strictlysupreme Chapter 13 Ice Servant
Chapter 13 Ice Servant
That night, at the Qingzhou post station.
The inn, located at the end of Xuanwu Street in the north of the city, was a place in Qingzhou City specifically used to receive envoys from various sects. Normally deserted, it was brightly lit tonight. Two rows of disciples from the Central Plains Immortal Sect, dressed in white, stood at the entrance, each exuding a profound aura; the lowest-ranking among them was at least at the Condensation Realm.
Ling Chen was led through the gate by a maid, passed through three courtyards, and went up to a separate small building.
The maid retreated at the top of the stairs, gesturing for him to go up on his own.
Ling Chen gripped the stair railing and climbed the stairs step by step. With each step, he could feel the chill in the air intensify. It wasn't ordinary cold air, but an icy aura carrying spiritual pressure, which had surrounded him from the moment he stepped into the inn, neither attacking nor retreating, like an invisible barrier.
He knew this was Su Qingyuan's territory. From the moment he stepped into the inn, he had entered her world.
At the end of the stairs was a spacious room. The walls were bare, with only a long table and two chairs. On the table sat a solitary lamp, its wick made of some kind of spiritual mineral, emitting a cool white light.
Su Qingyuan stood by the window with her back to him. Moonlight streamed in from the window, falling on her snow-white dress and outlining her figure like an unreal painting. She heard footsteps but did not turn around.
"sit."
Ling Chen sat down in the empty chair behind her. The Po Jun sword lay horizontally on his lap, his fingers lightly resting on the hilt.
The candlelight flickered gently between the two.
The silence lasted a long time. So long that Ling Chen almost thought she wasn't going to say anything.
Do you know what the "Myriad Paths Return to Ruins Diagram" is?
Su Qingyuan finally spoke, without any pleasantries or probing, getting straight to the point.
Ling Chen's heart tightened: "What is it?"
Su Qingyuan turned around and took out an ice crystal from her sleeve. The ice crystal floated above her palm, containing a very faint aura. She flicked the ice crystal gently, and it flew towards Ling Chen, stopping a foot in front of him.
The sealing energy within the ice crystal sensed something and suddenly emitted a faint resonant halo. The frequency of that halo was exactly the same as the tremor of the Myriad Dao Returning to Nothingness Diagram in Ling Chen's dantian.
"I sensed the power you used to shatter Meng Hu's demonic energy today. The properties of that power are exactly the same as the aura within this ice crystal."
Su Qingyuan leaned forward slightly, her icy blue eyes appearing exceptionally deep in the candlelight.
"My ice-type celestial spiritual root never misjudges spiritual energy attributes. Your swordsmanship contains a power—not among the five elements, not among rare attributes like wind, thunder, and ice. It is more ancient, more primordial, like the very moment when heaven and earth were first created..."
"Chaos," Ling Chen replied in a low voice.
Su Qingyuan nodded.
"Chaos. The primordial power of heaven and earth, the initial spiritual energy before the birth of all things. The only artifact in the entire Three Realms capable of bearing the power of chaos is the Myriad Paths Returning to Nothingness Diagram, personally crafted by the Celestial Venerable ten thousand years ago." Her tone remained calm, yet every word was as precise as a sword tip piercing a vital point. "This diagram perished along with the Celestial Venerable during the great war between gods and demons ten thousand years ago, and its whereabouts are unknown. The Immortal Sects of Central Continent searched for it for three thousand years, and only recently deduced that it might have reappeared in the Eastern Wilderness."
"So you came to Qingzhou to find it."
"Yes."
"Found it now." Ling Chen looked directly at her. "What's next? Pull the map out of my body?"
His fingers were already gripping the hilt of the knife. He knew he was no match for Su Qingyuan—the difference between a Nascent Soul cultivator and a Qi Gathering cultivator was so vast that even struggling seemed laughable. But if she really made a move, he wouldn't sit idly by and wait to die.
Su Qingyuan looked at his hand holding the knife, remained silent for a moment, and then shook her head.
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"If I were going to draw the diagram, I wouldn't have shielded you from the three elders' questions today. You shattered the demon seed with your Qi Gathering Realm cultivation; the source of such power couldn't have escaped everyone's notice. At least that sword cultivator elder from the Qingyun Sect has already become suspicious."
Ling Chen was stunned.
"So what do you want?"
Su Qingyuan stood up and walked to the window. The moonlight bathed her cool profile in a silvery glow, softening her aloofness.
"I have no idea."
"……have no idea?"
