Yang Xingchen stepped into the vast white snow, his breath turning into white mist that drifted through the air.
"Snow Empress, how much farther is the Ice Spirit Cold Spring? I feel like I've been walking forever!"
Ever since he entered the Far North, the perpetually bright sky had begun to blur Yang Xingchen's sense of time.
He had no idea how long he had actually walked. Without the Snow Empress's power protecting him, he would probably have perished here long ago.
To keep her current self from being discovered by the Snow Empress of this time and space, the Snow Empress had no choice but to suppress most of her power and condense a doll-sized humanoid form.
"About another half day's journey. This is the season of polar day in the Far North. Heaven and Earth Yuan Power is especially active, and many opportunities that are normally hard to find will appear."
"The Ice Spirit Cold Spring is one such opportunity. Without the help of polar day, even this empress would need to draw on Heaven and Earth Yuan Power to locate such a fortuitous encounter."
The Snow Empress sat on Yang Xingchen's shoulder, holding a skewer of candied hawthorns as she guided him.
Glancing at the Snow Empress licking her candied hawthorns, Yang Xingchen couldn't help marveling once again at how addictive sweets could be.
Ever since the Snow Empress first tasted candied hawthorns, she would sense whether any were being sold almost every time they passed through a town.
"By the way, Snow Empress, can you actually taste those candied hawthorns? Aren't you a soul body right now, if I remember correctly?"
Yang Xingchen had wanted to ask this question for a long time. He remembered the Snow Empress saying back then that she was already a soul body.
"This empress is a Soul Beast with seven hundred thousand years of cultivation. Simulating a sense of taste is as easy as reaching out and taking something."
"Besides, being a soul body is only temporary. Once I devour my other self later on, this empress will have a physical body again."
After eating the last candied hawthorn, the Snow Empress lightly tossed the bamboo skewer in her hand, striking a Snowfield Wolf lurking nearby.
The Snowfield Wolf howled in pain as its paw was pierced. Not daring to spare Yang Xingchen and the Snow Empress another glance, it slunk away.
Yang Xingchen watched the Snowfield Wolf's retreating figure with a pained expression. He really didn't want to keep walking anymore.
"Aw, we finally ran into a lone Snowfield Wolf! Why did you drive it away, Snow Empress? We should've taken it as a mount!"
"Snowfield Wolves aren't suitable mounts. They're nowhere near as comfortable as sitting on Xiao Bai's shoulder. Besides, once it picked up a human's scent, it definitely wouldn't be able to return to its pack."
When she had just passed three hundred thousand years, the Snow Empress had indeed found a ninety-thousand-year Snowfield Wolf King to ride out of boredom. The experience had practically shaken her brains into a smoothie.
The next time the Snow Empress heard news of that Snowfield Wolf King, it had already failed its hundred-thousand-year lightning tribulation, its body dead and its Dao extinguished.
"But Lady Snow Empress, could it possibly be that we need a Snowfield Wolf as a mount precisely because we can't rely on your Xiao Bai right now?"
"Umm, this empress failed to consider that. As compensation, I'll personally take you to catch a mount later."
"I want a handsome one. Ugly ones need not apply, all right?"
Hearing that the Snow Empress would take him to catch a mount, Yang Xingchen instantly perked up. Seriously, who wouldn't want a handsome mount?
In the blink of an eye, half a day passed as Yang Xingchen and the Snow Empress discussed mounts.
Yang Xingchen leaned forward and peered into the bottomless hole before him. It was pitch-black inside, and he couldn't make out a thing.
To test its depth, Yang Xingchen condensed a ball of ice and tossed it in, ready to listen for the sound of it hitting the bottom.
But even after a long while, Yang Xingchen heard no sound of the ice ball landing from within the hole.
At this, Yang Xingchen couldn't help swallowing. Pointing at the entrance, he asked the Snow Empress for confirmation once again:
"Snow Empress, are you sure this is the right place? Why do I feel like I'll have ten chances at death and none at survival if I jump down?"
