The air in the Frozen Forest was already biting, but the silence that followed Mu Chen's declaration was colder still. His answer hung in the clearing, simple and absolute, lacking the grandiose weight one might expect from a revelation involving the primordial pillars of existence.
To Mu Chen, identifying a Heavenly Seal was as trivial as noticing the color of a stray leaf; to the others, it was the sound of destiny crashing into their quiet lives.
Shen Xi turned toward him, her breath hitching. Her flawless features were etched with a vulnerability that few would ever see, and her voice was barely above a faint whisper. "Can you... can you truly see it?"
Mu Chen didn't answer immediately. He was feeding a small, dried slice of spirit-apple to the five-tailed golden cat nestled in his arms. Nibi accepted the treat with a satisfied purr, her tails twitching in a rhythmic dance.
"When I arrived," Mu Chen said, his gaze finally shifting toward the girl, "I felt a resonance within you. A pattern of runes. They bore a striking resemblance to the ancient formation that brought us here."
He let the gravity of that statement settle. Shi, the spirit of the Origin Stone, had previously explained that the hidden anchors created by the ancient master Hong Zun were crafted by painstakingly copying the very runes etched onto the Heavenly Seals.
If Mu Chen found something with her with resembles to those runes, it meant the connection was undeniable.
The clearing remained still for a long moment, the only sound being the rhythmic creak of the rocking chair. Finally, Shen Xi found her voice again, though it trembled. "Can you tell which one it is? Which of the four?"
Xiao Diao and Grandpa Yan leaned in, their expressions mirroring a shared, frantic expectancy. Even for the Heavenly Demon Mink and the Ascendant powerhouse, the opportunity to behold a Heavenly Seal was a once-in-a-multitude-of-lifetimes event.
They wanted to know which primordial force was currently coiled within the girl's spirit.
"See it for yourself," Mu Chen replied. He used his sleeve to gently wipe a bit of apple juice from Nibi's golden whiskers, then called out softly, his voice carrying an effortless authority. "Come out."
In the next heartbeat, Shen Xi's body jolted. It wasn't a physical blow, but a spiritual tremor that originated from depths older than the first star's ignition, older than the first word spoken into the hollow dark, older than the Dao itself when it coiled into being and named itself law.
Something long-dormant stirred within her soul—a patient, primordial presence that carried the raw, unfiltered essence of existence.
Heavenly Seals were said to possess a level of consciousness. They were not mere tools; they were sovereigns that chose their masters and obeyed no other command.
But now, the seal heard a call. It wasn't a command of cold, tyrannical authority, but something polite, simple, yet fundamentally undeniable. It was a call from a being whose very existence made the laws of the universe feel like mere suggestions. It was irresistible.
Without a transition, without a flash of blinding light or a thunderous roar, the seal simply manifested outside Shen Xi's body. It appeared in the space between the rocking chair and the hut, hovering between the physical world and the void, awaiting recognition.
What materialized before the group was a disk of impossible contradictions. It was a rotating sphere of power, half-devouring void and half-radiant dawn, locked in an eternal, swirling yin-yang rotation.
Its form seemed to breathe with the heartbeat of the cosmos: one moment it was a rotting, ancient grave-marker seeping a black, entropic miasma of death; the next, it was a vibrant, blooming seedling bursting with an emerald vitality.
Across its shifting surface, primordial runes squirmed like embryonic serpents. Their shapes were too ancient, too complex for mortal eyes to track, as if each glyph were simultaneously spelling out the first breath of creation and the final, rattling gasp of extinction.
Everyone's breath hitched. They were beholding a paradox made visible—the literal boundary where life and death met and became one.
Grandpa Yan's voice emerged as a trembling, broken whisper. "Is this... is this truly the Life-Death Seal?"
Though he had lived for tens of thousands of years and stood at the pinnacle of the world, he had never laid eyes on a Heavenly Seal. But the feeling it radiated—the simultaneous sensation of decay and renewal, of being born and buried at the same time—left no room for doubt. It was the source of all cycles.
