The atmosphere within Prince Yong's main hall was deathly cold. A deep, penetrating chill clung to the air and seeped into the bones of everyone present, turning their breath into white plumes that hung in the stillness. Su Min sparked the Nanming Lihuo in her palm, her fingers glowing with a faint, golden warmth that pushed back against the gloom. She muttered under her breath, her brow twitching in irritation.
That troublesome woman was perfectly capable of restraining her frigid aura completely. Instead, she insisted on letting a sliver of it leak out, as if cultivating some lofty, untouchable immortal's image from a forgotten age. To Su Min, it felt like an unnecessary theatrical touch that only served to make the mortals suffer.
Fortunately, Cao Yuanmu had now stepped into the Foundation Establishment realm, so the cold didn't bother him much. But the same couldn't be said for the ordinary mortal advisors and servants in the room. Their lips were tinged with blue, and their hands trembled as they tried to maintain their composure.
Su Min had half expected that Xie Yingying wouldn't care about the discomfort of others. To her surprise, the moment the heavenly flame appeared, the other woman silently reined in her aura. She pulled the cold back into herself until the room's temperature became merely cool. It was a noticeable and immediate relief.
"What's the current status of that creature?" Su Min asked, her tone steady and businesslike.
She hadn't been wholly focused when refining her last batch of pills, keeping a thin thread of her consciousness free to monitor the outside situation. Prince Yong had been updating her diligently. He knew full well that she was their only real hope against the emerging threat. To make matters worse, the creature's lair was situated perilously close to Yongzhou City.
If it truly awakened, his domain would be the first to fall. He didn't need Su Min to urge him to act. He was already deeply, personally invested. His face was lined with a ruler's worry, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.
"So you're saying it's begun absorbing corpse qi at a much faster rate?" Su Min frowned, processing the report while her fingers drummed against the table's edge. "It's trying to break free within the month? What's the rush?"
A corpse demon, born crippled by its very nature, was rushing its own awakening? It made no logical sense. To Su Min's modern mind, everything had a reason, a mechanic behind the event.
Then again, this one had somehow reached the Golden Core stage in its undeath. There was a real chance it retained a shard of its former consciousness. It would be twisted and paranoid, but dangerously sharp. Prince Yong was visibly uneasy. He stood with his hands clasped tightly behind his back, his knuckles white. A Golden Core corpse demon was a nightmare: cunning, brutal, and cursed with dark, corrosive power. Only the two women standing before him had any real hope of stopping it.
He had other Foundation Establishment cultivators nominally on his side. Master Mo had a longstanding bond with them, and Master Hui Ming would never sit idle in such a crisis. But none of them could be fully relied upon for this. He still remembered the sheer horror atop the Yongzhou walls twenty years prior. Against such a primordial evil, no one but these two had proven their mettle.
Even Master Mo was just a representative of his sect's interests. Only Su Min, of those outside the ancient royal bloodline, had earned the right to stand as an equal partner to Prince Yong's lineage.
"Three days from now will be the full moon," Su Min said slowly. "If that creature absorbs the peak lunar essence, it could temporarily stabilize its flawed foundation. Whatever power it loses by awakening early, it will more than reclaim under the moon's direct blessing."
"I see," came Xie Yingying's voice from beside her. "It seeks to use the moon's yin essence to compensate for its own inherent instability. A clever, if desperate, tactic."
Su Min fell silent for a moment. This sort of esoteric detail hadn't been mentioned in the game world's basic lore. It might have been hidden in some obscure item description. She had never had the patience for those in her past life. It was a small, nagging gap in her knowledge.
"I'm ready to act whenever. What about you?" she asked Xie Yingying, turning to face her directly.
A few months' difference meant little to her. Cultivation wasn't a path for the impatient. She had just stabilized her own breakthrough and wouldn't foolishly rush toward the later Foundation stages. Besides, against a corpse demon with a shaky Golden Core foundation, her current cultivation was more than sufficient. She felt a focused readiness.
Xie Yingying didn't even blink. Her gaze was as steady as ice.
"I'm ready. I will hold its attention. All corpse demons carry a chilling yin aura in their attacks. Their primary means of assault will be largely useless against me. You focus on the offense. Your Nanming Lihuo will burn through its defenses like paper."
Xie Yingying's tone was still cool, but there was a subtle shift. She wasn't just talking about a tactical arrangement. She was taking the front line, the most dangerous position, to leave Su Min the opening.
"Then there's no need to wait. Let's leave now," Su Min said briskly. She was never one for pointless delays. The creature had only just begun its awakening. If they struck now, they might be able to sever its progress.
"In that case, this Prince, on behalf of the Eight Prefectures and Three Counties, and its millions of residents, offers our deepest gratitude," Prince Yong said. His voice was solemn and heavy.
