Zhu Zhuyun simply nodded and leaped off the ice ridge.
With nimble footwork, she stepped on protrusions in the ice wall and landed on the low shoreline rocks in just a few bounds.
"Big Sister Zhu Yun, hop on!" Jiang Lan patted Lan Fozi's side fin.
Lan Fozi turned around and lowered one fin so Zhu Zhuyun could climb aboard.
Zhu Zhuyun hesitated for a moment, then grabbed the edge of the fin and swung herself onto the whale's back.
Lan Fozi's scales were cold to the touch, but once Zhu Zhuyun sat down, she felt a strange sense of stability, as though this mountain-sized behemoth could never capsize.
"Let's go!" Jiang Lan sat beside Lan Fozi's head, with Doro sprawled on his shoulder.
Lan Fozi let out a long, resonant whale call. With a sweep of her tail, her enormous body cleaved through the sea toward the distant cluster of icebergs.
The Ice Empress lay on the ice ridge, watching Lan Fozi's figure gradually recede.
All that remained on the sea was a long white wake and the faint laughter of a human, a soul, and a whale drifting through the sea breeze.
She remained silent for a long time, then snorted.
"What's so fun about that?" the Ice Empress muttered to herself, crawling toward the other side of the ice ridge.
After a few steps, she stopped again.
She glanced back at the sea.
That little black-and-white figure had dwindled to a distant speck, lying on Lan Fozi's head and shouting something into the distance with Doro.
The Ice Empress's emerald scorpion eyes flickered slightly.
"It's just fishing," the Ice Empress snorted again, continuing toward the frozen lake, her eight legs leaving a trail of deep tracks in the snow.
"I have a frozen lake. I can fish