Inside a cave carved into a lonely, snow-swept peak not far from Silver Blizzard City, a slender figure stood in silence. She wore robes of pure white, as though woven from frost itself, and a delicate mask veiled her face.
In her hands rested a single letter, the parchment trembling ever so slightly in her lily-white fingers.
She read quickly, her eyes sweeping over each line with desperate hunger. But when she reached the end, her hands began to quiver uncontrollably. Her masked face tilted down as her breath quickened, and tears gathered like dew upon her lashes.
"Is he really...!" Her voice cracked, fragile as porcelain. "His injury... it has truly healed? Thank heaven... thank heaven!"
The woman's shoulders shook as sobs tore free, her body bending forward like a wilted blossom battered by the wind. For ten long years, her heart had been entombed in ice, frozen, numb, suffocating beneath grief and despair.
Yet this single letter had pierced that glacial shell, and now, all her suppressed helplessness, weakness, and longing flooded out, trembling through her delicate frame.
Tears streamed silently down her face as she pressed the letter to her chest. For a long moment, she wept softly, her voice muffled by the storm outside the cave. Then, with sudden resolve, she rose unsteadily to her feet. Her every step toward the cave's mouth seemed hesitant yet full of determination.
At the entrance, she dropped to her knees. Cupping her hands reverently, she lifted her tear-stained eyes toward the heavens, her voice trembling as she prayed:
"Thank God... thank God he has completely recovered. Thank God he no longer suffers in pain... please, grant him joy. Grant him peace. This woman—" Her sob caught in her throat, yet she forced the words through, "—this woman is willing to trade ten... even twenty years of her life, if only it ensures his safety and happiness..."
The snow swirled around her, as if heaven itself paused to listen.
"Even if we cannot be together..." Her voice grew faint, carried away by the bitter wind, "I am still your Yao... forever."
She pressed her forehead to the icy stone, her body kneeling in humble devotion, fragile yet unyielding. Her prayer dissolved into the gale, but the heavens answered in their own way.
Above the peak, the wind rose with sudden fury, as though stirred by her plea. It howled through the crags, lifting flurries of snow into the sky. The flakes thickened, each one sharp as a dagger of frost, falling harder and heavier until the entire mountain was swallowed in white.
The lone woman did not move. She remained kneeling, veiled in layers of snow until her silhouette became a frozen statue, her tears crystallizing on the ground where they fell.
Yet even as the storm raged, the silence did not last long.
From the distant heart of Silver Blizzard City, ten shadowy figures burst into the sky like arrows loosed from an unseen bow. Their cloaks billowed in the storm, their movements so swift they seemed to merge with the blizzard itself. Hidden by wind and snow, they descended the mountains, vanishing into the storm's embrace as though the blizzard had conjured them.
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As the ten shadowy figures vanished into the blizzard, the lone woman in white slowly rose and walked back into the depths of her cave. The storm swallowed her silhouette, leaving only silence and snow behind.
But then, from high above the frozen peak, a solitary shadow drifted down. His descent was noiseless, yet his eyes were sharp, profound, and fathomless as an abyss, glimmering with an intensity that pierced the veil of snow.
Those eyes fixed upon the frail figure disappearing into the cave.
Step by step, he descended further, his aura hidden to the extreme. With each movement, his form blurred, as though swallowed by the void itself. By the time he stepped inside the cave's mouth, his body had already melted into the air, unseen, unfelt, vanishing from mortal perception.
Yet the moment he entered, he was struck by surprise.
The ground was clean and orderly, but the place was utterly barren, stark, and mercilessly cold. This was no dwelling fit for a lady. Instead, it was harsher than exile.
The further he went, the more he realized, the temperature here was colder than the world outside!
The cave walls shimmered faintly, smooth as mirrors, each surface gleaming with a crystalline light. His breath misted sharply, the air cutting into his lungs like blades.
Jun Mo Xie's pupils contracted.
'This cave... is carved entirely from ten-thousand-year-old mysterious ice!'
The deeper he walked, the more the cave twisted, passage after passage. Finally, when he reached the innermost chamber, a faint thread of warmth brushed across him.
It was weak, fleeting, like the last glow of an ember in a storm.
On the left, a small stone bed stood, blankets folded with care. On the right, a stone table sat neatly against the wall. A faint, refreshing fragrance lingered in the air, fragile yet persistent, softening the bitter chill.
At the very center, facing north, a lone figure in white sat quietly, motionless, as though she herself was carved from the eternal ice.
Jun Mo Xie's gaze roved around, and then froze. He reached out, brushing his fingers across the icy wall. There were uneven ridges beneath his touch. He leaned closer, and what he saw sent a tremor through his heart.
Etched upon the walls were countless words.
No, not words, it was just a name.
Wu Yi... Wu Yi... Wu Yi..
Jun Wu Yi's name covered three entire walls. Each character carved with painstaking care, every stroke steady, resolute, and unmistakably clear.
Jun Mo Xie's breath caught. These weren't marks made by a blade. He traced the grooves more carefully; some were ragged, torn, yet deep and deliberate.
His eyes darkened as he realized that the words were carved with fingernails!
His heart surged. Even the strongest Sky Xuan expert could not carve such deep marks into ten-thousand-year ice with mere nails.
Yet when Han Yan Yao had been confined here, she was not even Sky Xuan!
She had been only twenty, delicate, pampered, a woman with no profound cultivation.
'Just how deep is her love...?'
His gaze fell upon faint reddish stains caught in some of the grooves. His chest tightened as he traced the drops of blood, dried into the strokes.
Each character was written not with ink, but with the sacrifice of flesh.
Jun Mo Xie felt his throat tighten as an indescribable wave of emotion surged through him.
This simple cave, this fragile woman, these endless carvings... what further explanation was needed?
Han Yan Yao was still Han Yan Yao... the woman forever sealed in Jun Wu Yi's heart.
She was his third aunt!
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