The others in the room—advisors and guards alike—followed his lead. They rose to their feet in unison and offered Su Min and Xie Yingying a deep, formal bow. It was a gesture of profound respect. Even Xie Yingying was subtly taken aback by the genuine, collective weight of the gesture. In that moment, she began to understand a little better why Su Min's reputation carried such weight.
"That's enough. You don't need to be so formal," Su Min said. She waved a hand slightly to cut the ceremony short. "What's more important is that you keep people far away from the site. Once the fight begins, neither of us can guarantee control over the battlefield. Anyone caught nearby will be swept up and likely killed."
"Understood," the prince replied. He took a deep breath as if to say more, but he held his tongue.
Before he could form the words, the two women vanished from the hall in a blur of motion. They were already gone, leaving only a faint chill and a trace of heat in the air.
-
Not long into their journey, as they sped across the rugged landscape, Xie Yingying broke the comfortable silence between them. They were leaping from one rocky outcrop to the next, the wind whistling past their ears.
"After this… do you want to seal yourself with me?"
Su Min glanced sideways at her. She didn't stop her pace. Her expression was unreadable.
Xie Yingying's voice was steady, but it was softer than usual. "I know your Su Clan still holds that grudge against the old witch from the Hehuan Sect. But that can wait until you reach Golden Core. You know as well as I do: performing a seal at the Foundation Stage is far easier and safer than trying it after forming a core."
Su Min slowed ever so slightly. Her feet landed gently on a wide, flat stone. The wind stirred her sleeves. The memory of her past wasn't just a quest log anymore; it was her life. The modern woman she had once been and the original Su Min's grief had fused into something singular. The purge of her clan was a weight she carried—a shackle of blood and fire.
"…So you dug that far back," she murmured.
She didn't sound angry. If anything, her tone was thoughtful and quiet. There was no bitterness in it. Not because the memory had faded, but because someone else had bothered to uncover it and carry its weight, too. Xie Yingying had done more than just research; she had shown a care that felt dangerously close to something else.
Su Min didn't look at her. Her gaze stayed fixed on the rocky path winding through the mountain pass ahead.
"There's no need," Su Min said. Her voice was final, like a door closing softly but firmly. "I have already made my preparations."
She reached up and adjusted her sleeve. "Three hundred years from now," she added, almost as if reciting a vow to the mountains, "we will meet again on the Golden Core Avenue."
Xie Yingying studied her profile for a long moment. She seemed to be weighing whether to press the issue further. But in the end, she only gave a single, slow nod.
"Very well. Just don't forget your grudge," she said. "If you leave it to rot inside you, it will fester and turn into a heart demon."
Su Min gave a faint, almost imperceptible smile. There was no warmth in it. Forget? She had endured precisely because she remembered. It was the fuel for her resolve.
She knew what Xie Yingying was truly offering: a fragment of her own profoundly precious Sealing Crystal. It was no small gesture. Something that valuable wasn't given lightly. It was an invitation to walk the long road toward immortality side by side. Xie Yingying, who normally rejected the world, was inviting her in.
But Su Min simply didn't need it.
From the moment she had first sat before her screen in a different life, her fingers hovering over the choices, she had already chosen her path. Immortality and Heavenly Dao Insight. It was a road meant for solitude.
"I appreciate the thought," she said after a long moment. "But I won't need it."
There was nothing arrogant in her voice, only a bedrock certainty. She'd cultivate quietly and outlasting the world itself.
Eventually, they arrived at their destination. It was a vast tract of barren land where not a single blade of grass grew—a place that felt dead even to the air. The soil was a dark, bruised purple.
"This is the so-called Valley of Death," Su Min stated. Her voice was flat. "After that last emperor's blood sacrifice, this place was shrouded in corpse energy for centuries. Any living thing that approached met a gruesome end. But now, as the monster absorbs the energy back into itself, life is slowly returning."
Kneeling, she observed the cracked ground. Tiny, resilient green sprouts had begun to push their way toward the sun. They were a stark contrast to the desolation.
The ambient corpse energy had dissipated. The Valley of Death's blighted range was visibly shrinking.
"We wait atop that ridge," Su Min said. She pointed to a rocky outcrop that overlooked the barren basin. "We are strong enough to ignore the lingering corpse qi, but there's no need to alert it too soon. Once it shows itself, we strike and end this quickly." She then glanced at the sky. The moon was already a bright sliver in the afternoon light. "And the full moon's energy might give you a slight boost as well."
Xie Yingying nodded. Her pale skin seemed to glow in the bleak light as if already drawing power from the coming night. "Understood."
===
"do you want to seal yourself with me?"
Certaintly, our Yingying began to open up her hearts and trust Su Min. I mean, even if she want allied with her in the upcoming event, 'Sleep at the same place' clearly very risky as both of them is not 'that close' right now. Considering this world is "Xianxia" background where your closest person can stab you on your back.