One person: Starting with the Snow Drinking Blade

Chapter 445 The Road Down the Mountain

Chen Duo sat at the very edge of the fire, with Xiao Yun wrapped in a down jacket, lying on her lap, half her face buried in the crook of Chen Duo's arm, fast asleep. The little girl slept soundly, a glistening strand of drool hanging from the corner of her mouth, occasionally flashing in the firelight. Chen Duo looked down at her for a while, then pulled the thin blanket covering the child up a little more, making sure the edges were tucked in properly, before looking up again.

Zhang Chulan followed her gaze and glanced at Xiaoyun, his voice unconsciously dropping several octaves: "How long has she been asleep?"

"She went to sleep as soon as we got back from the ice wall," Chen Duo said. "She woke up once in the middle of the night and asked, 'Have the bad guys left?' I said they had, and she closed her eyes again."

Zhang Chulan stared at the bulging down jacket for a while, then remained silent.

The night wind rustled through the tent fabric with a low, rustling sound, like someone slowly turning the pages of a thick sheet of paper nearby. Occasionally, a spark would crackle and bounce up from the fire, tracing a short arc in the air before going out. The blue light emanating from the ice wall had stabilized; from the campsite, only a corner of it was visible, like a nightlight peeking through a crack in a half-open door.

Nie Lingfeng sat on a small folding stool between the campfire and the tent, a little further from the fire than the others. His Snow Drinking Blade rested across his lap, a thin layer of frost covering its scabbard, which he occasionally wiped away with the back of his hand, only to have it frost up again. Qu Tong's words were still swirling in his mind—"six months to a year," "the array's core will collapse," "it's not something that can be refilled indefinitely"—he dissected, organized, and stored these words one by one, like processing urgent information, memorizing them before fully digesting them.

"Master." Lu Linglong walked over with a half-empty cocoa cup, squatted down beside him, and lowered her voice, "Are you thinking about what Qu Tong said?"

"Um."

"...Is what she said true? Will the seal really loosen again?"

"Yes," Nie Lingfeng said, "but not immediately. We have time."

"What can you do with enough time?"

"That's enough for us to find another way." Nie Lingfeng shifted the knife on his lap, turned his head to look at Lu Linglong's face, which was covered in a bandage, and asked, "How did you get that injury on your face?"

"I was ambushed by someone with a short stick, and I didn't dodge properly." Lu Linglong raised her hand to touch the edge of the band-aid, her tone nonchalant. "It's not deep; it should scab over by tomorrow morning."

"A short stick? Do people from the Yaoxing Society use short sticks?"

"Yeah, a tall, skinny guy, really fast. I went toe-to-toe with him for seven or eight moves, and when he came at me with his stick, I was a fraction of a second too slow. Then Brother Qiu came over and took over, so I left."

"I'll take a look at that wound tomorrow during the day. Some residual Qi might cause problems if it's not cleaned properly." After saying this, Nie Lingfeng paused, looking towards the fire, and then suddenly continued, "Just now, in front of the ice wall, at the moment closest to the seal—did you sense anything?"

Lu Linglong squatted down, tilted her head, and thought for a moment: "There was a warm, steady feeling rising from the ground, entering through the soles of my feet, circling in my stomach, and then disappearing. I was dealing with the man with the short stick at the time and didn't have time to think about it in detail. Now that I recall it, that feeling didn't seem like hostility."

"That's the aura of Zhu Jiuyou. Its main soul is beneath the seal, but its secondary soul is within the Zhenwu Sword. The soul power on both sides has reconnected through the reinforced seal. You were standing close enough that the residual wave of its soul power swept over you."

"...Is it saying hello to me?"

"It might be sniffing you," Nie Lingfeng said. "It remembered your scent."

Lu Linglong paused for a moment, then looked down at the ice surface beneath her feet, illuminated by the campfire and moonlight yet enveloped in darkness. She let out a soft breath and didn't ask any further questions.

The campfire burned for over an hour before gradually weakening. Wang Zhenqiu added the last piece of firewood, dusted off his hands, and crawled into the tent. The others also got up one after another to pack their things, moving their backpacks and sleeping bags to dry spots and tying up their open food bags to prevent small animals from rummaging through them at night. Zhang Chulan curled up into his sleeping bag, only his head sticking out, and soon his steady breathing could be heard.

Nie Lingfeng was the last to leave the campfire. He placed the Snow Drinking Blade beside his backpack at the tent entrance and turned to walk towards the ice wall. After walking about forty steps, he stood just at the edge illuminated by the blue light of the seal; another half step forward and he would be enveloped by that blue light.

He stopped there.

Fine lines flowed across the sealed blue light's surface, lines that differed from those seen during the day, perhaps an effect of the combined moonlight and blue light. They resembled ripples on water, pushed by the wind, swirling in concentric circles in the same direction. Nothing could be seen in the darkness deep within the ice wall, but Nie Lingfeng knew it was there.

