When you turn someone else's dead end into your home ground,
what you offer is no longer a helping hand—
but the only scepter they are left capable of holding.
Murong Xueli arrived at Guest-Receiving Peak in the deepest stretch of the Tiger Hour.
There was no escort.
No retinue.
Not even the faint glow of protective light that usually accompanied sword flight.
She climbed all three thousand bluestone steps on foot.
Frostglory Sword rested across her back. Cold dew had formed along its scabbard, glinting under the moonlight like shards of broken ice. The hem of her ice-blue ceremonial robes was stained with mud and crushed grass, and a few silver strands had slipped loose from her carefully bound hair—an almost unthinkable sight for an elder of the Frost Palace, renowned throughout the North for her immaculate bearing and untouchable composure.
She did not care.
Steward Han Song had already been waiting outside Listening Snow Pavilion. When he saw her, something twisted painfully in his chest, as if an ice spike had pierced straight through his heart.
"Young Lady—"
"Uncle Han."
Murong Xueli's voice was colder than Frostglory leaving its sheath, sharper than the chill buried in the depths of the northern glaciers.
"Be direct. How many days does my father have left?"
Han Song swallowed. His voice came out rough, like a blade dragged across gravel.
"Three days ago, during the final secret inspection… the Patriarch's heart meridians were already thirty percent corroded by demonic energy. At this rate… seven days at most. After that, the heart meridians shatter completely, the soul collapses. Even an Immortal Descendant couldn't save him."
"Seven days."
She repeated it softly—so softly it was almost soundless, like snow touching the ground.
She stepped into Listening Snow Pavilion.
The pavilion was stark to the point of austerity: one table, four chairs, one stove, one kettle. Tea simmered gently atop the stove—Snow-Crest Emerald, her favorite. Steam filled the room with a warm, clean fragrance, misting into tiny droplets against the cold air. Yet the tea's warmth did nothing to dispel the frost settled between her brows.
"Kumu Daoist," she asked as she sat, "there's truly no hope from him?"
Han Song lowered his head. This old steward, who had served the Frostborne Family for forty-three years, now stooped like a man aged overnight.
"Elder Murong Feng seized all key materials. Yesterday, he sent word through his confidant—claiming the family is in turmoil and the treasury must undergo a 'full audit to prevent internal theft.' No resources can be mobilized for now. When I protested… he accused me of overstepping my authority and disrupting clan affairs."
He paused, then removed his outer robe.
Whip scars crisscrossed his back, flesh torn open, dark purple bruising laced with crystalline frost. The wounds pulsed with an unnatural chill—poisoned, and deliberately imbued with a yin-cold force designed to counter Frost cultivation techniques.
Murong Xueli tapped the sandalwood table once.
Just once.
The sound was light—like an ice bead striking jade.
Yet the temperature inside the pavilion plunged instantly. Frost spread across the teapot in a thick shell. The charcoal fire died with a dull hiss. Even the rising steam froze midair, crystallizing before falling softly to the floor.
"A thorough audit," she said, smiling.
There was no warmth in it. Only killing cold.
"So my dear uncle has decided my father should die in seclusion."
Han Song silently dressed again, swallowing humiliation and pain alike.
"There is… one other way," he said quietly.
He recounted everything—the mine demonstration, Jiang Muchen's proposal, the theory of guided resonance. He spoke carefully, precisely, omitting nothing and embellishing nothing. When he finished, he produced the white jade slip still warm from his body and raised it above his head with both hands.
Murong Xueli did not take it immediately.
She studied him for a long moment, her ice-blue eyes like bottomless frozen pools.
"Uncle Han," she asked at last, "how long have you followed my father?"
"Forty-three years and seven months," he answered, voice trembling. "I entered the household at eighteen. From servant… to steward… to this. The Patriarch's kindness to me is heavier than mountains."
"Then you understand," she said coldly, "what it means to gamble my father's life on a Qi Refinement disciple and an unproven theory. If it fails, not only does my father die—you and I become eternal sinners of the Frostborne Family, nailed to its pillar of shame forever."
"I understand," Han Song replied. His forehead pressed against the icy floor, yet his voice was unshakable.
