The poisonous mist above the valley churned like a living beast, its viridian coils blotting out the sun.
Dugu Bo's eyes narrowed as a sudden ice-blue light flared before him.
The next instant, a deafening crack split the sky, and an enormous hole, nearly a hundred meters wide, was blasted through the poisonous cloud.
Sunlight speared down through the gap, slicing the toxic gloom in two.
The warm rays struck his face, but instead of comfort, Dugu Bo felt a cold dread crawl up his spine.
He turned stiffly.
The girl floating opposite him, slim, ethereal, with an expression colder than the glaciers of the north, lowered her hand.
Frost rippled beneath her feet.
That wasn't a girl.
That was something else entirely.
"I–Ice Emperor… forgive me!" Dugu Bo stammered, forcing a nervous grin.
"This little one had eyes but failed to recognize your greatness! I'll take my leave!"
He pivoted fast, too fast, and prepared to bolt.
Whish!
A shard of blue light streaked past and struck the earth just ahead of him.
A tall ice spike rose instantly from the ground, glittering menacingly.
Dugu Bo froze mid-step.
"Did I say you could leave?"
The Ice Emperor's voice was emotionless, but her presence crushed the air around him like invisible ice.
Even his poison qi trembled, suppressed by her sheer cold.
She took a step forward, tilting her head.
"Hand over everything you have. Then you can crawl away."
"...What?"
Even Cheng Yang, lounging on a boulder behind her, blinked.
"I knew it'd come to this."
Dugu Bo gawked at the pair.
"That's… all? Just money? No crippling? No killing?"
The Ice Emperor huffed impatiently.
"Don't be stupid. Killing humans is messy. The big bug said corpses spread plagues or something. Too much trouble. Pay up, live longer."
Dugu Bo's expression twisted.
He couldn't tell if he should be grateful or insulted.
Surviving because someone was too lazy to deal with your corpse didn't exactly feel honorable.
Just as he began fumbling for his coin pouch, Cheng Yang's voice cut through the tension.
"Wait. You use poison, don't you? Then don't leave. Follow me."
Dugu Bo froze again. His hand hovered midair.
"...Huh?"
The Ice Emperor shot Cheng Yang a glare.
"Hey! Who told you to decide that? Why are we picking up strays?"
Cheng Yang didn't flinch.
"Because he's talented. He has the potential to become a Titled Douluo."
Dugu Bo's eyes widened slightly at that.
The Ice Emperor snorted.
"Titled Douluo? Below ninety-five, they're just weaklings. I could swat ten of them with one hand."
Her tone dripped disdain, but Cheng Yang's gaze had grown serious.
"We agreed, I find treasures, you trust me. You've seen it. You know I'm right. And I also know where the Myriad Ice Essence lies."
That made her pause. Her frosty aura flickered.
"Then tell me. Where is it?"
Cheng Yang smiled faintly.
"If I tell you now, I lose my value. And once I lose my value…"
He looked her dead in the eye.
"…you'll eat me."
The Ice Emperor bared her teeth.
"Believe it or not, I'll eat you right now."
"What's the difference?" Cheng Yang said softly.
"Ten thousand years from now, your life force will reach its end. When that time comes, I'll tell you where to find the Ice Essence so you can surpass your limit. That's my promise. All I ask is a life free from being your next meal."
He took a slow breath.
"Ten thousand years of freedom, for a being like you, that's nothing. So please, don't stop me from taking in Dugu Bo."
The Ice Emperor blinked.
The sharpness in her aura wavered, and, for a fleeting moment, she looked… hurt.
"So that's it?" Her voice trembled slightly.
"You just want to get rid of me?"
Cheng Yang frowned.
"What are you?"
"You think I care?!" she snapped, her red-tinged eyes glaring fiercely.
"You're just food! Get lost! Don't show your face again! Even if you tell me where the Ice Essence is ten thousand years later, I'll still eat you!"
Dugu Bo, standing off to the side, tried very hard to blend into the scenery.
'The relationship between these two… is way too complicated. Should I be taking notes or running for my life?'
Cheng Yang sighed, rubbing his temple.
She really was impossible.
He walked up to her and, despite the lethal chill in the air, placed a hand gently atop her head, ruffling her bluish-green twin ponytails.
"I didn't mean that," he said quietly.
"Stop thinking about eating me all the time, and maybe we'll get along just fine for the next ten thousand years."
The Ice Emperor's eyes widened.
Her cheeks colored slightly, though the cold masked it well.
She lifted her chin, staring straight at him.
"No regrets?"
Cheng Yang met her gaze and nodded.
"No regrets."
Dugu Bo blinked from the side, utterly dumbfounded.
"...What in the world did I just witness?"
"Even if I want to eat you in ten thousand years, I won't regret it!" the Ice Emperor snapped, lip curling like frosted steel.
If the Tianmeng really did die out around then, there was nothing he could do, even if the Ice Emperor reneged.
He gave a small, dry nod.
"Then I couldn't stop you anyway. Fair enough."
The Ice Emperor's expression softened for the barest of breaths; she looped her arm through his as if afraid the agreement might evaporate.
"Good. My Ice Emperor swears to the sky, I will not eat you before the deadline, and you are not allowed to run off before then."
Her voice had an odd mixture of possessiveness and childish stubbornness.
Cheng Yang sighed, amused despite himself.
"I'm cheap," he said, half to mock the melodrama.
"Alright. No one's getting eaten today. Now stop glaring at me like I've stolen your last fish."
He made a show of fluffing up his jacket and steepling his fingers, the most theatrical oath he could conjure.
It should not have been comforting, but the thin warmth of human absurdity threaded through the tense clearing.
Dugu Bo, still covering his eyes with one hand as if that might erase the danger, inched forward when Cheng Yang beckoned.
He walked like a man who'd accepted small miracles, relieved, skeptical, grateful all at once.
Cheng Yang could see it in the way the boy's shoulders lowered; surviving by luck or laziness was still surviving.
"Sit," Cheng Yang said, pulling a folded scrap of paper and a stubby pencil from his pack.
"Write down every poison and tonic you know.
Draw them if you can. Herbs' names are useless; a sketch that describes appearance and application, now that's useful."
Dugu Bo blinked.
He had expected to be told to run, to be ordered about, maybe even to be tested.
He had not expected a lesson in illustration.
Still, he sat and obediently began to sketch, first clumsy strokes, then gradually more confident lines as Cheng Yang explained perspective, proportions, and an easy shorthand for toxicity levels and antidote markers.
From the Ice Emperor's point of view, watching Dugu Bo's hand move over the paper was almost comical.
"So that's how you teach? With doodles?" she asked, the frost in her voice less brittle than before.
"It's practical," Cheng Yang said.
"People forget names, but they remember a picture. When you're poisoned in the middle of nowhere, you don't have time to read a textbook, but if you recognize the leaf, remember the symbol."
Dugu Bo's face lit with a small, almost embarrassed pride.
"If only they had shown these in the medicine books…"
He stopped himself, the old resentment fading into a grateful silence.
The Ice Emperor, however, was not yet sated.
"Now you tell me why you want to take him in," she insisted, curling her fingers around Cheng Yang's sleeve.
"You promised I can't run away."
Cheng Yang smiled and laid out his bargaining cards on a table.
"Teach me to fly first, and I'll tell you everything."
"Fine."
She pinched him lightly, hard enough to be a reminder that she could, in fact, crush him if she wanted to, but soft enough that it felt almost like affection.
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