Chapter 4 Part 1
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Chapter 4 Part 1: Witch Queen, Bai Lian! (1)
Time flowed like water.
Midnight passed.
In the early morning of April 1,
on the vast icy tundra, shrouded in darkness, Bai Lian marched alone.
She had just left the snow mountain where Qianxue resided a quarter of an hour ago.
There,
she had erected a grave for Qianxue, uncertain whether anyone would ever come to pay their respects in the future.
Before leaving, Yougui, seriously injured and on the verge of death, had his surface wounds healed.
After completing everything, Bai Lian remembered to add some firewood to the stove burning in the room.
Although this wouldn’t heal Yougui’s injuries, at least, if he could still feel the outside world,
it would offer him a little more comfort—a sense of solace in his final moments.
After all, he was dying.
Let him feel a little more at ease, right?
There was no need for sorrowful melodies.
The endless howling of the northern wind and the monotonous white landscape were enough to make one’s heart ache.
The flowers were white.
The snow was white.
Bai Lian was white.
This world, too, was white.
But differently,
Snow, Bai Lian, and the world were cold,
while the flower twirling in Bai Lian’s hands radiated warmth.
Bai Lian followed the path guided by the warm flower.
Just as she had guessed,
the direction pointed to by the Soul Locking Flower was precisely where the Sea Grape Spring Garden lay.
“It seems that both the criminals and those involved in the game share the same goal, and it’s very likely that they are from the same group,”
Bai Lian sighed.
Was the returning soul in the game event titled “Soul Returns” Qianxue’s?
In the game, Tong Yao had experienced this event firsthand.
First, Master Qin, who was like a father to her, passed away in the chaos of the Duxian Sect.
Then, within just ten years, both of her parents perished in a quarrel at Hades Hall.
Even the cold winds of winter couldn’t be as brutal and frigid as that.
Bai Lian could understand why Tong Yao had grown so cold after gaining power.
It was a rapid growth, one paid for with blood and separation.
To be honest,
no one would desire such growth.
Bai Lian glanced at the beautiful flower in her hand.
“Perhaps…”
She shouldn’t have told Qianxue’s story to Tong Yao.
It would have been better if Tong Yao had simply kept a fond memory of it.
“What do you think?”
Bai Lian spoke softly.
Her voice was quickly drowned out by the wind and snowflakes.
But to her surprise, her palm was suddenly burned.
“?!”
Bai Lian was shocked.
Was there a trace of Qianxue’s consciousness hidden within this flower?
No matter how she tried,
she couldn’t detect any fluctuation from the Soul Locking Flower.
“…Forget it.”
She decided to address it at a more appropriate time.
Bai Lian lightly leapt up the cliff.
Standing on the bare, steep rocks, she saw a small basin before her.
The scenery in that basin was completely different from what lay behind her.
The Sea Grape Spring Garden.
Living amid ice and snow, she could savor the warmth of a southern spring!
When rivers elsewhere had frozen, here the stream was flowing, and there were scenes of green trees and red flowers.
Anyone but a blind person could tell something was wrong here.
The system didn’t provide a prompt, but Bai Lian hesitated.
If she crossed the “abyss,” would she end up like Qianxue, never able to meet her master or martial sisters again?
This wasn’t a game.
A wrong step could leave her with no chance to make amends.
Sure enough…
Bai Lian looked at the Soul Locking Flower and thought of Tong Yao, huddled in a corner.
ε=(´ο｀*)))
Things had reached this point, and she had a role in it.
She wanted to take action.
Finally, Bai Lian took out an Immortal Spirit Stone.
“In theory, my basic skills have improved a lot since last time, and they should be enough to withstand the sudden burst of an inferior Immortal Spirit Stone.”
She muttered to herself.
At this moment,
the wind ceased, and the snow stopped too.
Warmth exploded deep within Bai Lian’s body.
Her body and mind, which had been somewhat empty, were suddenly filled up.
“Let’s go!”
Bai Lian’s gaze became sharp.
In the bitter cold wind, she stashed the Immortal Spirit Stone and Soul Locking Flower away and leaped off the cliff.
Exploring through confusion and fear—
this is the courage humans have had since ancient times!
Sobbing—
The roaring wind seemed to tear the world apart, inflicting deep, radiating pain upon Yougui’s soul.
Am I about to die?
The black-clad person sitting amidst the chaos gradually regained some consciousness.
At first, he forgot who he was, where he came from, and where he was going.
But at the moment he saw the [Promise] within his soul,
he tore apart the chains blocking his vision.
He parted the clouds and beheld the blue sky!
Yougui remembered.
That was a long, long time ago.
Perhaps 14,100 years ago, maybe 14,200 years ago—
in any case, that story was so long ago that he forgot the weather, the location, and whether it was day or night.