"Zhu Jiuyou," he spoke, his voice low and echoing across the empty ice, "I know you can hear me."

There was no immediate response from the depths of the ice wall. After about five or six breaths of silence, the deep hum that emanated from the interior of the mountain reappeared. It was gentler than before, no longer carrying the oppressive feeling of thunder or a heartbeat, but rather a low-frequency, continuous vibration, like a cello string that had been stretched for too long being gently plucked and then allowed to slowly decay.

"Your disciple," Zhu Jiuyou's voice rang out from inside his skull, this time less hoarse and suppressed than before, possessing a texture like water slowly flowing beneath ice, "the one standing closest. I saw her through the crack in her soul power when she approached the seal. She had a fresh wound on her face."

"Yeah. I got rubbed against by a short stick."

She didn't back down.

"She never backs down in battle."

A very short, almost laughing hum came from deep within the ice wall, then the sound subsided for a moment.

"What you just said," Zhu Jiuyou spoke again, the slowness in his voice becoming even more pronounced, "let me think about why I guard this mountain, and how much of my original intention remains. You are much more mature than you look."

"People who live long are good teachers," Nie Lingfeng said.

Zhu Jiuyou remained silent.

Nie Lingfeng waited for a while, but received no reply and did not urge him. He stood at the boundary between blue light and darkness, watching the flowing light membrane slowly and steadily rotate in his field of vision, like the rise and fall of the chest of a giant creature breathing with its eyes closed.

"Next time you come," Zhu Jiuyou's voice finally rang out again, a few decibels lower than before, but clear, "you can come closer. You don't have to stop at the edge."

Nie Lingfeng nodded, although he realized that the other party might not be able to see this action.

"good."

He turned and took a few steps back. The blue light deep within the ice wall behind him continued to flow, and the buzzing sound gradually receded and deepened, like a person slowing their breathing and sinking into deep water. By the time he returned to the tent, the sound had completely disappeared, leaving only the sound of the wind and the occasional crackling of the embers of the campfire.

He glanced back one last time before bending down to crawl into the tent. In the direction of the ice wall, the blue light shone quietly in the night, like an old lid that had just been tightened and was still adjusting to the new tension, slowly and carefully breathing in the air from the bottom of the mountain.

Before dawn the next day, Wang Zhenqiu woke up. A piece of the tent flap had collapsed under the weight of the snow that had fallen on it the night before, and the sound of snow slid down the slope pulled him from his light sleep. He sat up, opened the tent flap, and looked at the sky—most of the clouds had dispersed, and a narrow golden line was slowly climbing up the ridge on the east side of the mountain.

"Get up." He called to the others in the tent, his voice not loud, but loud enough for those who were awake to hear. "Pack your things before dawn, so the path down the mountain will be easier."

The packing process went faster than expected. The tent was disassembled, rolled into a tube, and tied to the bottom of the backpack. The compression bags of the sleeping bags were tampd down and the drawstrings tightened. The empty water bottles were gathered together and tied to the roof rack. Wang Ye re-checked the tightness of the blue cloth wrapping around the Zhenwu sword, making sure there wasn't a single crease that would scratch the surface of the scabbard before slinging it across his back. When he turned around, his steps were much steadyer than yesterday, and his complexion had regained some color.

Nie Lingfeng was the last to reach the car. He stood by the car door and glanced again at the ice wall—the morning light had diluted the blue light that sealed it, and in the golden light of the sunrise, it had shrunk into a small, clean, almost azure patch of light, clinging to the snow-covered rock wall, like a quiet gaze closing in.

He bent down, got into the car, and closed the door.

The two off-road vehicles returned along the same route. The bumps on the gravelly riverbed seemed gentler in the morning light than at night, and the soft crunching of tires over the frozen ground echoed and faded in the empty valley. No one spoke much inside; everyone was catching up on sleep. Zhang Chulan's head rested against the window, swaying slightly with the undulations of the road, his breathing even and deep. Lu Linglong sat beside him, peeling off a band-aid, examining it, and then putting it back on—the wound had closed, the edges a very light pink, showing no signs of redness or swelling.

Wang Ye sat in the second row by the window, the Zhenwu Sword lying horizontally on the seat between him and Zhang Lingyu. Its outline, wrapped in blue cloth, cast a long, thin shadow in the morning light. He occasionally glanced down at the sword, his gaze light, like someone who had just moved to a new house checking every now and then to make sure the potted plant on the windowsill was still in its place.

Nie Lingfeng drove the first car, sunlight slanting in from the upper left corner of the windshield, casting a small golden triangle on the dashboard. He lowered the visor slightly, moving the light away from his view, then glanced at the right rearview mirror—the ice wall was slowly being obscured by the curve of the valley, until only a thin, bluish-gray edge remained, merging into the silhouette of the distant mountains.

The road ahead leads down the mountain.

Behind it was the blue light that had closed up again and was breathing evenly.