"I was ordered by my master to find the Myriad Paths Returning to the Void Map. My master said that this map concerns the survival of the Three Realms and must be brought back to the Central Continent Immortal Sect for safekeeping. But she didn't say what should be done with the person who carries this map." A rare hint of genuine confusion appeared in Su Qingyuan's voice. "I thought I would be ruthless. It's just a divine artifact; I could just take it out and bring it back—it would all be simple. Until today, when I saw the demonic patterns appear on Meng Hu's body—the Demon Clan is also looking for the Myriad Paths Returning to the Void Map. They have even infiltrated Qingzhou and the sect selection arena. This means that the ancient seal is loosening. If the Demon Clan really makes a comeback, the Myriad Paths Returning to the Void Map is their only hope."
She turned around.
"But I'm not sure whether this divine artifact should be taken back to the Immortal Sect for safekeeping, or whether it should remain with you. You fought against the demonized peak Qi Gathering cultivator while you were only at the early stage of Qi Gathering. There was no fear in your eyes, only something I can't understand."
"Firm," she said.
Ling Chen was momentarily speechless. He had imagined many scenarios of confronting Su Qingyuan—being forced to hand over the treasure map, being killed on the spot, or even having his soul extracted and the map stolen. But he never expected her to be so candid, to lay out her confusion so openly on the table.
"...So what do you want to ask me?" he asked.
Su Qingyuan looked at him and said, word by word, "I want to ask you who you are. Not just Ling Chen, the young master of the Ling family. From the moment you gripped the knife, the you I saw was completely different from the sixteen-year-old boy you appear to be."
Ling Chen was deeply shaken.
The Myriad Dao Returning to Nothingness Diagram within his dantian was burning hot like a branding iron, its pulse quickening. It seemed to be responding to something, or perhaps awakening something.
Mo Lao's voice echoed in my mind, more solemn than ever before, each word like a muffled thud as a seal was broken.
Tell her.
"Old Mo?"
"This little girl possesses an ice-type celestial spiritual root, but her ice-type spiritual power is not ordinary ice-type—didn't you sense it? The ice crystals she forms when she draws her sword don't contain spiritual energy, but divinity. Deep within her soul lies a mark left from a past life; I am absolutely certain of it. That is the reincarnation mark of an ice servant under the Heavenly Venerable. She is not your enemy. Never has been."
Ling Chen was terrified.
Ice Servant. Under the Heavenly Venerable's command. Mark of reincarnation.
He gazed at the icy, white-clad woman before him, every moment since their first encounter flashing through his mind—that glance in the Dao Discussion Square, where she hadn't seen him before, yet felt an instinctive sense of familiarity. That brush past each other at the Spirit Herb Market, where the ice-type spiritual energy within her resonated uncontrollably with him. On the arena, she shielded him from the probing and investigation of three elders, a reason she herself might not fully understand.
Everything now has an explanation.
She was an Ice Servant, a servant under the Heavenly Venerable ten thousand years ago. He was the reincarnation of the Heavenly Venerable. They should have been master and servant, comrades-in-arms, and brothers-in-arms who would entrust their lives to each other. But in this life, far too long had passed, so long that she could not remember him at all, yet she still recognized him deep in her soul.
Ling Chen took a deep breath, loosened his grip on the knife one by one, and laid the Po Jun knife horizontally on the table.
"sit."
This time it was his turn to invite her to sit down.
Su Qingyuan frowned slightly, but still sat down opposite them at the table. The candlelight flickered gently between them, casting their shadows on the wall, one on each side, each lost in their own thoughts.
Ling Chen began to speak. He recounted how he lost his father at the age of five, how he was bullied by the entire clan for five years due to his lack of spiritual roots, the broken jade slip beneath his father's memorial tablet, the ancient scroll in his dantian and the remnant soul of the old man Mo, the Myriad Dao Returning to the Void Diagram and the Myriad Dao Heavenly Venerable Technique, and the near-death experience of gathering qi to break through to the next realm. He told everything frankly.
Even Su Qingyuan, who had cultivated for seventeen years and prided herself on her composure, couldn't help but change her expression as she heard the later parts. Ten thousand years of reincarnation, the remnant soul of a Heavenly Venerable, the origin of chaos, the return of all paths to nothingness—any one of these words would be enough to shake the entire cultivation world. And at this moment, they all converged on the young man in the early stage of Qi Gathering before her.
"Do you believe it?" Ling Chen asked.
Su Qingyuan raised her hand: "Give me your hand."
