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墨書 Inktalez
I crushed the last Star Sand as I performed the Spirit Illusion Technique, my Fingertip still lingering with the frost of the Xuan Bing key. The totem on the dome of the Immortal Pavilion trembled behind me with a mournful sound, and the sleeves embroidered with Apricot Grove sliced through the morning mist. As I stumbled into the Linghuan Fairy Realm medicinal spring, my cuffs were already soaked with a pale golden essence.
My mother waited beneath the Laurel tree, holding a shark silk lamp, its wick floating with silver threads that matched the color of my wedding gown. She reached out to touch my disheveled hair, but I turned my head away to evade her touch.
"Yao'er, the heart-protecting scales of Xuanjade Immortal Sovereign..."
"What do the heart-protecting scales matter compared to the Peach Blossom Calamity Seal on Wang Xuan Ice Coffin?" I clenched the crack in my Tongxin Pendant. The silver threads that had been wandering on the dome of the Immortal Pavilion suddenly fell like Shattered Snow. "Did you ever mention when you sent me out that the sacred objects of the Linghuan Fairy Realm would be branded on Xuanjie Immortal Lord's old scars?"
Suddenly, three feet of spiritual mist rose from the medicinal spring, extinguishing the shark silk lamp in my mother's hand. I looked at her embroidered shoes retreating into shadow and suddenly recalled how, on Wedding Eve, when she styled my hair, a silver strand had also snapped abruptly between the comb's teeth.
The bronze doors of the Linghuan Xian Pavilion slammed shut behind me, and twelve glass lamps sensed my presence, simultaneously bursting into a halo shaped like Apricot Grove. I tore off the necklace adorned with Xuan Shuang Pearl and hurled it against the wall. As the beads rolled into the cracks of jade tiles, they emitted a crisp sound reminiscent of when Xuanjade Wedding Night shattered the Heavenly Cup.
As twilight spilled over the carved windows, the Tongxin Pendant in my arms remained eerily silent. I curled up on an agarwood couch piled high with ancient texts, watching as moonlight cast a pale reflection of the Ice Soul sword gifted by Xuanjade. The dark spirit jade embedded in the hilt should have resonated with its master’s aura, yet it felt colder than the ice at the deepest part of the medicinal spring.
At midnight, ripples suddenly appeared in the sky-gazing mirror in the southwest corner. When Wang Xuan, wrapped in Xuan color shark silk, appeared in the mirror, my palm's Tongxin Pendant suddenly burned with an astonishing heat—the pendant around her neck was clearly made from fragments of heart-protecting scales from Xuanjade.
"Thank you, Immortal Sovereign, for nurturing this humble one's soul for three hundred years." The last note of Wang Xuan trembled like a spirit butterfly flapping its wings; behind her surged an aura of Xuan Shuang, which suddenly coalesced into a silhouette of Xuanjade.
In that image, as Xuanjade held her wrist, his posture mirrored that night when he pinned me down on our wedding bed. When shards from the shattered sky-gazing mirror cut through my palm, I realized I had bitten through a piece of Apricot Grove adornment on my lip.
As a drop of blood pearl fell onto the blade of my Ice Soul sword, scenes from our wedding day suddenly emerged—the flickering candles in our bridal chamber where Xuanjade, holding my chin, said "Did you really think you were here to be Immortal Sovereign's wife?" This moment echoed painfully with Wang Xuan's delicate laughter.
In a frenzy, I tore down all glass lamps but found only shattered sound transmission jade talismans amidst the chaos. When Yang Lin's voice mixed with howling winds and snow reached me, the metallic sweetness surging in my throat finally broke through its barrier.
"Ah Yao, are you crying? Over there at Xuanjie...?"
The rest of his words drowned in the luminous explosion of jade talismans. I looked at the golden spiritual flow leaking between my fingers and suddenly remembered those patterns pointing towards the forbidden area of the medicinal spring in morning light.
The essence used by Xuanjade to transform into Xuan Shuang, clearly came from a broken branch of laurel taken during my wedding. The scent of burnt apricot blossom wafted in from outside; as my bloodied fingertip touched the blade of my Ice Soul, a unique seal—an incantation—suddenly appeared on its hilt.
