vital organs against the all-pervading extreme cold.

Only Yu Chen remained seated calmly.

He did not even look at the breathtaking figure in the air. Instead, he raised a hand boredly and flicked nonexistent dust from his sleeve.

"Come to die?"

He repeated the phrase, his tone as calm as if asking for directions.

Then, before Wang Dong'er and Ma Xiaotao's stunned eyes, he slowly drifted down from the back of the Ice Jade Scorpion, which had been frightened nearly into an ice sculpture.

His feet landed upon the solid ice without making the slightest sound.

Only then did he raise his head. Those deep black eyes finally looked directly at the Ice Empress hovering in the air.

His gaze contained neither reverence nor admiration. It was as if a craftsman were examining a fairly decent piece of material, appraising it and passing judgment.

After a moment, he nodded in satisfaction.

"No."

The single word drifted lightly from his lips.

Then came a sentence that made even the frigid cold across the ice field seem to halt.

"I came to inform you."

"Starting today, my Heavenly Dragon Gate's Far North branch needs a gatekeeper."

Yu Chen pointed at the ice beneath his feet, then toward the distance, as though planning out his own backyard.

"I think you would be quite suitable."

The air fell silent.

Deathly silent.

Wang Dong'er's beautiful eyes blinked. For a moment, she wondered whether the cold had given her auditory hallucinations.

He wanted... this being, who was clearly the ruler of the Far North, to guard a gate?

Chen was simply too...

Ma Xiaotao's breath caught, followed by an indescribable fervor rising within her chest!

This was what befitted her lord!

He regarded all the world's powerful beings as nothing!

In midair, that jade-green figure's face, frozen like an eternal iceberg, showed an expression for the first time.

It was not anger.

It was bewilderment.

The ultimate bewilderment of Who am I, where am I, and what did I just hear?

She was a three-hundred-thousand-year Ice Jade Empress Scorpion, one of the Far North's Three Heavenly Kings, the embodiment of ice and snow, the absolute ruler of this land.

Forget humans—even those ferocious beasts in the Star Dou Great Forest had to treat her politely upon seeing her.

But today.