Ling Chen hesitated for a moment, then reached out his hand. Su Qingyuan grasped his hand, and a surge of icy spiritual energy flowed from her palm into his body. The energy was cool but not piercing, traveling down his meridians, passing through numerous acupoints, and directly into his dantian. A vortex of chaotic spiritual energy slowly rotated within his dantian, with the Myriad Paths Returning to Nothingness Diagram floating above it. The second seal, which had cracked after being obtained from the Chaos Origin Pearl, emitted a faint glow.
The instant ice-type spiritual energy touched chaotic spiritual energy—
A miracle happened.
There was no repulsion, no resistance. The ice-type spiritual energy and the chaotic spiritual energy naturally merged together, like rivers flowing into the sea, like old friends reuniting. Her ice and his chaos intertwined and merged, forming a two-colored spiritual stream in the dantian, rotating slowly like a tai chi symbol. It was as if two halves of the same origin, split apart by time, had finally reunited after ten thousand years.
Su Qingyuan recoiled as if electrocuted. She didn't speak, but Ling Chen saw it—for the first time, an emotion he could understand appeared in those eyes that had been frozen for millennia. It wasn't pity, it wasn't charity, it wasn't a condescending bestowal. Rather, it was a confirmation of finally finding an old friend after traversing a long period of time.
"I can't remember." Her voice was slightly hoarse. "I can't remember anything. Every time I try to recall, I'm blocked by a thick wall of ice. My master said that I suffered a severe soul trauma in my past life, and my memories are frozen. But I recognize—the power in your dantian, I recognize ice-type spiritual power."
For the first time, Ling Chen saw the vulnerability that truly belonged to a seventeen-year-old girl in her. Not the aloof Holy Maiden of the Central Plains Immortal Sect, not the icy fairy whose peers dared not look directly at her—but a person who had been bound by the mark of her past life for seventeen years, living in a state between wakefulness and dreaming.
"Elder Mo, is there any way to help her unlock her memories of her past life?" Ling Chen asked through gritted teeth.
"Yes." Old Master Mo remained silent for a long time before finally uttering this word.
"What method?"
"After your cultivation breaks through to the Nascent Soul Realm, you will personally unseal her. But little girl, your memory seal is not an ordinary technique. It left a reverse mark—if the person attempting to unseal it lacks sufficient cultivation, not only will they fail to break it, but they will also be dragged into the seal, suffering severe damage to their soul." Old Mo's tone shifted, his voice piercing through Ling Chen's dantian and resonating directly in Su Qingyuan's consciousness, "You are the reincarnation of the Ice Servant?"
Su Qingyuan's body trembled slightly: "Who's speaking?"
"Who I am is unimportant. What matters is whether you want to break that seal. I must remind you first—the Ice Servant's final choice to freeze her memories in her past life wasn't due to anyone else's fault; it was her own choice. Breaking the seal means you will have to face everything that made her willingly give up her memories. Are you sure you're ready?"
"It's very painful," said Old Mo. "More painful than everything you've experienced in this life combined."
Su Qingyuan didn't hesitate: "No need to wait. Tell me now—what's in her memory?"
After a moment of silence, Master Mo slowly began to speak.
"Ten thousand years ago, the Celestial Venerable had three attendants: the Ice Attendant, the Flame Attendant, and the Sword Attendant. The Ice Attendant, named Han Li, was the youngest of the three. The Celestial Venerable treated her like a brother and a father, and she treated him like both master and kin. At the end of the war between gods and demons, after sealing the Chaos Demon Lord, the Celestial Venerable was exhausted and on the verge of his soul's annihilation. It was Han Li who used her own life essence to protect the last remnant of the Celestial Venerable's soul, sealing it within the Myriad Paths Returning to the Void Diagram and sending it to the lower realm for reincarnation. The frozen memories were the seal she left for herself while freezing the Celestial Venerable's remnant soul. She did not want to live with this pain in her next life, but she also did not want to forget. Therefore, she did not completely erase the memories, but rather froze them in the deepest part of her soul. One day, she will stand before the Celestial Venerable again and remember who she is."
"You are Han Li." Elder Mo's voice was heavy yet firm. "The young man standing before you is the one you have protected for ten thousand years."
The room remained quiet for a long time.
Su Qingyuan pushed back her chair and walked to the window. The moonlight enveloped her completely. She didn't speak, and Ling Chen couldn't see the expression on her face.
a long time.
"From today onwards, I will protect your secret." She had her back to him, her voice carrying a softness he had never heard before, "until you—become the person I used to know again."
"And you?" Ling Chen asked, "What happened to your seal?"
"No rush." Su Qingyuan turned around, the moonlight falling on her cool profile, a very faint smile on her lips. "He's back, so I'll naturally remember. When you do remember, give me back my complete past life."
