The woman nodded silently and stepped closer. Snow still clung to her long silver fox-fur cloak, and she couldn't yet see the face of the person buried within the fur. But the pale hand exposed to the biting wind and snow was unexpectedly warm. Her expression suddenly changed—those fingernails were a bizarre shade of green!
This symptom… this symptom…
She quickly extended her hand, and with just a touch, her face went pale.
"This… this…" She drew in a sharp breath, her expression slowly transforming.
"Doctor, please check her!" Miao Feng saw the change in her eyes, sensing something terribly wrong. "I'm begging you!"
Seeing his frantic gaze, the woman was struck with a sudden fear. She instinctively took a step back, murmuring, "I can't save her."
"What?" Miao Feng froze, then jerked his head up. In an instant, his pleading eyes turned to fierce anger, and through gritted teeth, he spat out each word. "What did you say? How dare you refuse to save her?!"
No one saw how he drew his sword, but amidst the gasps of the onlookers, the sharp blade was already at her throat.
"Refuse to save her?" The woman looked at him, her eyes filled with pity. "Yes… she’s already dead. That's why I won't save her."
It was as if he had been struck. The once furious man suddenly went quiet, as if he didn’t understand her words. He stared at her blankly.
"She was poisoned by the Seven-Star Begonia. She's been dead for two hours now," the doctor said softly, gently placing the limp hand back into the fur. "You’ve been keeping her body warm by constantly transferring your internal energy to her, but…"
She couldn't bear to finish the sentence.
—In truth, she had already passed away while you were desperately running through the snowfields with her.
The sword slipped from his hand, stabbing into the ground with a sharp, grating sound, sending a shiver through the room. No one dared speak. Silence hung heavy.
Miao Feng wanted to look at the woman in his arms, but for some reason, fear gripped him. He didn’t dare lower his head.
"That’s nonsense!" He suddenly roared in fury. "Even Seven-Star Begonia wouldn’t act so fast! You're lying!"
"It's not the Seven-Star Begonia," the doctor said with deep sorrow in her eyes. She sighed and gestured to the woman’s neck. "Look at her Lianquan acupoint."
Miao Feng hesitated for a long time, his anger giving way to confusion. Finally, as though making a difficult decision, he laid the woman gently on the ground. With trembling hands, he began to untie the fur cloak. The snow falcon circled above, its black eyes fixed on her face, making restless sounds, its claws scraping anxiously.
As the fur cloak fell away, the woman’s face was finally revealed—pale, peaceful, as if she were simply asleep.
—But there, embedded directly in the center of her throat, was a golden needle!
In that moment, the falcon screeched sharply and took flight. Miao Feng could no longer hold himself up; he fell to his knees, covering his face with his hands, and let out a sob that echoed through the silent inn.
"Ah!" The other travelers gasped and instinctively stepped back.
Staring at the tiny dot of red, his entire body went cold.
"Why?" He lifted his trembling hands as if trying to grasp some sense of reality. "Why?"
While he had been desperately trying to save her life, why had she chosen to end it herself? Why?
"She was poisoned by Seven-Star Begonia, which would have left her mind in ruins after seven days. I think she didn’t want to meet such an end," the doctor said, sighing as she examined the wound. "She must have been a very proud woman."
"But don’t grieve too much—this needle struck the Lianquan acupoint with precision and depth. She wouldn’t have suffered much when she passed," the doctor continued, trying to offer some comfort. Yet, as she moved her gaze from the wound on the woman’s throat, her words halted. Suddenly, she lunged forward in a frenzy, brushing aside the woman’s long hair, closely inspecting her face.
"Oh heavens…" Miao Feng heard her gasp in shock, trembling with fear.
Instinctively, he looked up and saw the doctor staring wide-eyed at the woman in his arms, her face contorted in horror. Before he could ask what was wrong, the doctor collapsed to the floor, speechless.
The jade pendant she held rolled to his feet, engraved with the character "Liao."
In that instant, Miao Feng realized—the patterns on that pendant were the same as the ones carved into the Return to Heaven Order.
This woman named Liao… was none other than Liao Qingran, the former master of Medicine Valley!
By morning, a group of four had departed the inn, carrying a simple willow coffin on a cart.
In the green oasis of Uliyasutai, the willows swayed gently, the wind warm and soft, a stark contrast to the harshness of the snowfields.
Miao Feng walked through the green veil of willows, drawing the attention of many travelers, not only because of his striking blue hair but also because of the hauntingly beautiful music he played on his short flute.
The melody drifted into the lush greenery, deep and sorrowful.
When Liao Qingran awoke from her slumber in the carriage, she heard the mournful tune of Ge Sheng and couldn’t help but feel a deep sadness.
"Winter’s night, summer’s day. After a hundred years, one returns to their resting place."
She turned her head and saw her disciple, Xue Zi Ye, lying quietly in the fur, finally at peace. Xiao Ye, Xiao Ye… now you won’t have to wait a hundred years. You can soon reunite with him beneath the ice and snow.
Are you happy?