The trails of those incantations coincided perfectly with those on Wang Xuan Ice Coffin's Peach Blossom Calamity Seal. The fragments of glass reflected countless pieces of moonlight on my skirt as I curled up between cracks in jade tiles, allowing remnants of sound transmission talismans to pierce into my palm.
Yang Lin's voice mingled with wind and snow, now distant and now near—like that time three hundred years ago when we picked up ice soul pearls in the cedar forest; he held up a resonance lamp and asked if I had been caught by a snow demon and torn at my skirt's hem.
"A Yao? Xuanjie Barrier... what is happening..."
The metallic sweetness surged in my throat, suddenly breaking the seal. I quickly covered my mouth, but I saw Blood Pearl dripping through my fingers onto the intricate patterns of the Ice Soul Sword. The sword's hilt seal, Incantation, suddenly glowed, forming the bloodstains into the shape of a Transmission Talisman, wrapping my sobs and shooting towards the southwest.
"Don't come any closer!" I shouted futilely at the ground covered in Lingguang. The bloodied Apricot Grove Dian suddenly exploded, and twelve silver foils severed the silk threads around my waist.
As the Forbidden Step adorned with Xuan Shuang Pearl rolled into the Yao Quan, the water's surface reflected the fallen Yin Si among my disheveled hair— remnants of the Mandarin Duck Buckle that had been torn apart by Xuan Yu on our Wedding Night.
Han Feng burst through the window, wrapped in burnt Apricot Blossom Fragrance, and I stumbled towards the Ice Soul Sword, but the Sword Body suddenly rose with a Xuan Shuang Barrier.
The moment my Fingertip touched the frost, a familiar Crane Cry echoed from the Southwest Horizon. As Yang Lin crushed the snow on the Window Lattice with his Yang Lin's Cloud Pattern Boots, I was desperately trying to wipe off the solidified Blood Curse from the hilt with my skirt.
"They used a Soul Locking Spell to trap you?" He forcefully pulled away my right hand, which was clutching Jian Sui, revealing a wound on my palm cut by the Tongxin Pendant, from which golden-red intertwined Ling Blood seeped. "How dare Xuanjie plant a Heart Devouring Seal on the heir of the Linghuan Fairy Realm?"
I gazed at his swaying Ning Yin Lantern at his waist and suddenly remembered this artifact refined from a Snow Wolf Eye, gifted to me by my late father, Chen Shi.
As the lantern's shadow flickered, he bore traces of unmelting Frost Flower at his temples, overlapping and separating from my memories of that boy who loved to tuck an Ice Soul Pearl into my sleeve.
"Wang Xuan's Ice Coffin..." I barely spoke before being choked by blood foam in my throat. Suddenly, Yang Lin crushed the jade pendant at his waist, and a light blue mist of Ling Mist surged into my lungs along with cedar scent.
When his fingertip, stained with medicinal dew, brushed against my Glabella, shards of the outside world’s Kite Mirror emitted a buzzing sound.
In the mirror, Wang Xuan was caressing his neck where a Peach Blossom Pendant hung, while strands of hair formed by Xuan Shuang draped over Xuan Yu's shoulder.
I bit down hard on the piece of Xue Shen that Yang Lin offered me but tasted something more bitter than the Heavenly Wedding Wine. That night when Xuan Yu pressed me beneath the candle stand of dragons and phoenixes, it was just as piercing as this intoxicated essence of Xuan Shuang Qi.
"The technique of tracing shadows from the Linghuan Xian Pavilion. " Suddenly, he swiped his fingers across the surface of the mirror, causing it to rewind back to midnight. "Look at her wrist; that’s clearly a torture device used by Xuanjie to punish traitors."
I stared blankly at the silver ring that flickered on her wrist in the mirror; memories from three hundred years ago surged back.
At that time, my mother taught me to identify sacred artifacts of Xuanjie, pointing at an ancient text depicting a Soul Locking Bell, warning me: "This object entangles souls for three hundred years and will only fall off when its host's soul is completely extinguished."
