"Hey, Chu, rub your forehead into the crevice of the stone again, be careful not to freeze off a layer of skin."
As Su Meier's voice drifted lazily out of the bottle, Chu Xuanzheng was pressed against the ice wall, his nose almost stuffed into the crack as thin as a hair. The white mist he exhaled instantly froze into ice beads, crackling down like a light snowfall on the stone wall.
"Peeling is worth it." Chu Xuan replied in a muffled voice, the pads of his fingers gently stroking the edge of the crack, and a wisp of consciousness thinner than a hair crept in through the crack. "It seems there are words calling me - 'Little friend, come in and play.'"
"TSK, there are girls calling you in the ice crevice?" Su Meier laughed awkwardly, "Ling Qingxue heard it, but don't freeze you into an ice sculpture specimen."
Before she could finish speaking, Ling Qingxue's faint voice really came from behind: "What I heard was someone itching their skin."
Chu Xuan turned around and saw the girl in white standing with her arms crossed, the Cold Moon sword leaning against her shoulder, and the scabbard hitting the ice, making a crisp "ding ding". Her eyes and brows were cold, but with the relaxation of the just-ended seclusion, like a frosty blade drawn from its sheath, its sharpness temporarily restrained, yet still striking.
"Qingxue, you've come just in time." Chu Xuan waved his hand, grinning with sharp teeth, "Lend me a bit of sword qi to split this crack a little more? I promise I won't damage your wall."
"It's forbidden, not a wall." Ling Qingxue stepped forward, and with a flick of her fingertip, the ice crumbled off. "Besides, I also want to know what our ancestors have left behind."
She pointed like a sword, and a wisp of ice-blue sword qi came out, like a thread formed by moonlight, gently cutting through the crevice of the stone. With a crisp "whoosh", the crack widened to two fingers wide, and a deep blue light burst forth in an instant, and a wave of ancient vastness came over --
Chu Xuan's mind buzzed as if a cold hand was pressing down on the back of his head, and he was pulled into a dark space.
In the darkness, the golden words floated up and down like stars.
"Heaven and earth are the witnesses, the mind of the Dao is the thread, all things are one, they form together..."
Chu Xuan subconsciously followed and recited. With each word he uttered, the golden characters transformed into a streak of light and vanished into his brow. Outside, the ice lotus mark on his forehead suddenly brightened, and the entire ice passage trembled as if a mechanism that had slumbered for ten thousand years had been suddenly activated.
Ling Qingxue sensed something was amiss at the first moment and reached out to pull Chu Xuan's wrist, but was bounced away by a gentle force. She frowned, her palm pressed against his back, and the ice-like spiritual energy slowly entered --
Boom!
Both of them shook their minds at the same time, and a scene unfolded: a vast snowfield, a black-clad man and a white-clad woman side by side, the man's jade pendant intact in his hand, the woman's wrist burning; On the opposite side, the Taotie stretched out the sky, and the black mist rolled. The jade pendant suddenly broke, turned into a streak of light and vanished into the void, and the figures of men and women became transparent, leaving only a whisper that echoed through heaven and earth --
"The day of the reunion of the jade pendants, the time of the continuation of the covenant of the Dao."
The scene crumbled, Chu Xuan suddenly opened his eyes, and the golden talismans flashed in his pupils. He lowered his head, the half of the jade pendant in his palm was slightly hot, and the crack echoed with the other half of the ice wall, like a heartbeat after a long separation.
"Just now... Did you see it? His voice was hoarse.
Ling Qingxue nodded, her usually cold voice carrying a rare hint of trance: "The remnants of our ancestors, and --" she paused, her gaze falling on Yu Jue, "The other half should be inside."
Chu Xuan licked his lips and laughed like a child who had stolen candy: "Then what are you waiting for? Demolish the wall -- uh, demolish the forbidden area!"
"Take your head off." Ling Qingxue struck him on the forehead with the hilt of her sword, but with a light force. "The Forbidden Land array is connected to the spiritual vein of the Qingyun Sect. If it goes wrong, it will affect the whole body. Find a way to get the other half out first."
Chu Xuan rubbed his forehead, but his eyes shone astonishingly: "If you can't get them, just trick them out. Since Yu Jue recognizes the Dao Qi, then use the Dao Qi to coax it."
Saying this, he pointed to the sword, and a bit of his spiritual power condensed into a blue lotus, and gently pressed it against the crack. As soon as the lotus petal touched the stone wall, the runes inside lit up instantly, like a awakened starry river, and a small but clear passage spread out from the crack, forming an arch only wide enough for one person to pass through.
Inside the arch, soft white light flickered as if a heartbeat was inviting.
Chu Xuan turned his head and raised an eyebrow at Ling Qingxue: "Come in?"
Ling Qingxue grasped the hilt of her sword, but her eyes were soft: "Come in."
They stepped in side by side, and the ice path behind them closed quietly as if it had never cracked. Ahead, a half jade pendant hung in mid-air, waiting for a long-awaited embrace.
The jade pendant was suspended in the palm of the hand, like a crescent moon worn thin by time, with a faint blue light flickering at the crack. Just as Chu Xuan's fingertips touched the cross-section, an ancient suction force suddenly pushed him forward --
"Ouch --"
He staggered half a step, his forehead banging against the ice wall with a thud, with ice chips flying everywhere. Ling Qingxue instinctively reached out to pull, but slipped and lunged along. Their foreheads collided, and with a crisp "click", the blue light inside and outside the ice wall burst out as if someone had lit a firework in the snow.
