Jiang Zhaoye remembered the skeleton behind the screen, as well as the several chests near the cold jade bed. With a shift of his feet, he wandered over without thinking.
The skeleton still sat there quietly in the lotus position, its posture upright, lower jaw slightly bowed as if gazing down at its own crossed hands. The light in the ice cave fell upon its bones, glinting with a faint, cool white sheen and carrying a bizarre, tranquil beauty, as though it had been waiting for him to return.
Jiang Zhaoye hesitated for a moment before stepping forward and coming to a halt before the jade bed.
He glanced at the skeleton, awkwardly averted his gaze, and dropped to his knees. He respectfully kowtowed three times—once, twice, thrice, completing the bows with honest propriety. Only after keeping his forehead pressed against the freezing ground for a long moment did he slowly straighten his back.
“Senior,” the youth’s somewhat dry voice echoed through the cavernous cave, “junior Jiang Zhaoye, a student of Huaicheng No. 2 High School. I was teleported here today by accident and did not intentionally trespass upon your cave abode. Seeing that I have ended up here, I suppose there must be some fate between us. Junior has no intention of causing offense, but I am freezing and starving, left with no other choice, and would like to borrow some of your belongings to help me out in a pinch.”
Jiang Zhaoye explained with utmost sincerity, “I know it’s rude to disturb your final rest, but I truly can’t hold out much longer. Whatever items you’ve left behind that I can make use of, I’ll borrow for now. In the future, I will definitely find a way to secure an auspicious burial ground and give you a proper burial so you won’t have to stay forever in this freezing hole.”
Having said his piece, Jiang Zhaoye, adhering to the principle that one could never be too courteous, gave three more solid kowtows before struggling to his feet and looking toward the items atop the jade bed.
He first looked at several toppled jade bottles; they were empty, containing nothing at all.
In the few jade bottles that still had their stoppers, there were indeed medicinal pills—some had only one, others about a dozen, in all sorts of colors. But Jiang Zhaoye couldn’t recognize a single character written on the bottoms of the bottles and didn’t dare consume them.
What if they were this senior’s homebrewed remedies... or expired tonics?
It would be all too easy to die an untimely death.
Muttering silently to himself, Little Jiang kept his hands busy as he picked up a shattered fragment of a jade slip and examined it from every angle.
The fragment felt ice-cold with a smooth surface. He could vaguely make out some fine engravings that looked like writing, in a style different from the script on the jade bottles and books, but Jiang Zhaoye still couldn’t decipher a single word.
Never in his life had he felt as illiterate as he did today.
He tried pressing the jade slip against his forehead according to methods described in novels, attempting to sense it using the divine sense scanning technique he had seen on Xuexin.com to see if he could read any information.
In truth, he wasn’t even sure if he possessed divine sense—he hadn’t officially awakened yet, after all—but that was how they always did it on TV.
In the end, he tried both the broken and intact ones, but Jiang Zhaoye received zero information. There wasn’t even the slightest unusual reaction.
He cast his gaze back toward the skeleton. Pressed beneath its folded hands was another jade slip. That jade slip was the most impeccably preserved of all, translucent white throughout, its surface shimmering with a faint luster, strikingly distinct.
Jiang Zhaoye hesitated briefly, then reached out and carefully slid the jade slip out from between the skeleton’s finger bones.
The instant it touched his palm, an icy chill darted up from his fingertips into his arm, making him shiver violently.
Clutching the jade slip, he took two steps back and looked down to inspect it. The frigid chill had vanished in the blink of an eye as if it were an illusion; the jade slip now felt warm and smooth to the touch, like a pool of congealed moonlight.
He took a deep breath, pressed the jade slip against his forehead, and closed his eyes.
At first, nothing happened.
Gradually, as if an icy needle were gently pricking the space between his brows, a surge of information flooded into his mind without warning.
It resembled words, yet also resembled a voice, yet was neither.
It was an indescribable intent poured directly into the depths of his consciousness—a synthesis of words, sound, light, and shadow, clear and fluid, as though someone were speaking unhurriedly inside his mind.
What was even more wondrous was that although he didn’t recognize a single one of the archaic, unfamiliar, and intricately stroked characters in the information, the moment it poured into his mind, he simply understood. Bypassing language barriers entirely, he grasped the meaning with ease.
Just as an infant understood hunger, or the weary understood sleep, it seemed divinely bestowed.