The sound of snow crushing underfoot outside snapped me out of my daze; meanwhile, Yang Lin had set up a soundproof barrier with his lantern.
His gesture while pouring tea flowed as smoothly as it did back in our snowy abode; however, floating in the tea soup was no longer an Ice Soul Pearl, but rather a soul-quieting item—the legendary Nine Turn Golden Lotus.
"Chen Lu has been simmering for three hours." He pushed a celadon cup towards me under my blood-stained fingertip. "Now that you've seen the Soul Locking Bell , you should understand about that Ice Coffin ..."
I abruptly overturned the teacup; golden lotus petals shattered against the surface of the Ice Soul Sword , and within the rising mist appeared scenes from our wedding day.
When Xuan Yu forced down Heavenly Wedding Wine while gripping my chin, his collar revealed Xuan Ling Jade glowing with an aura identical to that of Soul Locking Bell .
It turned out that even then, a pearl falling from my hair had rolled into his secretive Lapels .
"A Lin" I suddenly grasped his sleeve embroidered with Cedar Pattern . "Take me to see Wang Xuan 's Ice Coffin ."
The Ning Yin Lantern on Yang Lin 's wrist began to shake violently; sparks from its wick splattered onto our intertwined hands.
He grasped my trembling fingertip; as he probed with his spiritual energy, it wrapped around my pulse and let out a wail—those meridians corroded by Xuan Shuang Qi were revealing incantations identical to those of Soul Locking Bell .
"Your Ling Tai has been tainted by Xuan Shuang ." He suddenly tore open my collar; startled by what he saw beneath my collarbone—the winding patterns of Yin Wen —he crushed his teacup in shock. "How dare Xuan Yu use you as a vessel for soul cultivation?"
The medicinal spring suddenly surged with spiritual waves three zhang high. I struggled to retrieve the submerged Ice Soul sword, but was pressed down onto the fragrant couch by Yang Lin's immobilization spell.
As he touched my Heart with his tea-stained Fingertip, the Tongxin Pendant in my arms emitted a sharp shriek, and the aura of Xuan Shuang seeping from the cracks in the jade pendant coalesced into a phantom of Xuanjade.
"Breaking the contract?" The cold laughter from the phantom shook the beams, causing dust to fall. "Do you think the Heart Devouring Seal is a child's plaything like the Vermilion Birthmark?"
In a fit of rage, I bit my Tip of the Tongue, spraying blood mist mixed with spiritual power onto the phantom's face. As the outline of Xuanjade dissipated in the pale green flames, Yang Lin's sound-concealing lamp illuminated the silver patterns spreading across my neck—those patterns mirrored exactly the Peach Blossom Calamity Seal on Wang Xuan's Ice Coffin.
"Tomorrow at Chen time Three Quarters, I will take you to the Xuanjie Forbidden Land." Yang Lin suddenly used a Cedar Branch to lift my scattered hair. "But you must answer me truthfully—" His lamp's shadow swept across the chaos around us. "These past days, you have deliberately nurtured the Ice Soul sword with your spiritual power; was it truly just to monitor Xuanjade?"
The howling wind and snow outside abruptly ceased. I stared at the gradually dimming Xuanling jade on the sword hilt and suddenly realized that half of a Peach Blossom Seal was hidden within those Incantations.
As the clock struck midnight with three crisp chimes, an uncontrollable drop of celestial tear fell onto the sword body, burning away to reveal clearly visible remnants of a Marriage Contract that had been erased three hundred years ago.
I hurriedly wiped away the celestial tear from my cheek, but the Ice Soul sword refracted the tear marks into a winding river of stars. Yang Lin's sound-concealing lamp hung between the beams, and the cedar patterns floating in its light slowly climbed up my Hemline, as if trying to bind this body soaked in Xuan Shuang.
"The Xuanling jade shares life with its host." Yang Lin suddenly brushed aside my loose hair at my neck with his Cedar Branch, and Frost Flowers that had crystallized on its tip fell softly onto my silver-patterned collarbone. "Every time you touch the sword hilt, it can sense your spiritual pulse trembling."
