Know Your Immortal Bones Lack Cold and Heat

“Mu Hanyuan?”

Ding Xiao’s expression remained as bewildered as ever. “Who is that?”

“…”

Yun Yao stood motionless, frozen in place.

She felt the chill radiating from the ice-jade ring seep into her internal organs, frosting over her entire body.

She had never imagined that one of the remaining costs of the End defying destiny—perishing alongside the power of the End—would be the Heavenly Dao erasing every trace he had ever left in this mortal world.

Wiped away so thoroughly that not even a fraction of a memory remained.

“Senior Martial Aunt, why are you suddenly bringing up the public trial at the peak and some demon?”

Ding Xiao thought for a long while without result. Seeing Yun Yao lost in a daze, she felt a bit confused but didn’t sense anything was truly wrong.

She simply assumed that since too much time had passed, her Senior Martial Aunt was confusing sect history.

“This mountain path was cleared by the Fifth Grandmaster; he said it makes it easier for the disciples to come up and sweep,” Ding Xiao walked a few steps forward and suddenly stopped.

“Oh, right, Senior Martial Aunt. That isolated peak next to yours… who is it reserved for?”

Yun Yao stood stiffly and turned around.

Following the direction Ding Xiao pointed, amidst the sea of clouds beyond the summit, she saw a lonely, dilapidated green peak standing guard right next to her Tianshan Peak.

“When we swept that day, my junior brothers and sisters and I went up to look. The entire peak and the grotto were sealed off; we couldn’t get inside…”

Ding Xiao sighed with regret.

“A waste of all those floral trees on the mountain. I heard from a junior sister that they’re called April Snow. They mostly grow in the extreme north; I don’t know how they survived so long in our Southern Border…”

“Strange, though. They bloomed brilliantly without fading for over three hundred years within the sect, but a few days ago, they all withered overnight.”

Gazing at the April Snow that had completely shriveled without his magic to sustain them, Yun Yao’s eyes grew moist.

The mountain wind brushed her face, a chill entering her bones and soaking into her lungs.

Yun Yao couldn’t suppress a couple of muffled coughs. She forced herself to speak:

“Mu Hanyuan.”

“What?”

Ding Xiao turned back, puzzled.

She saw the soul-shaken Yun Yao raise her eyes slightly, speaking softly and earnestly:

“I took a disciple while I was away from the mountain. His name is Mu Hanyuan.”

Ding Xiao was stunned. “Eh?”

“That isolated peak and grotto… are reserved for him.”

“Ah, is that the name you mentioned just now? So it’s a junior brother who hasn’t officially entered the sect yet; no wonder I don’t remember,” Ding Xiao scratched her head.

“Then… why didn’t this Junior Brother Mu come back with you, Senior Martial Aunt?”

“…He has some matters that delayed him. He’ll be back a bit later.”

Yun Yao lowered her eyes and started up the steps.

“But he will come back.”

Even if everyone forgets you, it doesn’t matter. I will remember you.

As long as there is one person in this world who remembers you and waits for you, then even if you are in the deepest depths of hell, you will wake up one day.

Right?

Yun Yao didn’t know who she was asking.

The mountain was silent, with no one to respond. Only the sound of the wind whistling through the trees passed by her side, fluttering her snow-white dress.

Yun Yao settled into a solitary life on Tianshan Peak.

Perhaps seeing her home so desolate, Mu Jiutian wanted to arrange for a few disciples to study under her and take care of the grotto’s sweeping and her daily life, but Yun Yao turned them all down.

In her spare time, she liked to visit the nearby abandoned peak. As she went more often, even the disciples in the sect came to know of it—the April Snow across the mountain began to bloom brilliantly once more, as vibrant as fire.

It looked as if it were preparing for a ceremony to welcome someone’s return, date unknown.

During the seasons when her cold affliction didn’t flare up so frequently or lethally, Yun Yao would go down the mountain to do small deeds of heroism and justice.

On a few occasions, she hallucinated seeing a frost-cold, transcendent figure in white amidst the crowds.

Unfortunately, by the time she turned around, the bubble had already burst.

Days passed quickly like this.

That man’s existence had been thoroughly erased from this world by the Heavenly Dao; every trace of the past had been replaced by others. As long as Yun Yao didn’t think of it, no one mentioned it.

Gradually, Yun Yao seemed to have completely “forgotten” his departure as well, no longer mentioning to anyone that she had a disciple who had yet to return.

Even Yun Yao thought she was about to forget.

Until one night.

She suddenly saw him in a dream.

That person seemed to be leaning by her ear, speaking with such intimate closeness.

