The foremost of the Three Great Heavenly Kings of the Far North, ranked third among the Ten Great Ferocious Beasts.
That was everything the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm knew about the Snow Empress.
Compared with the Ice Empress, the noble and beautiful Snow Empress, with her seven hundred thousand years of cultivation, seemed more likely to be someone's dream goddess.
The Titan Snow Demon King, who had been beaten severely enough to spend a thousand years cowering in his lair, would say, "You're absolutely right."
But Tian Meng preferred petite girls like the Ice Empress over mature beauties like the Snow Empress. All one could say was that some liked radishes and others liked cabbage-everyone had their own tastes.
Lin Qian was different. He couldn't do multiple-choice questions, so he would scoop up mature beauties and petite girls in one pot. He wanted them all!
And if he wanted the Snow Empress's Soul Ring, the Ice Empress was especially important.
This was another tale of a female simp.
Why "another"?
Because this was an age-old tradition of the Far North. The place had jack shit, but it certainly produced simps in abundance.
They practically counted as a local specialty.
And as the Ice Empress's number-one simp, Tian Meng knew every detail of the love and hate between the Ice and Snow Empresses like treasures in his own collection, and recounted them all to Lin Qian.
Two women together made for a promising lesbian romance, but whenever he remembered that they were both fish in his own pond, Lin Qian felt certain scenes ought to stay in porn films and not be brought into reality.
The sleeping Ice Empress never imagined that, while she slumbered, those two birds of a feather, Lin Qian and Tian Meng, were loudly plotting how to make a move on her dream goddess.
Had she known, she would have taken those two down with her even at the cost of her life. She would never let them sully her goddess.
Ten thousand years earlier, the heavenly tribulation had yet to arrive.
Without the tribulation clouds of her seven-hundred-thousand-year milestone to worry about, the Snow Empress was not panicking in the slightest. Kidnapping her and brainwashing her in a locked room as they had done with the Ice Empress clearly wouldn't work, and they might not even succeed in kidnapping her.
Their success with the Ice Empress could not be replicated. Unlike her and the Titan Snow Demon King, the Snow Empress was truly born of heaven and earth and nurtured by them, formed from the ice-elemental energy of heaven and earth-the Douluo Continent's first Soul Spirit.
It was precisely this uniqueness that had allowed her to overcome six heavenly tribulations in succession, becoming the strongest ice-type Soul Beast on the entire continent and firmly occupying her throne as the foremost Far North Heavenly King.
The two discussed it back and forth, but even by the time the Ice Empress woke, they still had no suitable plan.
"Why haven't you left yet?"
Sure enough, that was what the Ice Empress asked as soon as she woke.
Following their agreed-upon approach, Lin Qian cleared his throat. "Bing'er, as my Soul Spirit, I won't force you to do anything."
He spoke with easy familiarity, but the Ice Empress didn't mind. Their minds had already mingled, after all, and neither could hide their secrets from the other anymore.
In other words... in each other's eyes, they might as well have been running around naked. There was no privacy to speak of.
Tian Meng was male, so it didn't matter if he knew certain things. They could even discuss them and gain experience.
Soul Beasts had sexes too. Even if the Ice Empress only counted as half, she still rounded up to a girl.
As she learned the secrets between men, certain strange traits were increasing too.
Understanding that Lin Qian meant the opposite of what he said, the Ice Empress couldn't be bothered to beat around the bush. "You want to find the Snow Empress, don't you?"
They hadn't expected her to be so frank, and it left the pair at a loss. They exchanged a look, and Lin Qian spoke again. "That's right. But like I said, I won't force you."
The Ice Empress responded to a soft touch, not force. Especially since, for certain unmentionable reasons, she wanted the Snow Empress to stay by her side forever, his words were exactly what she wanted to hear. Why wouldn't she agree?
Not wanting to give herself away-though everyone already knew-the Ice Empress pretended to be concerned for her master. "As far as I know, the Snow Empress will undergo her seventh heavenly tribulation ten thousand years from now, breaking through the seven-hundred-thousand-year threshold. She's already preparing, gathering heavenly treasures from all over. So if you go negotiate, your chances of success should be pretty good."
