In the days that followed, Bai Qingxue’s life became extremely disciplined.
In the early morning, she would inspect the altar; in the afternoon, she would leaf through old archives in the study; and in the evening, she would brew a pot of tea and sit in the courtyard, watching the leaves of the old locust tree drift down in the wind.
As was her custom, Xiao Nanyuan would come by every few days, clutching a book and sitting in the corner chair, seemingly quite satisfied with her time there.
Bai Qingxue’s progress through the old archives was slow.
The records of the Nanhuai royalty were poorly preserved, suffering from insect damage, mold, and blurred ink, leaving most as mere fragments.
She went through them scroll by scroll, finding very little information about the ruins. But she was in no hurry.
One afternoon, she came across a tattered silk scroll. Its edges were already ruined, and bits of it crumbled away at the slightest touch.
Bai Qingxue carefully unfurled it, revealing a few lines of barely legible characters.
“...Beneath the ancient altar, items of extreme cold are sealed. Mortals must not approach... Immortals of the Xuantian Sect once visited this place and established a seal to suppress it...”
Bai Qingxue’s fingertips paused on the words “Xuantian Sect.” The date of the silk scroll was unknown, but judging by its state of decay, it was at least several hundred years old.
The Xuantian Sect had known about these ruins hundreds of years ago? Why was there no record of this in the sect’s archives?
Bai Qingxue continued to scroll down.
The latter half of the silk scroll was missing, leaving only a corner the size of a palm.
On that corner was a pattern, its lines blurred, but its silhouette still faintly discernible.
Bai Qingxue held the silk scroll closer to the light and studied it for a moment. The edge of the pattern had a curve, with several radial lines in the center, resembling a flower.
An ice lotus.
Bai Qingxue’s brow twitched slightly.
She set down the silk scroll and took the Shuanghua sword from her storage bag.
The sword hilt was engraved with an ice lotus pattern, its petals layered, exquisite and cold.
She placed the hilt and the fragmented pattern on the silk scroll side by side on the desk for comparison. The pattern on the silk scroll was severely worn, but based on the number and shape of the petals...
One could not simply say they were very similar; they were identical.
Bai Qingxue stared at the remnant mark for a long time.
Afterward, she put the silk scroll and the Shuanghua sword back into her storage bag and stood up.
The entrance to the altar was beneath the collapsed stone platform.
During her daily inspections, Bai Qingxue had only stood at the edge, using her spiritual sense to probe the cracks without ever going deep inside.
Today, she followed the fissure downward and stepped inside.
The passage was deeper than she had expected.
The stone walls were damp and covered in moss, and the air was thick with a stale, long-enclosed scent.
Bai Qingxue took a Moonlight Stone from her storage bag, its ghostly white light illuminating the way ahead.
Occasionally, traces of manual carving could be seen on the stone walls—blurred runes and broken lines that belonged to the same period as the patterns on the altar’s surface.
The further down she went, the heavier the chill became.
This cold was not a temperature that should exist in Nanhuai during this season; rather, it was a long-dormant chill seeping out from deep within the surrounding stones.
The ice lotus within Bai Qingxue’s body rotated slightly. Instead of making her uncomfortable, the chill allowed her spiritual power to circulate even more smoothly.
The end of the passage was a stone door.
The door was not completely closed, leaving a gap just wide enough for a person to squeeze through sideways.
Bai Qingxue edged her way in, and the light from the Moonlight Stone illuminated the space behind the door.
It was a stone chamber.
The chamber was not large, only a few yards across, but it was very high, with the ceiling hidden in the darkness beyond her sight.
The four walls were smooth as mirrors, devoid of any extra decoration, consisting only of cold, dimly glowing stone surfaces.
In the center of the stone chamber, an ice coffin lay quietly.
The coffin was transparent, as if carved from a single block of ice crystal, emitting a faint blue, cold light.
A thick layer of white frost had condensed on the ground around the ice coffin, spreading outward from the body of the coffin, making the environment feel like a completely different world compared to the outside of the ruins.
Bai Qingxue walked to the side of the ice coffin and looked down.
The coffin was empty.
There were no corpses or relics as she had expected, only an extremely thin, almost invisible layer of frost covering the bottom of the coffin.
But that frost was no ordinary frost; it was a residue left behind after extreme condensation.
Bai Qingxue’s spiritual sense probed the ice coffin. The moment it touched that layer of frost, a wave of extreme cold surged up from the bottom of the coffin.
Then, the ice lotus inside her body jolted violently, and her spiritual power began to flow faster through her meridians, as if in response to something.
Bai Qingxue withdrew her spiritual sense, inwardly startled.
The chill of this ice coffin actually shared the same source as the Ice Spirit power within her body.
Bai Qingxue stood where she was, the light from the Moonlight Stone reflecting off the surface of the ice coffin, making her face appear somewhat blurred.
Then her gaze moved away from the ice coffin and landed on a stone platform beside it.
The platform was small, similar to a writing desk, with a smooth surface free of dust—not because someone had wiped it, but because the chill was so intense that even dust could not form.
In the very center of the stone platform, two characters were carved.
“Suxue.”
The strokes were lean and the brushwork sharp.
Bai Qingxue had no intention of making this public.
She simply put the Moonlight Stone back into her storage bag, exited the stone chamber, and returned the way she had come.
At the stone door, she paused and looked back. The faint blue light of the ice coffin glowed dimly in the darkness, like an open eye quietly watching her.
Bai Qingxue withdrew her gaze and stepped out of the stone door.
She used her spiritual power to reinforce the restrictions at the entrance, covering any traces of her entry.
Having done all this, she stood at the edge of the altar, looking at the collapsed stone platform and the chaotic spiritual power surging from the cracks.
She remembered the expression on Liu Ningshuang’s face when she had pushed the decree toward her; she remembered the phrase “The sect has already decided”; and she remembered Liu Ningshuang’s action of pulling an old bamboo slip from under the desk when she had asked “How much does the sect know?”
As expected, this mission to the ruins was not a random assignment.
That ice lotus mark, that ice coffin, and those two characters carved on the stone platform, “Suxue.”
It seemed that everything here was related to Xueji Peak and to Bai Qingxue.
Or rather, it was related to her cultivation technique, her physique, and the reason she had been sent here.
What did the sect know? They hadn’t told her. What did Liu Ningshuang know? She hadn’t told her. What did True Lord Shuanghua know? She hadn’t told her either.
Bai Qingxue stopped walking and stood on the stone steps, gazing at the distant mountains.
The twilight gilded the silhouettes of the ridges with a dark gold border, and mist flowed slowly through the valleys.
She stood for a while before continuing down. By the time she returned to the guest courtyard, it was almost dark.
A few birds returning to their nests were hidden among the leaves of the old locust tree, chirping away. Hearing her footsteps, they flapped their wings and flew off.
She didn't plan to immediately send word back to the sect to demand an explanation.
It wasn't a lack of trust, but rather that Bai Qingxue needed to figure out a few things first.
What was the connection between this ice coffin, these two characters, this ice lotus mark, and Xueji Peak? What was the sect’s purpose in sending her here?
Though Bai Qingxue didn't know yet, she would find out.
She did not like being kept in the dark.
Bai Qingxue took a sip of tea. The tea was already cold and very bitter. When she swallowed, her throat moved slightly.
She lowered her head, looking at the tea infusion in her cup.
The surface of the water reflected her own face, her silver-white hair, and her light-colored eyes.
Nothing could be seen clearly.
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