Yun Yao couldn’t hear clearly. In her dream, she wept and tried desperately to pull him back, even if it was just a piece of his sleeve.

But she couldn’t hold him; he was like a phantom bubble, passing through her fingers.

She could only ask him through her tears, “Where are you?”

“I am right by your side,” he whispered, leaning close. He was a phantom just out of reach, as if wanting to pull her into his embrace.

“I will be the rain, the wind, the spring dawn, the summer bloom, the autumn frost, and the winter snow. Together with these three realms, I will accompany Master until eternity.”

Yun Yao sobbed uncontrollably in her dream. When she woke, her face was likewise covered in tears.

From that day on, Tianshan Peak was sealed.

It was a true “sealing”—frozen in ice.

Starting from the grotto within the mountain, an endless, icy chill spread outward. The flora across the entire peak seemed to be frozen in a state between life and death, covered by a layer of ice. The mountain was hung with icicles, yet remained lush and lifelike.

No one could even get close to Yun Yao’s grotto; even Mu Jiutian, who was in the Tribulation Realm, could not get within a fraction of that terrifying, otherworldly chill.

One hundred days later.

The grotto was unsealed. Yun Yao, looking paler and weaker than ever before, walked out. But this time, her eyes seemed to burn with a fire that matched her red robes.

On the same day, the Red Dust Buddhist from Fantian Temple led an unremarkable-looking great monk into Qianmen.

“…Why can you also perceive his soul fluctuations?”

To the arrival of the Reincarnation Tower spirit—the great monk before her—Yun Yao was both surprised and calm.

“Does my ability to perceive it have something to do with you too?”

The monk folded his hands and sighed. “While at Fantian Temple, it was I who extracted a wisp of your immortal essence and sealed it within a golden lotus.”

Yun Yao’s gaze turned dazed. “Later, the golden lotus took form and entered his sea of consciousness… could that wisp of immortal essence have entered his soul…?”

“It is precisely that wisp of immortal essence that protected the last shred of his soul.”

The monk remained as still as a mountain.

A brief moment of startled joy flashed like a firework across her eyes. Yun Yao confirmed that her perception from a day ago was no delusion, yet her heart felt anxious, and even her throat grew tight with tension.

“He truly is still alive, isn’t he?”

“Yes. After undergoing such a calamity, regardless of whether it is a thousand or ten thousand years, regardless of where in the three realms he may be, that person is ultimately alive,” the monk finally raised his brows.

“As such, both parties are at peace; it is a happy ending for all.”

The startled joy in Yun Yao’s eyes faded. “Are you here to stop me?”

“Benefactor, you weren’t obsessed with this before. Why must you insist on meeting now?”

Yun Yao finally realized something. “Originally, I would have had to rely on that wisp of immortal essence to find him, but now I know.”

The monk frowned, a rare occurrence.

But he couldn’t stop Yun Yao from speaking:

“His soul has fallen into the Netherworld, hasn’t it?”

After a long silence.

The monk sighed. “Even the Saint Origin should not step into the Netherworld.”

“I am no Saint Origin. I am just a minor cultivator of the Qianyuan Realm named Yun Yao,” Yun Yao said, her eyes firm and resolute.

“This journey will not harm anyone else; my conscience is clear.”

“If you descend to the Netherworld, one careless move could lead to your demise, and your soul will be scattered.”

Yun Yao locked eyes with the monk for two breaths and suddenly smiled.

This was her first genuine, heartfelt smile since the upheaval in the Immortal Court.

“You knew before you came that you couldn’t stop me, didn’t you?”

The monk folded his hands and remained silent.

“Then why bother coming?”

Yun Yao bypassed the monk, carrying a green blade, and headed straight out.

The monk’s voice was carried to her ears by the distant mountain wind.

“His five senses are completely gone; he is like a lonely ghost. Having endured the punishment of the Heavenly Dao for a thousand days, he likely wouldn’t recognize anyone.”

“Detached from his original body, among the millions of souls in the Netherworld, he is but the smallest of them.”

“He won’t recognize you.”

“If you don’t find him within three days in the Netherworld, even you, Your Holiness, will…”

“I will find him.”

Yun Yao’s voice was iron-like as she cut him off.

In her final look back, the young woman in red robes had eyes that were vivid and moving.

“If I do not succeed, then I shall not return either.”

Before crossing the River of the Netherworld, Yun Yao lit a candle.

She used her own immortal essence as the wax.

The limit was three days; if the candle burned out and she still hadn’t found that man, then she wouldn’t need to return.

Aside from the divine message from Transcendence—who had likely just received her “last will” and sounded quite frantic—everything else made Yun Yao feel at ease.

