The Bai Residence, Snow Courtyard.
The courtyard truly lived up to its name, with cold-resistant flowers and trees planted everywhere.
Even though it wasn't winter, one could still feel a chilling coldness upon stepping inside.
The original owner likely preferred this quiet and desolate atmosphere.
Bai Qingxue passed through the moon gate, waving off the approaching maidservants before entering the quiet room alone.
She first sat down at the desk and placed the storage bag on the table, but she was in no hurry to open it.
Instead, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled.
She needed to sort out the information in her head first.
First was the situation regarding her current body.
The original Bai Qingxue was sixteen years old, the legitimate eldest daughter of the Bai family in Yunzhou City.
Possessing a Single Ice-Attribute Heavenly Spiritual Root, her talent was exceptional. She had been treated as the family's treasure since childhood, the one they believed the Bai family's century-long revival depended on.
Sounds impressive, doesn't it?
But this so-called talent was actually a massive trap.
Bai Qingxue's ice spiritual root was too pure and domineering; it was the prototype of an “Ice Spirit Physique.”
Ordinary ice-attribute cultivation techniques simply couldn't harness such pure and piercing spiritual energy.
Forced cultivation would, at best, result in her meridians being eroded by cold poison, and at worst, lead to the total destruction of her foundation.
The Bai family had exhausted their resources to find the 《Cold Jade Art》. As the best ice-attribute technique available in the Yunzhou region, it only allowed her to build a basic foundation as a child, barely managing to draw Qi into her body and enter the Qi Refining stage.
After that, she could progress no further.
Her titles as the “Pride of Yunzhou” and the “Genius Maiden” were merely boasts the family made to the outside world, and a facade the original owner desperately maintained out of pride.
In reality, her cultivation had been stuck at the Qi Refining stage for many years.
While the spiritual energy in her body was pure enough, the quantity was nowhere near enough. Furthermore, because her cultivation technique was a poor match, the spiritual energy ran with a bone-chilling cold that even caused her to suffer backlash.
“Top-tier talent, but it turns out to be a dead end,” Bai Qingxue muttered to herself.
Given the original owner's cold and aloof personality, she likely used that demeanor to hide this unspeakable pain and despair.
Next was the plot.
She had followed this novel in her past life; it was a typical broken engagement power fantasy.
The male lead, Ye Feng, was originally a loser who couldn't cultivate.
After the Bai family annulled the engagement today, he felt deeply humiliated. To save face, he had preemptively announced in the family council hall that he was the one breaking the engagement, seizing the initiative.
His words were laced with accusations, calling Bai Qingxue “arrogant” and “inconsiderate” to make himself look like the victim.
According to the original plot, Ye Feng would then go on a rampage of fortuitous encounters and constant growth, humiliating everyone in his path.
As for “Bai Qingxue,” as the classic stepping stone in a broken engagement story, she would naturally be dragged out for a final reckoning once Ye Feng rose to power.
She couldn't remember the exact details, but her cultivation being crippled and her family's decline were certainly part of it.
However, from the perspective of today's broken engagement farce, Ye Feng's insistence on “actively breaking the engagement” actually played right into her hands.
In this way, her connection to the greatest source of future trouble was cleanly and decisively severed.
Moreover, since he was the one who “actively” proposed it, she wasn't the one in the wrong, at least on the surface.
As for compensation? The Ye family gave it, so she deserved it.
Bai Qingxue opened her eyes, untied the storage bag, and scanned its contents with her spiritual sense.
Three bottles of “Ice Condensation Pills,” said to be suitable for nourishing the meridians of ice-attribute cultivators, and an inner armor woven from ice silkworm silk called the “Snow Silk Robe.”
They were all relatively insignificant items.
She currently faced two crises, both of them imminent.
One was the future “plot-mandated death,” and the other was the current impasse where she couldn't cultivate and could be exposed at any moment.
She could no longer stay with the family. There was no solution for her physique here, and there were too many prying eyes. Once the truth about her inability to cultivate leaked out, the first to turn on her would likely be the very clansmen who saw her as the family's glory. When glory turned to shame, people changed their faces faster than anything.
Besides, if she stayed in Yunzhou, she wouldn't be able to avoid entanglements with Ye Feng and the Ye family.
She had to leave.
And she had to find a place that could solve the cultivation issues of the “Ice Spirit Physique.”
A name flashed through Bai Qingxue's mind—a fragment of memory from the original novel.
Xuantian Sect, Xueji Peak.
The Xuantian Sect was a major sect in the Eastern Region, one of the leaders of the righteous path.
The sect consisted of seven peaks, and among them, the ice-attribute techniques and divine abilities of “Xueji Peak” were renowned throughout the Eastern Region.
Furthermore, Xueji Peak's legacy inheritance, the 《Mystic Frost Heavenly Heart Art》, was said to be able to solve the cultivation difficulties of various special ice-attribute physiques.
According to her scattered memories of the original story, it seemed the original owner only came into contact with the Xuantian Sect much later through an extremely lucky coincidence, which only partially solved her problems.
But by then, too much time had been wasted, and the grudge with Ye Feng was already set in stone. In the end, she still couldn't escape her fate as a stepping stone.
“I can't wait for some ethereal stroke of luck,” Bai Qingxue warned herself.
The plot wouldn't wait for her, and the hidden dangers of her body certainly wouldn't either.
Once Ye Feng's luck kicked in, his progress would accelerate at a maddening pace. She had to find a way to save herself before everything became irreversible.
She had to move up the plan to enter the Xuantian Sect and seek the 《Mystic Frost Heavenly Heart Art》 significantly.
It was her only way out.
Moreover, the result of today's annulment could serve as a perfect reason and cover.
A genius whose heart is set on the Great Dao, who disdains entanglements with boring engagements, and who seeks supreme techniques in the vast world—this narrative sounded much more honorable than being a girl with a flawed body desperately searching for a way out, and it would be much easier to gain the family's support.
As Bai Qingxue stood up, her gaze inadvertently swept over the bronze mirror in the corner of the quiet room.
The mirror's surface was smooth and clear, reflecting her current appearance perfectly.
She paused, truly seeing herself for the first time.
The person in the mirror wore a plain white snow-skirt that complemented her figure perfectly.
Her cold white skin was like the finest mutton-fat jade or plum blossoms covered in a thin layer of snow.
Her eyebrows were dark without the need for ink, and her lips were red without the need for rouge. Every line of her features was exquisitely placed, coming together to form a face that was aloof, cold, and excessively beautiful.
But most striking of all were her eyes; her pupils were slightly lighter than those of an average person, like the surface of a frozen lake in winter, clear and translucent.
Staring at her reflection, Bai Qingxue thought: Her appearance was indeed exceptional, but without strength to protect it, being beautiful was just a liability that invited trouble.
Bai Qingxue curled her lips slightly, and the person in the mirror followed suit with a faint, mirthless smile.
She was beautiful, but there was a pervasive sense of fragile vulnerability about her.
This was not the state she wanted to be in.
She wanted power—a destiny she could hold in her own hands—not this skin that would eventually cause trouble, nor this body that trapped her.
Bai Qingxue put away the pills and the storage bag, composed herself, and walked out.
It was time to meet the Clan Head and the elders.
After all, she still had to pave the way for her departure from the Bai family to seek her own path.
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