The sound of the flute was mournful, yet the one playing it showed no sorrow. With lowered eyes and a serene expression, he moved through the countless drooping willows, like a traveler on a spring journey, heading toward some distant horizon—no one recognized this man as the one who had wept bitterly over the body of a dead woman in the inn the night before. Never before had anyone witnessed a man cry like that, and the people at the inn had been left speechless.
Yet, the tears of that night seemed to have exhausted all the emotions he would ever feel in his life. After just one night, his demeanor had become calm. What kind of torment, what internal battle of ice and fire, had completely frozen over the emotions that had only just begun to emerge in his heart?
Listening to the melody with a blank stare, Liao Qingran felt, for the first time, that she was truly growing old.
After a long time, she gestured for her maid to lift the curtain of the carriage and asked the young man driving the cart, “Who are you?”
Miao Feng did not answer; he continued playing his flute, absorbed in the music.
“How did my disciple become poisoned? And why was she with you?” Liao Qingran asked weakly, propping herself up. She had left Medicine Valley eight years ago and had not seen her only disciple since. She never imagined that their reunion would come with her pupil already separated by death.
“Please, you must tell me,” Liao Qingran’s hand slowly tightened as she pressed for an answer, “Who killed my disciple?”
The flute's melody finally ceased. Miao Feng quietly asked, “Do you seek revenge, madam?”
“Was it someone from the Grand Light Palace?” Liao Qingran gritted her teeth, showing the handkerchief sent by Shuang Hong.
The handkerchief's ink stains were undeniable proof.
Miao Feng turned around, smiling faintly in the green shade of the willows. His white robes seemed dreamlike in the bright sunlight.
“Yes, Lady Xue was killed for attempting to assassinate the Holy Leader,” he said softly, his voice filled with such complex emotions that it sounded almost calm. “But in the end, she succeeded. So, madam, there is no need for thoughts of revenge. All grievances were settled before you arrived.”
“And I… I deeply regret that I could not save Lady Xue’s life.”
His voice quivered as the waves of uncontrollable sorrow surged up once more.
Liao Qingran sighed, murmuring, “There’s no need to blame yourself… you did everything you could.”
She would never forget how this man had carried a corpse through the snowfields, running desperately. She didn’t know the details of what had happened, but she was certain—this man could never have been the killer.
Liao Qingran turned to glance at the woman wrapped in fox fur inside the carriage. As the flute's melody continued, she buried her face in her hands, hiding the deep sorrow that could not be concealed. She... had been a terribly selfish and incompetent master.
Was the Seven-Star Begonia poison truly incurable?
No! As the former master of Medicine Valley, she knew there was one last way to neutralize the poison.
—But even if she had found them earlier, while Xiao Ye still had breath, would she have been willing to use that life-for-life method to save her beloved disciple?
No… no, she couldn't. Because she didn’t want to die.
She still had an infant son and a loving husband. She wanted to watch her child grow up, to grow old together with her husband. She wasn’t ready to die. So, she should be grateful that fate allowed her to meet them only after Xiao Ye had already passed, sparing her from having to make such a cruel choice.
The snow on the fox fur had slowly melted, the icy droplets falling onto her disciple’s pale face. Liao Qingran stared at the face of her pupil, dazed, and slowly reached out to wipe away the water from her cheeks—so cold, so quiet, just like when she had pulled that child from the frozen river all those years ago.
Suddenly, she felt as though her heart was pierced by a thousand arrows.
There were sobs inside the carriage, but outside, Miao Feng continued to play his flute. His gaze showed no signs of joy or sorrow, as tranquil as the surface of a spring lake. He calmly guided the horse, passing through the drooping willows of Uliyasutai, heading toward the barren plains of Kizil.
That place, where not long ago, a life-or-death battle had been fought.
That place, where she had fought side by side with him, huddled together for warmth in the freezing snow.
It was a warmth he had never known before in his life—and never would again.
In the darkness of the snowfield, he had unexpectedly felt the deepest warmth of his life, only to lose it forever. Like lightning tearing through the eternal blackness, it was but a brief moment, yet it allowed him to open his eyes for the first time to a new world.
After that fleeting glance, his sealed mind had been awakened. She had revived the boy named Yami, who had slumbered deep within him, turning him from a mere cold sword into a human once more.
But in the end, all of it was over…
What could not be forgotten would be buried in the wind and snow.
That day, the innkeeper at the eastern station of Uliyasutai saw the carriage slowly leave the city, passing through the rows of willows, disappearing into the snowfields of Kizil. The young man driving the cart played a strange, haunting melody on a short flute, his long, unusual blue hair flowing in the wind and snow.
His face was serene, radiating a faint glow, as though something had already been drained from his body, leaving him far beyond the concerns of this world.
That was the last image he left behind in the mortal realm.
No one could have imagined that the battle on the snowfields of Uliyasutai, where he faced the Seven Swords of the Sword Pavilion, would be the final chapter of his life—the mysterious Miao Feng of the Grand Light Palace’s Five Protectors vanished from the martial world from that day forward.
Just as he had existed in silence, so too did he disappear, as silently as a snowflake dissolving into the air.
0 Comments