Shi, the Origin Stone spirit, looked at the flickering disk with a profound, weary sadness. His thoughts drifted back eons, to the time when his previous master, Hong Zun, had wielded all four of these primordial forces and he was used as balancer between them.
The spirit spoke softly, his voice carrying the echoes of a lost era. "We meet again, old friend."
However, the Life-Death Seal was in no mood for a nostalgic reunion. To the shock of the onlookers, the great primordial artifact was trembling. It was vibrating in its fixed position, its rotation stuttering as if it were a frightened animal caught in a trap.
It had been pulled from the safety of its owner's soul against its will, and for the first time in its eternal existence, it felt exposed, vulnerable, and deeply confused. It didn't know who or what had summoned it, but it knew that the presence in front of it was something it could not fight.
Xiao Diao studied the quivering seal, his whiskers twitching with a mix of awe and bewilderment. He narrowed his golden eyes and said, "Wait... why do I feel like something is wrong with it? It's behaving like..."
"It is being dramatic," Mu Chen interrupted. He fed Nibi the last piece of the apple and didn't even bother to look up at the quivering cosmic artifact. He treated the most powerful seal in existence like a petulant child throwing a tantrum. "It will calm down once it accepts reality."
The Life-Death Seal shuddered even harder, its yin-yang rotation actually skipping a beat, as if it were deeply offended by the assessment.
Hearing this, Xiao Diao, Grandpa Yan, and Shi—now fully consolidated members of the "Mu Chen Suffering Gang"—all felt a collective urge to scream. They wanted to shout that the seal wasn't being dramatic; it was being subjected to a terrifying, illogical force that defied its very nature.
But they knew Mu Chen's response. He would simply tell them they were being noisy and suggest they need to learn some stoicism from Nibi.
As the seal hovered, Shen Xi felt something stir deep within her mind. As if the seal's exposure had cracked open a locked vault, a flood of messy, fragmented memories began to pour into her consciousness.
She was suddenly hit with a deluge of knowledge—ancient formations that had long been forgotten, complex alchemical formulas for pills that shouldn't exist, and maps of a vast, sprawling world that made the nine continents look like small islands. It was a torrent of information she had never learned, never read, and never seen.
She gasped, a sharp pain blooming behind her eyes. Grandpa Yan noticed it immediately and moved to her side, his expression frantic. "Xian'er! What's wrong? Are you alright?"
He looked at Mu Chen, his voice rising in alarm. "Mu Chen, what is happening to her? Is the Life-Death Seal harming her?"
Yan knew what Shi had said—that a seal could destroy its holder before reaching Soul Transformation Realm. Even though Shen Xi hadn't drawn upon its power, the mere act of the seal manifesting had brought about unforeseen consequences.
Mu Chen didn't look worried. He remained in his chair, rocking slowly. "She will be fine," he said casually. "She's just dealing with some messy things."
With a simple, effortless flick of his finger, the Life-Death Seal vanished. Which had been hovering in the air like a cornered ghost, vanished instantly, returning to the depths of Shen Xi's body. Having regained its freedom, the seal was so excited that it really wanted to weep with relief—if heavenly seals had tear ducts.
After a few moments of heavy breathing, Shen Xi's eyes cleared. She wiped a bead of cold sweat from her brow and looked at her grandfather. "I am fine, Grandpa. Truly. It was just... a lot of extra memories."
Yan let out a long, shaky breath. "That's good. Xian'er triggering the Life-Death Seal must have brought along the inheritance of its previous users. It's a lot for a Nascent Soul to process."
Shen Xi nodded.
Mu Chen stood up from the rocking chair. He picked Nibi up from his arms and placed her on his head, adjusting her lazily until she settled in place. Having filled her stomach with apples, Nibi let out a tiny, soft burp and closed her eyes, having decided that it was officially nap time.