As a veteran female simp of many years, she understood the Snow Empress's nature. She knew that although the Snow Empress was aloof, her temper wasn't bad... the Titan Snow Demon King didn't count, because he was a romantic rival and far too ugly, so he was automatically excluded.
With the right strategy, getting her to perform Sacrifice and become a Soul Spirit would be even easier than it had been with the Ice Empress.
After hearing the Ice Empress's analysis, Lin Qian and Tian Meng were overjoyed. Who needed a bicycle when they already had this? Time to get going!
And so the snowmobile was back in action. With Tian Meng and the Ice Empress perched on his shoulders, one on either side, pointing the way, Lin Qian headed for the deepest reaches of the Far North.
The Far North Core Region.
Here, heaven and earth were truly frozen, with snow drifting for ten thousand miles.
Rumble!
Lin Qian executed an extreme drift and stopped steadily before a Snow Spirit. "Honored spirit, we've come to see the Snow Empress. Please announce us."
He had expected them to make things difficult, or simply drive them out, but things went unexpectedly smoothly.
After hearing why they had come, the Snow Spirit stepped aside without the slightest hesitation. "Her Majesty the Snow Empress has been expecting you for quite some time. Please, come in!"
"???"
"!!!"
Lin Qian and Tian Meng exchanged a look, thinking of the snowmobile's noise, as loud as a public-square dance session, and the Titan Snow Demon King's search.
Things seemed to be off to a bad start. If they walked into the Snow Empress's lair like this, wouldn't all three of them get wiped out in one go?
The arrow was on the string; they had no choice but to loose it.
The farther in they went, the more Snow Spirits there were, each with considerable cultivation. It was too late to run.
Not wanting to be hunted down or looked down on, Lin Qian took a deep breath at the entrance, then steeled himself and walked in.
The great doors slowly opened.
Unlike the ice cellar where they had stayed temporarily, this was a true kingdom of ice and snow. Like the palace's owner, it seemed to have been formed from the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
Compared with this place, even the Ice Empress's home looked so lame.
Struck by a sudden thought, Lin Qian asked the Ice Empress on his left shoulder, "Bing'er, people of Douluo don't lie to other people of Douluo. Tell me honestly: are you pursuing the Snow Empress because you want to move into this huge house?"
The Ice Empress puffed up angrily and retorted, "Of course not! Do you think I'm like you, eating from your bowl while eyeing the pot, with your eyes on a beautiful mother-and-daughter pair too?"
She didn't specify which mother and daughter, but those who knew, knew. No explanation needed.
Back to the matter at hand.
Just as their bickering was about to begin, the Snow Empress descended from the sky.
She had grown from heaven and earth. Besides the human form all high-level Soul Beasts possessed, she could also shift through space at will.
As long as she remained in the Far North, she was this land's one and only queen!
Whoosh~
Accompanied by her own entrance sound effect, the foremost Heavenly King of the Far North finally appeared before Lin Qian.
The platinum-colored ball of light scattered on the wind, gradually revealing the Snow Girl's true appearance.
She looked human, with snow-white hair falling to her heels, sky-blue eyes ethereal and clear, and a slender, flawless figure.
A simple, plain white dress traced the immaculate curves of her body. She was so holy, noble, and elegant, like a white lotus atop a snowy peak, lofty and beyond reach, defying frost and scorning snow, standing apart from all others.
The moment he saw her, the Ice Empress, the Heat Empress-whoever else-were all tossed aside. Only she remained in Lin Qian's eyes, and there was room for no one else.
In all fairness, bolstered by her home-ground advantage, the Snow Empress's bearing, for a moment, surpassed even that of Spirit Hall's Supreme Pontiff.
If Bibi Dong's nobility came from a life of privilege and comfort, then the Snow Empress was a flower on an unreachable peak, rising from the mud unstained. It was hard to say which was superior.