Chapter 552 - Li Yuan's Response - Part 1

The carriage rumbled endlessly across the boundless land, rolling north, south, east, and west.

Snow, the former Khatun of the Nine Flames Tribe, had finally left behind the darkness, ice, and fire, and now wandered amidst the smoke and bustle of this golden age under the Human Emperor’s reign.

Li Yuan accompanied her on this journey, traveling from famous mountains to vast oceans, across deserts and forests, grasslands and renowned cities.

He had once roamed this land alone, seeking a different kind of life, a life of light after years immersed in shadow. That journey had led him to unify his chaotic ancestral seal seeds, breaking into the fourth rank. He’d written down the manuals for the Jade Seed Method and Lesser Moon Blade, passing them on to the Bladeseekers, thereby completing a broken legacy.

Because of the unique nature of his method for breaking through from the fifth rank to the fourth, as long as the Bladeseekers endured, there would always be heroes upholding justice in this world.

And since he had clearly defined in his writings that true heroism wasn’t about senseless killing, robbing the rich to help the poor, or seeking fame...it was about serving the nation, the people, and the rekindling of hope, those heroes would only help the land thrive even more.

He had once traveled this land with Xie Yu too. That was shortly after he had stepped down from being the Emperor, faking his death and exiling himself from the Jade Capital. It was also the time when his bond with Xie Yu was at its deepest.

But now, the one by his side had become Jen’gal Snow.

Snow was not like Xie Yu. She was stuck at sixth rank and could never rise beyond it.

Naran was born as a fourth rank prodigy and could still cultivate Earth Soul techniques to prolong his lifespan.

But Snow had no such path.

For the past few years, Li Yuan had eaten and slept beside her. They had known joy, indulgence, and passion, countless times had they intertwined. Deep down, he harbored the hope that perhaps this withered flame of his could kindle the fire within her body, nurturing it just enough to help her reach the threshold for Earth Soul cultivation.

He could have just checked her stats. But in a blink, more than three years had passed, and Snow’s combat power remained utterly unchanged.

On this day, the two of them had reached the northern frontier.

It was early summer. Verdant grass blanketed the earth as far as the eye could see.

Their jostling carriage came to a stop. Snow nestled in Li Yuan’s arms, gazing sleepily at the scenery beyond the window. She was tired, but her hands clutched tightly at his robe like a child.

Li Yuan bent down, gently stroking her hair. At the roots, white strands had begun to appear, a sign that the end was coming for the people of the Nine Flames Tribe.

Owing to their affinity to the flame, the Ice Folk could maintain youthful appearances far longer than others. But when their lifespan neared its end, white hair would sprout, then wrinkles would follow, and aging would come swiftly.

That one strand of white stabbed at Li Yuan’s heart like a needle.

He closed his eyes and let memories of his time with Snow wash over him. A quiet sorrow crept in, an aching loneliness, and from it arose a question. What was eternal life, really?

Then the answer came to him. Perhaps it was simply saying goodbye to one cherished person after another, family, friends, even enemies, and still mustering the strength to greet the next loved one, the next companion, the next adversary with warmth and passion. And if one day, the heart went cold, then perhaps it would be time to rest...and wait for that fire to spark again.

His thoughts faltered.

He held the woman in his arms more tightly.

Snow spoke softly, “These three years...and those three years before them...those were the happiest times of my life. All the hardships in between, back in the tribe, somehow they don’t seem worth mentioning.”

The past three years needed no explanation. As for

those

three years, those were when she had first met Li Yuan.

She paused briefly, then said, “Husband, let’s head west.”

Li Yuan answered gently, and steered the carriage southwest, turning off Wildsouth Province. They passed through four provinces and soared over Sword Mountain Pass.

But once they crossed over, Li Yuan was taken completely by surprise.

The light west of Sword Mountain extended only another 50 kilometers, and beyond that, nothing but eternal night and snow. A world sealed in frost.

The elevation had risen sharply, he couldn't tell by how much, but in the clearer parts of the terrain, one could still glimpse the ruins of towns beneath the wheels, frozen solid beneath sheets of ice. It was just like the far reaches of the Western Extremes.

But unlike the Western Extremes, which stretched endlessly, even Naran had halted his exploration at Kabrol, the Sea of Slumber, when trying to map the territory of his people.

Now, history was repeating itself.

The Grand Union of Yin and Yang had already begun to bring disastrous consequences.

And this...this was only the beginning.

In such conditions, Ying Shanxing’s grand plan for mass migration no longer mattered. The darkness and snow had rendered the lands beyond Sword Mountain Pass utterly uninhabitable for humankind.

There was no one left out here.

With the wilderness emptied, the population of the Nine Flames Tribe had plummeted off a cliff.