The surging spiritual mist from the medicinal spring suddenly formed a mirror, reflecting the scene where Xuanjade had held my Wrist during our wedding. At that time, his Palm and Xuan Shuang had seeped into my spiritual platform; I had thought it was merely the pain one endures while cultivating dual cultivation techniques.
Now upon closer inspection, it was clear that the frosty trails were tracing out the Curse Seal of the Soul-Binding Bell.
"I did not..." My Fingertip dug deeply into the carvings of the Agarwood Couch, wood shavings mixed with Blood Pearl rolling down. "I nurtured the Ice Soul sword to uncover hidden spies within Xuanjie; all three thousand disciples' soul lamps from Linghuan Fairy Realm are tied to..."
"Then why specifically choose this sword?" Yang Lin suddenly leaned closer, his sound-concealing lamp igniting two clusters of ghostly blue flames in his pupils. "Xuanjie sent eighteen wedding gifts, yet you chose to keep this murderous weapon that requires daily nourishment with your blood."
Outside, a snow owl let out a mournful cry as I stared blankly at the remnants of the Marriage Contract appearing on the sword hilt. During our Heavenly Marriage Ceremony three hundred years ago, Xuanjade had held my hand to carve out "together in bed," which was now twisting into a grotesque spell within my tear marks.
The medicinal spring suddenly erupted with three golden lotuses as a communication crane left by my mother pierced through barriers, its wings still sticky with unique ice crystals from Xuanjie. When its cry merged with the buzzing of shattered pieces of a celestial mirror, a red light suddenly burst forth from my wrist's mandarin duck clasp—this was a protective charm given to me by Xuanjade himself long ago.
"He is outside the celestial gate." Yang Lin suddenly crushed the communication crane; ice crystals melted in his Palm into a star map of Xuanjie. "He said he wants to return Linghuan Xian Pavilion's soul-stabilizing cauldron."
I stumbled and knocked over the Agarwood Couch, scattering ancient texts into disarrayed Hexagrams. When my Fingertip touched a copy of Xuanjie Secret Classic, memories from three hundred years ago in the library flooded back into my spiritual platform—on that day when Xuanjade came seeking ancient formation diagrams under moonlight, I hid behind a bookshelf watching his Xuan color robes sweep past and reveal his embroidered shoe tips.
"Let him roll!" I fiercely tore off the mandarin duck clasp; however, fragments of jade automatically reassembled into Xuan Shuang formation patterns. "You go tell that Immortal Sovereign that his white moonlight kept in Ice Coffin..."
A sudden spiciness surged in my throat from Heavenly Wedding Wine; I leaned against the Window Lattice and coughed violently, spitting out half a petal stained with golden patterns.
When Yang Lin's snow ginseng soup reached my lips, shards of celestial mirror suddenly reflected scenes outside—Xuanjade’s Xuan color cloak was covered in blizzards unseen for a century from Linghuan Fairy Realm, and kneeling beside him was Wang Xuan adorned with a Soul-Binding Bell around his neck.
"Are they staging a cruel act?" I crushed the peach blossom petal in my hand as its juice condensed into ice beads in my palm. "Please inform Yang Immortal Lord to relay to Xuanjade that tomorrow at Chen time I will personally sever our Marriage Contract."
Yang Lin's sound-concealing lamp dimmed for an instant.
He brushed past the chaos on the ground, his wide sleeves embroidered with patterns of cedar, and the shattered glass pieces began to automatically rearrange into a star map. When the Ice Soul sword sensed the humming emanating from the star map, the silver markings beneath my collarbone suddenly flowed toward my Heart, blooming into thorny peach blossoms on my skin.
"When the Heart Devouring Seal acts up, remember to bite down on this." He stuffed a piece of Thousand Year Cold Jade into my mouth, but its coldness could not freeze the tears rolling down my cheeks. "Do you truly... never have feelings for him?"
