The air had grown thinner, every breath slicing cold into their lungs. Snow fell without sound, and the sky above looked more like a frozen sea than a heaven. Each step Jian Wu took left a shallow print before the wind erased it again, as if the world refused to remember his presence.
Behind him, Mei Xue wrapped her arms tighter around herself. "Jian Wu… how far are we going?"
He didn't turn. "Until the whispers stop."
She frowned, glancing around. The land was silent, too silent. "There's nothing here except snow."
Jian Wu paused, then knelt. Beneath the layer of frost, a faint pulse shimmered, blue and alive, like veins beneath translucent skin. He pressed his palm against it. The cold bit deep, but he didn't move his hand away.
"Not snow," he whispered. "This place is breathing."
The pulse flickered, and Mei Xue took a step back. "Breathing? Jian Wu, that's impossible.."
Before she could finish, a low hum rolled through the air. It wasn't a sound made by the wind, but by something deeper, older, like the earth itself was remembering a name it had long forgotten.
Jian Wu froze. The sound… wasn't just outside. It was inside his head.
"Return… to where you began…"
He flinched, clutching his temples. His vision blurred the snow, the mist, Mei Xue , all smeared into a storm of light. For an instant, he saw a child standing on this same frozen plain, barefoot, staring at a black sun. The child turned toward him.
It was his face.
Then the image shattered. Jian Wu gasped, stumbling backward. Mei Xue caught him before he fell.
"Hey! Jian Wu, look at me!" Her fingers gripped his shoulder tight. "What did you see?"
He blinked, his voice hoarse. "Myself. But… not me."
Mei Xue's eyes darted across the frozen expanse. "We should leave. Whatever this place is.."
"No." Jian Wu stood, brushing off her hands gently. His gaze fixed on the ice beneath them. "There's something here that wants me to remember."
She hesitated. "And what if remembering kills you?"
He smiled faintly, though his eyes were tired. "Then at least I'll know who I died as."
Without waiting for her reply, he lifted his palm again and sent a thin current of black-and white qi downward. The ice trembled. A hairline crack spread outward in a perfect circle, humming like a tuning fork.
Then the ground gave way.
They fell only a few feet before landing on solid crystal. The cavern beneath was vast, walls of glassy ice reflecting a dim, ghostly blue. Streams of light drifted through the air like snow suspended in time.
And in the center of the cavern… lay a body.
Frozen perfectly beneath the ice, the face visible through the clear surface. Mei Xue's breath caught in her throat.
"Jian Wu…"
He stepped closer. His reflection met him, the same face, the same calm expression, only colder. It was like looking at his own corpse from another lifetime.
The whispers returned, faint and rhythmic.
"Heir of the Primal Law…
You have walked your own grave."
Jian Wu pressed his hand to the ice. The chill burned through his skin. "Who buried me here?"
The answer came not in words, but in sensation, a wave of memories, not his own, crashing through his mind. Swords clashing under crimson skies. A temple collapsing in flame. A voice crying out his name as the world fell apart.
And beneath it all, the echo of his own voice, saying something he didn't remember ever saying:
"If I must die to rewrite fate, then so be it."
Mei Xue's voice pulled him back. "Jian Wu! Stop!"
He blinked, the ice beneath his hand was glowing, spiderweb cracks forming fast. The air shook. The frozen version of him beneath the ice opened its eyes.
They were not blue. Not white.
They were gold, blinding and endless.
The light exploded outward. Mei Xue was thrown back, sliding across the ground. Jian Wu staggered, shielding his eyes as the cavern filled with roaring light.
And then.. silence.
When the light faded, the ice was empty. The body was gone.
Only Jian Wu remained standing in the center, his palm still pressed to the melting surface, steam curling around him.
Mei Xue crawled toward him, trembling. "What happened? Where is it?"
He turned slowly to face her. His expression unreadable. "It's not gone."
"Then..?"
"It's inside me now."
His voice was calm, but beneath that calm lay something ancient, something that didn't belong to this world. The mist around them trembled as if recognizing the presence.
Far above, the wind began to howl again, carrying with it t
he faint echo of the same whisper, softer this time, almost reverent:
"The heir has awakened."