An ease she hadn’t felt in the thousand days since the Immortal Court upheaval.

The Netherworld is boundless, with eighteen levels of hell. The very bottom level is the Hell of Vile Ghosts.

The souls imprisoned there are criminals who have committed heinous crimes and are beyond reincarnation. The Netherworld is unwilling to release these vile ghosts back to the mortal world to cause trouble, so they are all kept there to slaughter one another.

The Heavenly Dao has never been merciful.

Thus, Yun Yao descended directly to this level.

However, what she saw was not quite the same as what the shivering little ghost who ferried her across the river had described.

Arriving in the Hell of Vile Ghosts on the eighteenth level, there were indeed severed limbs and remains of perished souls everywhere. There was no lack of vile ghosts hiding in the Filth River, tearing and feasting on each other’s flesh. But the one thing she didn’t see was the rumored sight of all-out slaughter.

On the contrary, aside from the ink-like Red River and the sky weeping blood, everything was eerily silent.

After saving a vile ghost whose soul-body had been half-eaten from another, Yun Yao interrogated it.

“Gre—Great one, you don’t know…”

The half-ghost gazed greedily at the soul-candle in Yun Yao’s hand, yet knew that a single finger from her could make it vanish instantly. It could only become more submissive and fawning.

“We… a Great Demon arrived here a few days ago! In life, he… he was a powerful figure who could reach the Ninth Heaven and endure Heavenly Punishment. The vile ghosts have all gone mad… if someone could… could take a single bite of his soul, how many—how many tens of thousands of years of progress would that be!!”

Yun Yao nearly crushed the vile ghost before her, which was speaking while revealing a drooling, greedy gaze. “Where. Is. He?”

“Just… just at the end of the Blood River ahead…”

The ghost, with only half a tongue left, couldn’t help licking its skeleton-like teeth. “Is the Great One also going to get a share? I am willing to go on your behalf—”

With a shrill cry, it turned into foul air and its soul was scattered.

Yun Yao’s eyes grew slightly red as she lightly followed the Blood River to its end.

At the end of that boundless, blood-red river that covered heaven and earth, Yun Yao did indeed see that silhouette among the ten thousand ghosts.

White clothes, white hair. Upon that jade-cold face of a vile ghost, his eyes were closed, and blood was pouring out like a stream.

He had indeed lost his five senses.

Unable to see, unable to hear, unable to feel.

Discarded by the Heavenly Dao among these vile ghosts, forced to endure tens of thousands of years of cannibalism and torment.

At the end of the Blood River, he simply stood there indifferently, swinging his sword, slaughtering every vile ghost that lunged at him.

Broken soul-bodies and severed limbs formed the bones beneath his feet.

There were times when he couldn’t dodge, and the white clothes on his body were stained with mottled blood; that was likely how it happened.

Yun Yao took just one look and felt a pain in her heart that nearly drove her to demonic possession.

…I can’t.

The soul-candle was gripped tightly in her hand. She remembered that she was there to bring him back.

The milky-white light of the Saint Origin bloomed from her palm, her immortal essence burning like a brilliant torch in this bottomless hell.

The vile ghosts let out the most shrill and unpleasant screams as they were swallowed by the light and vanished without a trace.

Ten yards away from him, Yun Yao withdrew the light of the soul-candle.

She was afraid of hurting him.

Yun Yao walked toward him step by step.

He was still swinging his sword, indifferently strangling every vile ghost that crashed into him. Having lost his five senses, the screams and alarms of the ghosts just now hadn’t affected him in the slightest.

He was now just a lonely ghost washed away by the power of the Heavenly Dao; no matter what she said or did, he wouldn’t be able to feel it.

He… must have already forgotten her.

…Yun Yao knew all of this.

She just couldn’t restrain herself from moving forward. Facing his sharp and deathly sword, she didn’t know whether the pain of that sword piercing her body would hurt her more than the tears she could hardly hold back at this moment.

Yun Yao closed her eyes and took the final step.

Whish.

The icy, blood-colored sword-glow illuminated the last sliver of her vision before she closed her eyes.

Whether it was because she was numb from pain or simply slow, Yun Yao didn’t feel the sensation of that sword, which reeked of sinister ghostly air, stabbing into her soul-body.

She opened her eyes blankly.

The tip of the sword had stopped just inches before her.

Then, suddenly, it dissipated into a black mist.

The hand holding the sword—revealing chilling white bone—slowly clenched its fingers.

Upon that blood-splattered, jade-cold face, he revealed for the first time such a panicked look of helplessness, as if he were catching a phantom:

“Mas… ter?”