Suddenly, an image of our Wedding Night floated to the surface of the medicinal spring. When Xuanjade held my chin and poured Nuptial Wine down my throat, his thumb had brushed against the corner of my lips as if by accident. That warmth stood in stark contrast to the coldness of the jade now, and amidst the intense pain, I counted the frost crystals that had formed on his eyelashes.
"The one from Xuanjie..." I bit down on the cold jade, blood mixing with Ice Shard spilling from the corner of my lips. "What kind of true heart is worthy of him?"
A sudden chime from the Soul Locking Bell echoed outside, sending tremors through the beams and causing cracks to form. When Wang Xuan's desperate plea for mercy pierced through the barrier, the silver markings around my neck had spread to behind my ears, blooming into a bloodied peach blossom at my cheek.
Yang Lin suddenly covered me with a sound-concealing lamp, and within its warm yellow glow floated delicate snowflakes from Three Hundred Years Ago. That was the night we trespassed into forbidden grounds to dig for Ice Soul Pearls; when he brushed away snowflakes from my temples, his Fingertip had accidentally grazed my burning earlobe.
"If you can truly let go," he suddenly infused spiritual power into my spirit platform, "then bind your fate with me now." The Ice Soul sword suddenly soared into the air, and a drop of Xuan Shuang fell precisely between my fingers intertwined with Yang Lin's.
As Frost Flower crawled up toward my Heart along my blood vessels, the Tongxin Pendant in my arms suddenly let out a wail. The aura of Xuan Shuang sealed within the jade pendant coalesced into a small figure—my silhouette when I stealthily plucked Apricot Grove from Linghuan Xian Pavilion while Xuanjade hid behind a pillar.
The medicinal spring suddenly swirled into a vortex as my mother's remaining silk lamp floated up from the depths. When the silver thread of the wick wrapped around my bleeding Wrist, Yang Lin's Cedar Branch suddenly cracked—a half piece of Xuanjie’s Tiger Tally was hidden within its trunk.
The wind and snow outside abruptly ceased, and the lingering sound of the Soul Locking Bell solidified into blood-red seal script on the water's surface. I gazed at my reflection in which a Peach Blossom Seal adorned my Glabella and suddenly recalled something Xuanjade had said on a snowy night three hundred years ago: "The heir of Linghuan Fairy Realm is destined to be placed upon an altar." Yang Lin's Fingertip still held onto the bitter chill of snow ginseng, and the glow of the silk lamp cast trembling shadows beneath his eyelashes.
I looked at the remnants of Tongxin Pendant floating on the surface of the medicinal spring; those silver threads soaked in Xuan Shuang were twisting into shapes resembling Peach Blossom Branches. "The Soul Locking Bell binds karmic debts, not debts of love." I crushed the ice beads that had formed between my fingers and watched as shards of light leaked through the gaps in the carved window towards the wind and snow outside. "Three Hundred Years Ago, when I blocked his punishment from heavenly lightning for him, I settled that debt."
Yang Lin suddenly grasped my Wrist as I attempted to sever the silver markings on my Heart; tiny snowflakes floated in the glow of the sound-concealing lamp. It reminded me of our first encounter by Ice Lake during our youth when he held up a freshly hunted Snow Fox and asked if I had ever been hurt by sharp claws while behind me, my Palm dripped with blood from blocking an Icicle for him.
"The heir of Linghuan Fairy Realm has never been free." He suddenly released his grip; shadows swept across my hair tips stained white by Xuan Shuang. "But at least tonight, you can be Feng Yao."
The medicinal spring surged with pale golden ripples as my toes submerged in water touched something icy. When I fished out an Azure Jade Bottle wrapped in Xuanjie runes, pain shot through my Palm as its sealed Apricot Grove patterns burned against me—this was medicine thrown onto my dressing table by Xuanjade on our third wedding day.
"He certainly is willing to give you Xuan Shuang Marrow." Yang Lin sneered as he took hold of the medicine bottle; his Fingertip ignited with True Fire. "A healing treasure forged from three hundred years' worth of cultivation—Wang Xuan would probably hesitate to use it even for his Ice Coffin."