He only remembered that when he was trapped in the icy chill and was on the verge of freezing to death,
a cheerful girl, wearing wooden clogs, with a smile on her face and a blade of grass in her mouth, passed by him.
“Uncle, your body is too weak.”
The girl joked.
He shouted, “Get out of here! If you don’t want to die, get away from me!”
However, the girl didn’t take his words to heart.
She kept talking nonsense.
“If I could really die, that would be a good thing.”
At the time, Yougui didn’t understand.
But he would never forget the smile of that young girl.
He had seen the Fairy Snow Night Flower of the Cold Ice Sky Pavilion,
and he had also seen naturally sculpted ice flowers in the North Elm River.
But no flower was as beautiful as that young girl’s smile!
“I’ll give you everything. Don’t go there next time, or else it would have been certain death if you hadn’t met me.”
The girl stuffed her only Fire Spirit Pearl and dry food rations into his embrace.
“Then you…”
Yougui’s dry lips parted.
He wanted to immediately eat the food, but human kindness made him realize the girl was in a vulnerable state.
Maybe… he should return the things.
The girl pointed to herself, “You don’t need to worry. I haven’t experienced the feeling of being frozen to death for a long time, so I can try it this time.”
“Huh?”
Yougui was stunned.
This couldn’t be his fault, could it?
If his legs weren’t so weak,
he really would’ve knocked the girl’s skull open to check if there was mud inside.
“Farewell until we meet again.”
The girl walked into the wind and snow without acknowledging him.
It was so sudden.
Yougui vaguely remembered clumsily climbing up at that moment.
He wanted to chase after the girl, but how could his broken body move fast enough?
He wanted to ask her name again, but she never gave him the chance.
It was many years before he could meet her again.
He didn’t know if it was one hundred or two hundred years later,
but when he returned from the polar regions, he had become a famous Golden Core cultivator.
No longer would he be trapped in a dead-end due to the slightest chill from the icy tundra.
One day,
he heard a story about an “immortal.”
In the story,
on the side of the mountain and by the sea, there was a girl.
No one knew her real name, nor how long she had lived.
She would “die” every once in a while and then assume a new identity to start over somewhere else.
This secret was revealed when the young girl was captured and burned to death, yet somehow, she revived again.
What is a cultivator’s greatest fear?
It’s death!
With the same power as this young girl, even an ant could one day become a god!
But Yougui wasn’t excited after hearing this.
He remembered the girl who had saved him and the strange words she had spoken.
The memories after that were somewhat blurred.
Yougui only remembered putting in a lot of effort to finally find the “immortal.”
And just as he had hoped, the immortal was the girl who had saved him in the tundra.
The youth from that time met the young girl from that time!
Was this fate?
Hey hey.
(^▽^)
Since then, Yougui followed behind the girl.
But soon, he realized he had misunderstood.
Love doesn’t always come with a reunion.
“Do you have a crush on anyone?”
At Yu Jing Building, Yougui finally asked what was on his mind.
“No… maybe yes.”
“?!”
The young girl gazed at the icy wasteland.
“I like the wind here, the snow, the mountains, and the water.
You know, undying loneliness is unpleasant, but I’m not afraid because I always have an invisible friend by my side.”
“?!”
Yougui was even more confused.
Invisible friend?
Was it a ghost?
That didn’t make sense. His cultivation wasn’t low, yet he couldn’t see anything.
“It’s not a ghost, just an invisible friend.
I can’t see Him, nor hear His voice,
but I feel His presence everywhere I go, always by my side.”
“And what about Him?”
“When I’m tired from walking, He accompanies me to listen to the wind; when I eat, He quietly watches by my side; and when it’s cold at night, He warms my bed…”
“…”
Yougui rubbed his own head.
Why did it feel like he was being betrayed?
But no, it wasn’t betrayal.
Since nothing had ever started, they couldn’t be lovers.
Just…
It was so frustrating to be beaten by an “invisible friend”!
Yougui never thought the girl would deceive him.
He followed her and thus helped create the initial Hades Hall.
All changes stemmed from the “invisible friend” who had vanished.
“He’s gone… did I do something wrong to make him disappear?”
The girl, once so close to reaching the apex of this world, was now dispirited and growing more fragile by the day.
Yougui tried everything to make her happy,
but it was all in vain.
“You can try to make new friends.”
“That’s different. Only He is special. If it weren’t for Him being with me all this time, I would have lost my emotions long ago.”
“…”
Until that morning.
Yougui pushed open the girl’s door,
only to find her lying on the floor.
At first, he thought it was just like usual,
and that she would wake up soon, smiling and saying something to him.
“Oh, I didn’t die today either.”
But things didn’t develop as he had imagined…