"Okay, old man," Mu Chen said, looking at Yan. "We should be leaving now."
There was no hesitation in his voice. He had come here out of curiosity to see what was on the other side of the formation, and now that his curiosity was satisfied, he saw no reason to linger.
Yan spoke up, his voice hesitant and strained. "Mu Chen... wait."
He stopped, his gaze flickering toward Shen Xi with a look of profound, aching conflict. He opened his mouth to continue, then closed it, looking like he was struggling with a choice that went against every instinct he possessed.
Xiao Diao, sensing the old man's internal battle, let out a short chuckle. "Just say it, old man. You don't need to overthink it. This brat isn't as scary as you think."
Shen Xi also looked at Yan, her mysterious eyes filling with a sudden, sharp intuition. She could tell by the way her grandfather was looking at her that whatever he was about to say would change her life more than the seal ever could.
Yan took a deep, steadying breath, his hands trembling as they rested on his knees. "Mu Chen... can you take Shen Xi with you?"
The request caused Xiao Diao and Mu Chen to pause for a moment. Even the mink hadn't seen that coming.
Before Mu Chen could reply, Shen Xi stepped forward, her voice rising in shock. "Grandpa? You are sending me away? But why? I've spent my life here with you! This forest... you are my only family!"
Her eyes grew watery, the stoic mask she usually wore beginning to crack.
Yan patted her head, his ancient hand lingering on her hair with a gentleness that was heartbreaking. "Xian'er, you know as well as I do that the world is changing. You are a seal-holder. To the demons, you are a source of terror, but you are also the ultimate prize. I have to stay here; I have to fight the darkness. But you... you need an environment where you can grow safely."
"But Grandpa—" Shen Xi started, her voice breaking.
"Silly girl," Yan cut her short, his eyes soft with a bittersweet smile. "It's not as if we can never meet again. I am an Ascendant; distance is merely a suggestion to me. I can come to see you whenever the borders are quiet. We aren't separating forever. We are just giving you the space to become who you were meant to be."
Shen Xi looked at him for a long time, the realization sinking in. To Ascendant cultivators, who could rewrite the very laws, opening spatial gates that connected entire continents was nothing more than a trivial act.
Shen Xi nodded.
Yan looked at Mu Chen, waiting for the only answer that mattered.
Mu Chen gave a short, lazy nod. "Fine."
Xiao Diao would be leaving eventually to deal with his own clan issues and having another companion who didn't scream as much as the mink might actually be an improvement. Anyway, It would certainly be less boring than traveling alone.
Nibi, who had just closed her eyes for her nap, cracked one eye open and looked at Shen Xi. She let out a soft meow and tapped Mu Chen's forehead with one golden paw, as if giving her own royal approval of the new addition to their group.
"Take care of her," Yan said, his voice thick with emotion. "Protect her."
Xiao Diao laughed, hopping onto Mu Chen's shoulder. "Don't worry, old man. If there is anyone in this world who is safe, it's the people who stay close to this brat."
Yan smiled, a genuine sense of relief finally washing over him. He knew that with Mu Chen, Shen Xi was safer than she would be anywhere.
Mu Chen looked at Shen Xi, his expression bored. "Let's go."
Shen Xi nodded, taking one last long look at Grandpa Yan and the simple thatched hut that had been her world for twenty years. She stepped toward Mu Chen, her green dress fluttering in the cold wind.
As Mu Chen took a single, casual step forward, the world didn't blur or shift. Instead, the clearing in the Frozen Forest simply ceased to be.
Without a moment of transition, the group found themselves standing in the lush, vibrant garden where Mu Chen had brewed his wine. They were back under the ancient, sprawling tree, the fragrance of the herbs and the sweet scent of the Dreamwake Wine still hanging in the air.
Mu Chen hadn't appeared there through a portal or teleportation; it was as if he had always been standing in the garden, and the rest of the world had simply shifted its perception back to him.