"Whoosh..." Chu Xuan covered his forehead, tears almost gushing out. "Qingxue, is your head made of Xuan iron?"
Ling Qingxue's eyes were also red, but she forced herself to be calm: "Shut up, it's your bones that are too brittle."
Though her words were hard, her fingers reached for the red mark on Chu Xuan's forehead at the first moment, and her cold spiritual energy gently returned. The young man's skin was stirred by the cold and immediately formed small bumps. Chu Xuan took a deep breath, but his voice dropped: "Leave me alone, Yu Jue seems... "Bonding."
Both of them lowered their heads --
Half of the jade pendant was pressing against the other half of the ice wall, with blue light flowing through the cracks like melted star sand, gradually healing. In the blink of an eye, with a soft "click", the jade pendant was intact and turned into a warm ice ring that automatically fitted Chu Xuan's wrist, just the right size.
On the inner side of the ice ring, a row of tiny runes emerged quietly: Heaven and earth as evidence, Daoist heart as engagement.
Ling Qingxue's eyes flickered slightly as she lowered her gaze to her wrist - where the mark of the covenant was flashing in sync with the ice ring, like two stars separated by eternity finally matching the signal.
"This counts... A token of love?" Chu Xuan raised his hand and shook the ice ring, laughing with sharp teeth and sharp lips, "Our ancestors tie the red thread for us. It's quite fashionable."
"Set your head." Ling Qingxue's ears turned red, but she couldn't help bending her lips. "It's a token of the Dao."
"It's all the same." Chu Xuan muttered in a low voice, his eyes brimming with the light characteristic of a young man. He took a deep breath, and his consciousness descended through the ice ring --
Boom!
An ancient bell rumbles in the ears, and a golden mantra emerges from the void, each word like a lotus, blooming in the sea of consciousness:
Heaven and earth serve as witnesses, the heart of the Tao as a bond, all phenomena converge into one, and they coexist in harmony. With blood as the guide and soul as the lock, unity is strong, separation is weak..."
Chu Xuanfu reached the heart, bit through the fingertip, and a drop of blood fell into the ice ring. The blood drop was instantly sucked in, the runes shone brightly, and a gentle force flowed upstream along the meridians, straight to the sea of consciousness. At the same time, the mark on Ling Qingxue's wrist burned, and her whole body trembled slightly, faintly hearing the young man's heartbeat - thump, thump, thump, in sync with her.
"Do you feel it?" Chu Xuan asked in a low voice.
"Um." Ling Qingxue lowered her eyes, her voice as soft as snowfall, "Your heartbeat is very noisy."
Though the words were disdainful, she did not cut off the resonance. Instead, she quietly let go of her guard, allowing that warm force to wander through her meridians. The corner, which had been frozen for years, was pried open bit by bit by the heat of the young man's blood, revealing the soft inside.
Chu Xuan grinned and was about to make a few more teasing remarks when suddenly the ice ring shook, and a blue light burst out of the ice wall and formed a palm-sized rune disc in mid-air. In the center of the disk, a line of small characters slowly emerged --
"Jade Jue reunites, the covenant of the Dao continues, a spell for you: Cold Star Shadow."
As the words faded away, two messages vanished into each of their brows. Chu Xuan felt a flash of light before his eyes and an extra image of a sword formation in his mind: with spiritual consciousness as the lead, ice is condensed into stars, reflecting the shadow of the enemy, and can instantly move behind the enemy and kill with one strike. Simple and brutal, yet extremely practical.
What Ling Qingxue got was another picture: the Cold Star as a shield, shining a shadow to protect the heart, which could defend the other side of the Dao contract against a fatal blow at the critical moment. She was stunned for a moment and subconsciously looked at Chu Xuan - the young man was closing his eyes to study the sword formation, his eyelashes still smeared with ice shavings, and his profile was sharpened by the cold light.
"Fool." She cursed softly, but reached out and brushed the ice shavings away, her fingertips resting on the young man's cheek for a moment, then quickly withdrew.
Chu Xuan opened his eyes, his eyes reflecting the shadow of the ice-blue sword, which was astonishingly bright: "Qingxue, this move is perfect for the Yin man! Next time Zhao Tianlei comes to stir up trouble, I'll just dodge behind him and strike him on the buttocks to guarantee that he --
"Be civilized." Ling Qingxue tapped him on the forehead but couldn't help curling her lips. "But it's okay."
They looked at each other and laughed, the blue light in the ice wall gradually dimmed, and the passage began to close. Chu Xuan slipped the ice ring into his sleeve and stepped out: "Let's go. If we don't go out, Su Meier will curse."
Ling Qingxue followed, but suddenly turned back at the exit and took one last look at the restored ice wall - where the runes of the ancestors once again vanished into darkness as if they had never awakened.
She said softly, "Ancestor, rest assured, this time we won't repeat the same mistakes."
Chu Xuan turned back and reached out his hand to her: "Of course, I am here."
Ling Qingxue held that hand, her palms touching each other. The ice ring and the mark of the Taoist covenant flashed simultaneously, as if responding to the young man's promise.
Outside the passage, the cold spring water sparkled, and the moonlight was just right.