I stared at Jade Agate boiling in True Fire; tiny starlights floated within its icy blue liquid. This was a spiritual medicine nurtured by Xuanjade using his life source mystic jade; back when I was burned at Zhuxian Platform, he had pried open my clenched jaws to pour this down my throat.
The sound of the midnight hour echoed through the barrier as Yang Lin suddenly poured the refined elixir into the medicinal spring.
As the rising spiritual mist enveloped me with a bone-chilling cold, the silver patterns on my wrist began to move erratically, blooming into blood-red ice peach blossoms on my skin.
"Hang in there," Yang Lin said, forcing a Cedar Branch between my teeth. "The Xuan Shuang Marrow will awaken the sealed pain within you."
When the first wave hit, I felt as if I was transported back to that night when we shared the Heavenly Wine.
As Xuanjade pressed against the back of my neck, pouring down the Heavenly Wedding Wine, the essence of Xuan Shuang burned its way down my throat and into my spiritual core.
Now, millions of ice spikes pierced through my marrow, mingling with his cold laughter from years ago: "Do you think this mandarin duck clasp is worn for nothing?"
"Let go!" Yang Lin suddenly slapped my back, and the Cedar Branch had already been bitten into deep grooves.
I stared blankly at the blood froth floating on the surface of the water, realizing it sparkled with fragments of Xuanling Jade—my heart's blood from those years spent nurturing his life sword had long since merged into his Immortal Marrow.
The medicinal spring suddenly froze over, reflecting the Xuanjie totem that appeared between my brows.
Yang Lin's sound-concentrating lamp flared brightly, and from its wick floated a peace knot I had tied to the tassel of Xuanjade three hundred years ago.
As the golden thread wrapped around my disintegrating spiritual consciousness, a sharp sound from the southwest shattered the barrier—the Soul Locking Bell was breaking through.
"He’s using a Fate Artifact to clear a path," Yang Lin said, plunging me deeper into the medicinal spring. The spirit fish beneath the ice thrashed wildly against my ankles. "During the effect of Xuan Shuang Marrow, Immortal Sovereign can sense your..."
His unfinished words were drowned out by the swirling Xuan color silk that burst through the window—a gauze embroidered with Apricot Grove patterns, unmistakably the one Wang Xuan wore in broad daylight.
The moment the silk wrapped around my ankle, the Tongxin Pendant in my arms let out a piercing shriek, and memories sealed within the jade pendant flooded into my spiritual core like a torrent—
Three hundred years ago on a snowy night, while Xuanjade used Xuan Shuang energy to mend my damaged secret manual in the library, he had hidden a blood-stained Fingertip in his sleeve.
It turned out he hadn’t come seeking ancient texts that day; he was there to suppress the spiritual poison from my reckless cultivation of forbidden techniques known as Backlash.
Suddenly, all the spirit fish beneath the ice turned toward the east, their tails tracing out the trajectory of Beidou's seven stars.
I gazed at the gradually emerging Xuanjie star map at the bottom of the medicinal spring and suddenly understood that those silver patterns were not a Soul Locking Spell but rather a sacrificial array to reverse the Heart Devouring Seal.
"Yang Lin!" I struggled to surface but found that the medicinal spring had already transformed into an icy mirror.
In its reflection, Xuanjade's phantom knelt at the center of the array, shards of Xuanling Jade embedded in his palm, while on the other end of the array lay silver patterns connected to my heart's rhythm.
The sound of wind and snow abruptly ceased as I heard snow-laden Plum Branches snapping outside the celestial pavilion.
Yang Lin's sound-concentrating lamp hung above the ice layer; however, what floated in its light was not cedar patterns but rather that laurel tree from Xuanjie Forbidden Land stained with my heart's blood.
The icy mirror suddenly revealed cracks in Xuanjade’s life sword; silver threads entwined around it vibrated in sync with my mandarin duck clasp falling from my hair.
As the first rays of dawn pierced through intricately carved windows, fragments of a sky-gazing mirror on the eastern side of the medicinal spring suddenly pieced together into a complete surface—reflecting footprints formed by Xuan Shuang outside the celestial pavilion, winding their way toward Apricot Blossom Grove that I had planted with my own hands years ago.
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