“I am Perfected Hanyu. Orphaned and destitute since childhood, belonging to no sect or school, I wandered the ends of the earth and found a glimmer of immortal destiny amidst perilous peaks and treacherous waters. Cultivating for over a hundred years, I attained Foundation Establishment great perfection with three spirit roots of ice, wood, and water. Yet the Golden Core Tribulation proved insurmountable in the end; my Grand Dao unrealized and my lifespan exhausted, I passed away seated in meditation within this ice cave, awaiting posterity.”
Jiang Zhaoye’s breathing unconsciously softened.
The intent continued to flow like a quiet river, carrying him into a long memory.
Perfected Hanyu recounted her life.
Born in a remote mountain village, she had been tested by her clan in her youth and found to possess a true spirit root talent. She had been promising material for immortal cultivation, yet because of the village’s poverty and isolation, she missed the optimal age to join a sect. By the time she traveled tens of thousands of li and finally reached the immortal sects, they turned her away at the door on the grounds that she was too old and her foundation was already set. She did not give up. Relying on eavesdropping, scavenging remnants, and risking her life in exchange for fragmented cultivation manuals, she scrambled and clawed her way forward, forging ahead on the path of a rogue cultivator until she reached Foundation Establishment great perfection.
The intent with which Perfected Hanyu narrated the past was exceedingly calm. It “sounded” devoid of both resentment and regret, emotionally steady as though recounting someone else’s story.
Yet Jiang Zhaoye, an inexperienced young boy, felt a complex mix of emotions welling up as he listened, his thoughts churning.
Fictional novels and comics were, after all, fundamentally different from real people and real events right before his eyes.
Beyond that, the unfamiliar place names and background setting finally extinguished whatever lingering hope Jiang Zhaoye had harbored.
He really had transmigrated, hadn’t he?
Before he could calm his emotions, the contents of the intent shifted without pause, smoothly transitioning into the section on cultivation techniques. Perfected Hanyu had left behind two techniques within the jade slip.
The first was named 《Mystic Ice Mirror》, a Qi Refining method tailored specifically for cultivators with ice spirit roots. From drawing qi into the body all the way to Foundation Establishment great perfection, the cultivation path for every single stage was detailed extensively. The flow of spiritual energy through meridians, the sequence of acupoints, and the precautions for cultivating across different seasons were all marked with utter clarity.
She had poured her life’s blood and sweat into this technique, refining it repeatedly; this information could be called the very essence of her lifelong cultivation.
Yet as he continued reading, Jiang Zhaoye noticed that several absorption paths for ice spiritual energy in this technique overlapped with the ice-element chapter of 《Psionic Guiding Technique》. In fact... Jiang Zhaoye vaguely sensed that 《Psionic Guiding Technique》 seemed, possibly, probably, to be even more comprehensive.
Putting his stray thoughts aside, Jiang Zhaoye continued “perusing” the information.
The name of the second technique gave him pause.
《Ice Muscle Jade Bone Art》
What a textbook female cultivator technique name...
The description conveyed by the intent came as no surprise either. This technique had been acquired by chance in an ancient ruin when Perfected Hanyu was young, not something she had created herself.
According to the records in the jade slip, this was a body-refining technique designed specifically for women. Practicing it could progressively enhance one’s appearance and physique while reshaping their bone structure and aptitude.
Mastering the first layer allowed one to become impervious to cold and heat, with skin like congealed fat and bones like pure frost, rendering ordinary blades and swords incapable of harming them in the slightest.
Mastering the second layer enabled one to transform their body into mystic ice; flesh and blood could turn into mystic ice in a single thought, drastically increasing affinity with ice-element spiritual energy while augmenting the power of ice spells.
The intent paused here as if organizing its wording, before continuing to flow.
“When I obtained this method back then, I too hesitated. This technique is abstruse and obscure, its cultivation conditions exceedingly harsh, and its demands on spiritual energy control far surpass ordinary arts. I spent thirty years just to barely step into the first layer. Another forty years passed before I began Peering into the threshold of the second layer. Yet it was precisely by virtue of the second layer that I was able to escape unscathed from several life-and-death crises.”
“Before passing away, I had already transformed my physical body into mystic ice, returning it to the heavens and earth. Thus, what you see today is merely a set of jade bones. That the various objects in this cave abode have not decayed is also thanks to the nourishment of the frigid energy dispersed when I turned into ice.”
Hearing this, Jiang Zhaoye couldn’t help but open his eyes and look at the upright skeleton before him.
So that was why.
No wonder everything else in this cave abode was largely undecayed, while this senior had nothing left but bones.
She had turned herself into ice, giving it back to heaven and earth, leaving behind only a set of jade bones to sit here quietly, waiting for someone destined who might not arrive until countless years later.
Rate on N.U.