The battle at the Eternal Rest River had only cost them their elites. It was the later campaigns, when the Human Emperor’s army and elite cultivators of the Central Plains crushed Cloudpeak Province, that truly decimated their numbers.

At this rate, even if Meng Xingxian wanted to raise another army, it would be all but impossible. The Nine Flames Tribe might have no more than tens of thousands left. And among them, many were elders already nearing the end of their lives.

The carriage pressed on, rattling through the snowfields.

For the Tree’er, this was her first time venturing this far north. She drove the carriage up front, her ears full of the endless chatter coming from inside, her father and Fifth Mother bickering away like always.

It was the same old stories, over and over again. Tree’er’s ears had grown calloused from hearing them.

Like that time when Fifth Mother ran through the snow for two days and nights, hiding from the Wolfmother’s pursuit. Or when Li Yuan pretended to be a hunter’s son to trick Fifth Mother into letting her guard down. Or whether Li Yuan

actually

did anything with the old Wolfmother while watching the sunset together...

Sheng’er had her own memories of this place too.

She was thinking about Tang Nian.

Tang Nian had vanished ages ago. No one knew where she’d gone.

In her eyes, Tang Nian was a terrifyingly determined person. Even as a teenager, she could shut herself in a room for months. After the trauma of Li Yuan’s

death

, maybe she’d swallowed a mountain of fasting pills and buried herself in some secret research base, hidden from the world, locked away for years on end.

The carriage continued on.

After just a few more days, the horses froze to death.

Fortunately, Sheng’er’s glacier avatar had arrived with her direwolves, ready to take over.

The Tree’er jumped down from the carriage and made the switch with Glacier’er.

The Tree’er was Lady Divine Crow now, while Glacier’er was the Crowmother. They were nearing the territory of the Nine Flames Tribe, no room for confusion about who was who.

And so the long journey continued.

One day, distant flickers of light appeared on the horizon beyond the carriage curtain.

“We’re here already?” Snow asked, surprised.

In her memory, they still had several days of travel ahead.

𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

From outside came Glacier’er’s voice. “Fifth Mother, something’s changed with the Nine Flames Tribe.”

Li Yuan picked up the thread. “The nine bonfires have expanded eastward, and the Deathless Tomb has shifted west.”

Snow fell silent, then couldn’t help but ask, “How could that happen?” Then she added, “It’s like a snowball rolled down from a mountaintop slope. It starts slow, but gains speed until nothing can stop it. This spread and shift may still seem gradual now, but—”

“That’s something your husband will worry about.” Li Yuan held her in his arms and tapped her on the nose. He smiled. “I really envy how you can just fall into peaceful sleep. If I could, I’d take a nap and wake up when it’s all over.”

Snow knew he was just trying to comfort her, but she welcomed the lie, and chose not to dwell further on the grim future that might await them.

After a dozen more days, the wolf-drawn carriage arrived at the edge of the Deathless Tomb.

Direwolf riders patrolled the perimeter, but upon seeing the Glacier’er, they respectfully gave way without the slightest attempt to block the path.

Li Yuan escorted Snow to the entrance of the burial ground.

The former Khatun stood wrapped in her ashen-blue robes, her hair whipping wildly between the towering ice pillars of this mythic giant’s garden. The roots of her hair had turned almost completely white.

The sight jolted a memory in Li Yuan.

A pale-skinned girl, swinging an axe in the mountain sun, chopping firewood. Her face was delicate, her eyes red as flame, fierce and wild.

Her bare feet, shoved into boots far too large, slapped against the ground as she knelt in the grass, gazing in wide-eyed wonder at the colors of green mountains, red flowers, and crystal streams. She had plunged her hands into the cold water like a wild animal, drinking straight from the brook.

He smiled brightly and said, “Time to sleep.”

His tone was casual, like a husband nudging his wife toward bed after a long night.

Then he suddenly asked, “When you wake up, what do you want to eat?”

“Rice porridge." Snow’s face lit up with a radiant smile. Then she added, “With meat too, rice porridge and meat!”

Back when they first met in that mountain hut, that was all they had, thin rice porridge and cured meat.

Li Yuan chuckled. “As much as you want.”

Snow turned with a smile, clutching her robe tighter. But the smile faded quickly. Her eyes lowered, veiling the sorrow of farewell. Then, guided by a flock of crows, she stepped into the forbidden graveyard where Yin and Yang no longer held sway.

Inside the burial grounds, Sheng’er sat quietly. She placed Snow into a coffin, sealed the lid, then found an empty one for herself. She climbed in, crossed her legs, and stared into nothingness, still using her outer bodies to sense the world of the living.

The Glacier’er turned the direwolves around and began the return journey.

Halfway back, she saw Meng Xingxian riding up from the distance.