Ling Chen bowed to her solemnly.
"I will certainly live up to your trust."
Su Qingyuan raised her hand and removed the invisible ice wall in the room, allowing the moonlight to pour in without obstruction, making the entire room as bright as day.
"Let's get down to business." She sat down again, regaining her usual cool and composed demeanor, but her tone was completely different from before. "The Demon Lord has already noticed your presence. Meng Hu was merely a pawn he planted with demonic seeds. The black light that killed him was at least a demonic fluctuation of general level or higher. This means that there are demonic generals lurking in Qingzhou City, and perhaps more than one. The fact that he was able to accurately silence everyone at the final election site indicates that he has spies within the three major sects or the City Lord's Mansion."
Ling Chen pondered, "But if he wanted to kill me, why didn't he do it himself?"
"Because the Myriad Paths Returning to the Void Diagram has a self-protection mechanism when it recognizes its master. If the reincarnation of the Demon Lord were to personally attack you, the ancient seal would instantly be released, releasing a wave of demonic energy that would spread for thousands of miles. At that time, the righteous forces in the Spirit Realm and the God Realm would be alerted, and his hiding plan would fail. Therefore, before the seal is completely released, he cannot act personally and can only use others to do his dirty work. Those assassins and Meng Hu are the ones who were used as tools."
Ling Chen felt a slight chill on his back.
"So he will continue to use others as pawns."
"Yes. Next time, it might not be a Qi Gathering Realm swordsman. But now that I'm back, I won't let you face it alone."
She took out an ice crystal from her bosom, different from the previous one—this one had no sealed aura inside, and was completely transparent like the purest ice essence. She placed the ice crystal in Ling Chen's palm.
"This is an Ice Soul Communication Talisman. Crush it, and I will be able to sense your location no matter where you are. In three days, your batch of new recruits will report to the Azure Cloud Sect. I will take Granny Fu back to Central State with me. There are some things I need to inform my master in person." She changed the subject, a faint hint of helplessness in her tone, "But I won't be by his side, and the Demon Lord may not wait for you to grow slowly. I need you to promise me three things."
"you say."
"First—before you reach the Void Realm, do not reveal your identity as the reincarnation of the Celestial Venerable to anyone. Whether it's the three major sects or the Central Continent Immortal Sect, people's hearts are more complicated than you imagine."
"Secondly—deep within the forbidden area of the Qingyun Sect lies a secret realm left behind by the Celestial Venerable ten thousand years ago, the only legacy he left in the mortal realm. You must enter it; only there can your cultivation achieve a qualitative leap. But the forbidden area is not a place you can enter at will; you must fight for the qualification to enter."
"Third—" She looked into Ling Chen's eyes, "Don't come looking for me until your cultivation is sufficient. There are countless experts in the Central Continent's immortal sects. If your identity is discovered, things will become unmanageable. I will try my best to stall my master's investigation, but I can't hold out for too long. You must hurry. Time is running out."
Ling Chen remained silent for a long time before replying, "Okay."
"Then—" Su Qingyuan stood up, reverting to her usual cold demeanor, "Young Master Ling, our conversation ends here tonight. Don't look back after you leave. There are too many eyes and ears inside and outside the inn. Although I have set up a soundproof barrier, it's better to be cautious."
Ling Chen stood up and walked to the door. He paused at the threshold without turning back.
"Han Li".
Su Qingyuan's body stiffened slightly.
"Although I don't remember my past life, this name—"
"I'm very familiar with it."
After saying that, he strode downstairs and disappeared into the night outside the inn.
Su Qingyuan stood alone in place. Her fingertips gently caressed the ice crystal in her palm. After a long while, she chuckled softly. That smile was like the first melting of snow, fleeting yet enough to make anyone who saw it forget to breathe.
"Your Majesty," she said softly, her voice carrying a sigh she had never had the chance to utter ten thousand years ago, "this time, I will not leave you alone again."
The moonlight outside the window is as clear as water. The grudges, destinies, and vows sealed away ten thousand years ago are quietly reviving in the dead of night in this ancient city of Qingzhou.
In a more distant place—beneath the abyss of the spirit world—on a pitch-black throne, a pair of dark red eyes suddenly opened.
The Chaos Demon Lord sensed it. The Ice Servant's aura reappeared in the Three Realms. The woman who stood in his way at the last step of devouring the remnant soul of the Heavenly Venerable ten thousand years ago had also returned.
"Interesting." The voice in the darkness was deep and rippling like molten lava from beneath the earth. "They're all back. Then let's bury them all together..."