Su Mei returned from the Underworld not as a conqueror, but as a catastrophe.
The Immortal Realm had known wars. It had known demon invasions, void storms, and the
collapse of stars. But it had never known the silence that Su Mei brought with her.
She did not return to her palace to weep. Tears were inefficient. Grief was a biological response
to loss, and she had transcended biology. Instead, she channeled the infinite, hollow void where
her husband used to be into the only outlet she had left: Ambition.
"The world is noisy," she declared from the apex of the North Star. "It requires order."
She launched a campaign that would be written about in the blood of gods for a million years.
She didn't use armies. She didn't use generals. She didn't trust anyone else to be efficient
enough.
She went alone.
Her first target was the Dragon Domain. The Dragon King, the one who had mocked Li Wei at
the banquet years ago—the one who had called him a "stain"—sat on his throne of gold and
bone.
When Su Mei arrived, she didn't announce her presence. She simply lowered the temperature
of the entire star system.
Suns turned into balls of ice. Planets stopped rotating, their cores frozen solid. The void
between stars filled with snow.
The Dragon King flew out to meet her, transforming into his true form—a galaxy-spanning beast
of golden scales and divine fire.
"You dare invade my domain, Ice Empress?" he roared, his voice shattering moons. "Where is
your pet human? Did he finally turn to dust?"
Su Mei stood in the vacuum of space. She looked tiny against the dragon's bulk. She wore her
white robes, now permanently armored with silver over her chest to hide the golden stain of Li
Wei's blood.
"He is gone," Su Mei said. Her voice traveled through the vacuum without sound, vibrating
directly in the Dragon King's soul. "And because he is gone, I have no reason to be patient."
She raised her hand. The Heartless Sword Sutra screamed in ecstasy. It had finally found a
wielder who held nothing back.
Art of the Frozen Heavens: Universal Stasis.
She didn't just freeze the Dragon King's body. She froze the concept of heat in his domain.
The Dragon King's fire sputtered and died. His golden scales turned gray. His roar was cut off
mid-breath. In the span of a single heartbeat, the most powerful entity in the Eastern Reach
became a sculpture.
Su Mei flew up to his frozen head. She landed on his snout.
"You called him a stain," she whispered to the frozen beast. "But he was the only thing keeping
me from freezing this entire universe. You should have thanked him."
She tapped her foot.
Crack.
The galaxy-sized dragon shattered. Trillions of tons of frozen meat and scale drifted into the
void.
Su Mei moved on.
She conquered the Phoenix Nests. She dismantled the Void Sects. She enslaved the Elemental In ten years, there were no more wars. There were no more arguments. There was only the
Frozen Heaven Empire, spanning the entire known multiverse.
Su Mei sat on the Throne of the Cosmos. It was a chair positioned at the very center of the
universe, where all ley lines intersected.
She was the absolute ruler. If she commanded the suns to dim, they dimmed. If she
commanded a species to die, they laid down and died.
She sat there, perfect and terrible.
"System," she said out of habit.
There was no answer. The blue screen was gone.
"Right," she murmured. "I am the Administrator now."
She summoned the System interface manually with her Qi. It appeared—a ghostly remnant of Li
Wei's legacy.
[User: Su Mei (Supreme Overlord)] [Current Objective: None.] [Support Points: 0.]
She looked at the "Shop." It was grayed out. There was nothing left to buy because she already
owned everything in reality.
"I have achieved the peak," she said to the empty throne room. "I have security. I have
resources. I have respect."
She waited for the satisfaction. She waited for the dopamine hit that used to come when she
sold a mirror for a good price in Cloud Sparrow City.
It didn't come.
Instead, she felt a terrifying boredom.
"Is this it?" she asked the void. "Is this the view from the top?"
She looked down at her hands. They were perfect. Not a callus, not a scar.
She suddenly longed for the feeling of dishwater. She longed for the smell of cheap soap. She
longed for the irritation of Li Wei snoring.
"Inefficient," she scolded herself. "Nostalgia is a loop. I must break the loop."
She waved her hand, and a new decree went out to the universe: Build me a statue.
Not of her.
"Build me a statue of a mortal man," she commanded her trembling subjects. "Wearing red
robes. Holding a wooden duck. Make it out of the cores of a thousand stars."
The universe obeyed. They didn't know who the man was. They didn't dare ask. They just built
it, terrified that if they got the nose wrong, the Empress would freeze their timeline.