"But I saw it with my own eyes. Eight Qi Refinement disciples dissolved a simulated heart-devil backlash through resonance. Jiang Muchen… though his cultivation is low, his understanding of spiritual fluctuation, inner demons, and tonal harmonization surpasses ordinary comprehension. He prepared three contingency plans—even the worst, darkest outcomes. Detailed enough to terrify an old man like me."
"Contingencies?"
Murong Xueli finally accepted the jade slip.
Her spiritual sense plunged inward.
Her expression shifted—from cold, to grave, to unmistakable shock. What surfaced at last was something far more complex: instinctive wariness colliding with disbelief at something beyond her worldview.
The contents were exhaustive. Precise calculations of spiritual expenditure. Step-by-step countermeasures for every deviation. Breathing rhythms, mental anchors, emotional stabilization techniques. And the final pages—
What to do if the caster dies from backlash.
How to evacuate the remaining seven safely.
How to lock the final fragment of life if the soul collapses.
When to retreat. When to fight to the death.
This was not a proposal.
It was a death warrant written with absolute calm.
"What does he want?" she asked quietly.
"One promise," Han Song answered. "Not now—someday. If a matter of life and death arises, he asks the Frostborne Family to stand with him once. Just once."
"And he said…" Han Song hesitated.
"He believes the Frostborne Family is worth long-term investment."
"Investment."
Murong Xueli tasted the word.
"How old is he?"
"Seventeen. Eighteen in three months."
"Seventeen…"
She looked toward the brightening horizon.
"When I was seventeen, I'd just broken through mid-Foundation Establishment. One sword froze the arena. I thought all things under heaven could be solved with a blade, all difficulties cut through with resolve."
She rose and went to the window.
Morning wind lifted her loosened silver hair. On that perpetually frozen, breathtaking face, a faint crack finally appeared—fatigue, anxiety, the tremor before a final gamble.
"Uncle Han."
"Yes."
"Go see him," she said without turning. "Take my Ice-Soul Token. Tell him—if he saves my father, the Frostborne Family becomes his firmest ally. Thirty thousand li of the North are open to him. And I, Murong Xueli… will owe him my life."
Han Song trembled violently.
"Young Lady! The Ice-Soul Token represents the highest authority of the direct bloodline—holding it is as if the Patriarch himself were present! It mobilizes thirty percent of the clan's resources. Once given, there is no retreat—"
"Go," she cut him off.
Her voice was ice.
Her resolve, harder still.
At the same moment—
the humble outer courtyard.
Jiang Muchen was feeding chickens.
Not spirit beasts. Ordinary speckled hens—three of them. Bought with contribution points from Blackwind Cavern tasks. Supposedly for nutrition. Yet he'd raised them half a month without killing a single one, feeding them rice and water every morning without fail.
Wang Duobao squatted beside the coop, face twisted like he'd swallowed poison.
"Brother Jiang, at a time like this you're feeding chickens?! Han Song could arrive any moment. Murong Xueli is a Golden Core monster—she froze three peak Foundation cultivators from Ghost Manor with one sword! Shouldn't we at least clean up? Set a proper tea table?"
"Prepare what?" Jiang Muchen scattered feed, smiling faintly.
"What needed preparing was done three days ago. What didn't—can't be fixed now."
"But that's Murong Xueli!" Wang Duobao hissed. "If she's offended—"
"She won't be," Jiang Muchen said calmly, eyes on the gate.
"When someone has no choice left, they don't care whether the hand offered is rough or smooth. Only whether it can pull them back."
Three steady knocks echoed.
Not hesitant.
Not probing.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
Jiang Muchen opened the door.
Han Song stood straight-backed. Beside him—a gaunt black-robed elder, eyes sharp as a hawk's, a black jade abacus at his waist. The beads clicked faintly of their own accord.
Shadow Elder.
Murong Xueli's personal guard.
"Daoist Jiang," Han Song bowed deeply. "My Lady invites you."
"I'll change," Jiang Muchen said calmly.
And so the pieces moved.
Quietly.
Irreversibly.
The tea had not yet been poured.
But the table—
had already been set.