"Relax. With your current physique, you'll break a few bones at most. It's nothing serious."
The Snow Empress glanced at the large hole in the ground, calmly eating her candied hawthorns. She could sense that the Ice Spirit Cold Spring wasn't far from them.
Besides, with her here, Yang Xingchen had nothing to worry about, all right? It wasn't as though she was careless.
"Fine. Only you would bully a seven-year-old child, Snow Empress."
Seeing that the Snow Empress remained unmoved, Yang Xingchen shrugged and leaped into the hole.
"That brat Xingchen, honestly. Even if you're going to fleece someone, you can't keep plucking wool from the same sheep!"
Only after Yang Xingchen's figure had been completely swallowed by the darkness of the cavern did the Snow Empress leisurely finish the last fruit in her hand.
Just as the Snow Empress was about to enter the hole before her, she suddenly sensed a ripple of Soul Power flash through the Ice Spirit Cold Spring, one she couldn't have been more familiar with.
"Hmm? To think a remnant of that damned race is still in this Ice Spirit Cold Spring. Judging by its presence, though, it's only at the thousand-year level. It must have been missed back then."
"Something at this level is well within Xingchen's ability to handle alone. This is a good chance to check whether he's been slacking off in his cultivation lately."
Having made up her mind, the Snow Empress descended slowly into the cavern as though strolling through a quiet courtyard, making sure she wouldn't appear before Yang Xingchen too soon.
As he sped down the icy passage, Yang Xingchen summoned the Space-Time Fishing Rod. By repeatedly swinging it to hook distant ice pillars and adjust his direction, he finally managed to land steadily as he emerged from the passage.
Yang Xingchen brushed the ice granules off his clothes. When he looked up, an ice cavern the size of a soccer field stood before his eyes.
The ceiling was forty feet high, with icicles of varying lengths hanging from it. Milky-white cold mist gathered at their tips, and every so often, a drop of Ice Spirit liquid fell into the cold spring below.
Yang Xingchen stepped forward and stirred the pool of cold spring water before him with his hand, sending rings of ripples across its surface.
"Even with a layer of cold mist floating above it, there's not the slightest sign of the water freezing. This Ice Spirit Cold Spring really is magical."
But before Yang Xingchen could stand, a hand abruptly shot out of the water, seized his wrist, and tried to drag him in.
Had Yang Xingchen not reacted quickly enough, instantly casting out his fishing line to bind a nearby ice pillar and steady himself, that tug would certainly have pulled him into the water.
Seeing that it couldn't pull Yang Xingchen in, the hand began to retreat. It released his wrist and withdrew into the water, but how could Yang Xingchen let it have its way?
"You grabbed me, and now you want to run without paying my medical bills? Your guts really have grown nice and fat. Get up here!"
With an ice pillar as thick as one person's encircling arms supporting him, Yang Xingchen barely exerted himself before hauling the thing hidden in the water out.
But once he had pulled the thing fully into view, Yang Xingchen froze. He had never imagined that the thing in the water would be another him!
The only difference between this thing before him and himself was that its entire body was a similar color to the ice cavern, as though the cavern had copied it using him as a template.
"Interesting. Isn't this just like those novels from my previous life loved to write, where the protagonist fights his own clone? Looks like I'll get to experience the protagonist treatment today too!"
The moment he finished speaking, Yang Xingchen dashed up to the clone, his eyes brimming with excitement, and lashed a whip kick at the most important part of a man's lower body.
Bang!
A tremendous crash echoed through the ice cavern. The clone caught Yang Xingchen's whip kick with its hand and flung him away in the same motion.
Yang Xingchen performed a sideways flip in midair and landed steadily, summoning the Space-Time Fishing Rod back into his hand.
"Looks like you've got protective measures for your little brother. Let's see whether a copy can measure up to the original!"
At the same time, a replica of the Space-Time Fishing Rod appeared in Yang Xingchen's clone's hand.